Anker SOLIX Solarbank 4 Pro review: UK price, specs and installation

The Anker SOLIX Solarbank 4 E5000 Pro stores 5,024 Wh, takes up to 5,000 W from solar panels and supplies up to 2,500 W to your home. Anker's UK store sells it for £1,699, and it was in stock when we checked on 21 September 2026.

Anker launched it at the OXO Tower in London on 27 August, the same day plug-in solar became legal here, so plenty of people are searching for it as a plug-in kit. It isn't one. In Europe Anker sells the Solarbank range for balconies, and the 4 Pro ships set to 800 W for that market. Anker's UK listing says it has to be hardwired by an electrician. If you want a kit that goes into a socket, our certification tracker lists the ones that qualify. Anker doesn't have one on it.

What you get

One 50 kg box that goes on an outside wall. Solar panels feed it DC through four separate inputs (MPPTs), each good for 1,250 W. The battery stores that power, and a built-in inverter sends it to your consumer unit through a hardwired circuit. You can connect between four and 12 panels, which is more than most UK roofs have room for.

Anker rates the battery for 10,000 cycles. If 5 kWh isn't enough you can add up to five BP5000 packs of 5 kWh each, for 30 kWh in total.

There are two outputs. The main one supplies your house circuits at up to 2,500 W. The second, the off-grid port, keeps chosen circuits running in a power cut at up to 2,500 W and switches over in 10 ms, fast enough that Anker calls it a UPS. With the grid up that port can supply 2,990 W, 2,500 W from the battery plus 490 W from the grid. The 4 Pro can also charge from the grid at 2,500 W, which is what makes the tariff modes further down useful. Anker's full spec list is in the panel alongside.

Anker's spec table says “15 Years; 10 Years” under “Product Lifespan and Warranty”. We read that as a 10-year warranty on a battery designed to last 15. Check the warranty terms before you buy.

UK price and availability

It's £1,699 on Anker's UK store as of 10 October 2026, against a list price of £2,129. On 21 September Anker also sold it bundled with one BP5000 for £2,998 (list £3,728), and the BP5000 costs £1,299 on its own. Anker said orders usually leave within one to two working days and arrive three to seven working days after that.

None of that includes installation. Anker says a registered electrician has to fit it on a dedicated circuit, and it doesn't give a price for the work. What you pay depends on your consumer unit, how far the box sits from it and whether you want backup circuits wired in, so get a quote before you order. When we checked, Anker was including the Smart Meter Gen 2 free. You need it for the tariff modes, so check it's still in the box when you buy.

Can you plug the Solarbank 4 Pro into a socket?

No. There are three reasons, and any one of them would be enough.

• Anker says no. Its UK listing says that under current UK regulations the system has to be hardwired by a qualified electrician, and that plug-in installation isn't permitted.
• The law says no. The UK's legal definition of a plug-in solar device excludes anything with a battery, because a battery can charge from the grid. That rules out every storage product, whatever the brand. Our battery rules report quotes the wording.
• The register says no. Anker lists an ENA type test reference, ANKER/19908/V1, for the 2.5 kW model, and says it comes under G98. Both are correct, but the record isn't in the register's Plug-in Solar category, and only a Compliant record in that category counts as a plug-in kit.

That doesn't make it a bad product. It just gets installed the normal way: an electrician wires it in and tells your local network operator under G98, as they would for rooftop solar. Our G98 notification guide covers each operator. The 800 W setting it ships with is for European balcony use and has no legal meaning here.

Watch a UK install

eFIXX, a YouTube channel for electricians, installed one of the first UK units on its own circuit and filmed it. Anker supplied the unit. It's the clearest look we've found at what the job involves: one panel on each solar input because of the 60 V limit, four cable runs down from the roof, a clamp meter at the consumer unit and a Wi-Fi signal where the battery goes.

Tariff modes and the £770 savings claim

Most of the money a 5 kWh battery saves comes from your tariff. The 4 Pro has a time-of-use mode and a dynamic tariff mode, and Anker says it can read tariff data from Octopus and more than 870 other suppliers. It charges from the grid when power is cheap, keeps solar for the evening and runs the house from the battery when power is expensive. The smart meter tells it what the whole house is using, so it can supply that load from the battery rather than the grid. It also works with Home Assistant.

At the launch Anker claimed savings of up to £770 a year and payback in about 3.3 years, according to Tech Digest. That's £423.80 from solar and £346.02 from charging cheaply overnight on Octopus Go, on a £2,510 setup with no installation costs. It only works out like that if your tariff has a big gap between cheap and expensive hours, you cycle the battery most days and you can move some of your usage around. On a flat tariff with two panels you'd save a small part of it. We haven't measured it ourselves. Our savings calculator works out the solar side for your address, and your supplier can tell you the rest.

Don't compare it with the government's £70 to £110 a year figure. That's for an 800 W plug-in kit with no battery. The 4 Pro saves more, and costs a lot more to pay back.

Solarbank 4 Pro vs EcoFlow STREAM 5000

The EcoFlow STREAM 5000 is its real rival. It came out a few weeks earlier with the same 5 kWh of storage and 5,000 W of solar input, and in the UK it also needs a professional install.

At 10 October 2026's prices the two cost the same, and EcoFlow's puts out more power. On 21 September, though, EcoFlow's wasn't due to ship until late October, and Anker's was in stock. Both have four separate solar inputs, which helps if your panels face different ways or catch some shade. If you use Home Assistant, that may settle it in Anker's favour. Whichever you choose, get the installation quote first, because it can change which one works out cheaper. The full STREAM 5000 vs Solarbank 4 Pro comparison goes through them line by line, and our STREAM 5000 review and STREAM model guide cover EcoFlow's side.

Solarbank 4 Pro vs Solarbank 2 Pro

They share a name, and not much else. The Solarbank 2 Pro stored 2 kWh and took up to 800 W of panels, and Anker UK no longer lists it. The 4 Pro has two and a half times the storage, six times the solar input and three times the output, and you can add more batteries. If you're after something for two panels on a balcony, neither one plugs into a UK socket, because both have batteries. For a home battery with room for a lot of solar, the 4 Pro is the one to look at.

Who should buy the Solarbank 4 Pro?

• Homeowners on a time-of-use tariff with room for four or more panels who want storage they can add to later. This is who it's built for.
• People who want backup power to keep a fridge, router and a few essentials going in a power cut, as long as a backup circuit is wired in.
• Not renters or people in flats who can't get a hardwired installation. If you've got a balcony and a socket, a kit from the certification tracker is what the new rules were written for, and it costs about a third as much.

Where to buy

Anker sells the Solarbank 4 E5000 Pro on its UK store at £1,699. Anker SOLIX also has its own listing on Amazon UK. On 21 September Anker's store was cheaper, but Amazon prices change often, so check both before you order.