The future of residential building electrical installations

Sparkingchip:

Network operators will stop providing customers with an earth terminal for new properties, they will all have to be TT with foundation earthing.

Why? I'm vaguely aware that in some foreign countries TT is the norm.

The standard maximum demand for domestic properties will be set at 45-amps with tariffs that enforce a penalty tariff if you exceed the agreed maximum demand for your home, so domestic main switches will have a built in trip to disconnect the installation if it looks like usage is going over the agreed level.

This sounds very depressing as 45A is probably insufficient for all but the best insulated all electric homes of a reasonable size. Is a 45A current limit with a penalty tariff symbolic of the failure of privatising electricity, or just another way for the utility companies to rip-off customers in a similar way to mobile phone companies imposing penality tariffs for users who exceed their data allowance?

The number of circuits installed in a domestic installation will be reduced from what people currently consider is required, back to a cooker circuit, a lighting circuit, a couple of socket circuits and a heat pump circuit, so around five circuits.

Why? What is stopping somebody from installing a larger consumer unit in the future?

With the reduced number of circuits it will become viable to install arc protection to all circuits along with double pole RCBOs.

Arc protection may well become the norm for new or replacement consumer unit installations.

The lighting circuit will be so well constructed with maintenance free LED lighting without any potential points of failure, so having more than one lighting circuit will be pointless, but there may be emergency lighting to most areas anyway in case of outages.

The future of lighting remains to be seen. Will ceiling rose junction boxes with loop-in wiring still be the norm? Will light fittings still be designed for bulbs with large unwieldy bayonet cap and Edison screw fittings or will smaller fittings or in-built LED bulbs be the norm? Will most lighting circuits be backed up by a UPS?

All homes with parking spaces will have EV charging points along with solar PV if external space is available and battery storage.

EV charging points will probably become commonplace. The Solar Export Guarantee also needs to be at an attractive rate to encourage future PV installations.

All homes will have the battery storage anyway to even out the demand.

What will the cost of this actually be and the lifespan of the batteries? Would it be better to have battery storage at substations rather than individual houses?

More homes will have renewable hot water systems, such as wet panels on their roofs.

I read somewhere about how so few houses in London have solar PV or hot water and the explanation was that a higher than average proportion of houses in London are private rented. It's well known that private rented houses are a hard sell for solar or even conventional energy saving measures. Unless legislation is passed where private rented houses have to have solar, or private renting falls into significant decline, then solar will probably remain confined to comfortably well off homeowners.

Sparkingchip:

Network operators will stop providing customers with an earth terminal for new properties, they will all have to be TT with foundation earthing.

Why? I'm vaguely aware that in some foreign countries TT is the norm.

The standard maximum demand for domestic properties will be set at 45-amps with tariffs that enforce a penalty tariff if you exceed the agreed maximum demand for your home, so domestic main switches will have a built in trip to disconnect the installation if it looks like usage is going over the agreed level.

This sounds very depressing as 45A is probably insufficient for all but the best insulated all electric homes of a reasonable size. Is a 45A current limit with a penalty tariff symbolic of the failure of privatising electricity, or just another way for the utility companies to rip-off customers in a similar way to mobile phone companies imposing penality tariffs for users who exceed their data allowance?

The number of circuits installed in a domestic installation will be reduced from what people currently consider is required, back to a cooker circuit, a lighting circuit, a couple of socket circuits and a heat pump circuit, so around five circuits.

Why? What is stopping somebody from installing a larger consumer unit in the future?

With the reduced number of circuits it will become viable to install arc protection to all circuits along with double pole RCBOs.

Arc protection may well become the norm for new or replacement consumer unit installations.

The lighting circuit will be so well constructed with maintenance free LED lighting without any potential points of failure, so having more than one lighting circuit will be pointless, but there may be emergency lighting to most areas anyway in case of outages.

The future of lighting remains to be seen. Will ceiling rose junction boxes with loop-in wiring still be the norm? Will light fittings still be designed for bulbs with large unwieldy bayonet cap and Edison screw fittings or will smaller fittings or in-built LED bulbs be the norm? Will most lighting circuits be backed up by a UPS?

All homes with parking spaces will have EV charging points along with solar PV if external space is available and battery storage.

EV charging points will probably become commonplace. The Solar Export Guarantee also needs to be at an attractive rate to encourage future PV installations.

All homes will have the battery storage anyway to even out the demand.

What will the cost of this actually be and the lifespan of the batteries? Would it be better to have battery storage at substations rather than individual houses?

More homes will have renewable hot water systems, such as wet panels on their roofs.

I read somewhere about how so few houses in London have solar PV or hot water and the explanation was that a higher than average proportion of houses in London are private rented. It's well known that private rented houses are a hard sell for solar or even conventional energy saving measures. Unless legislation is passed where private rented houses have to have solar, or private renting falls into significant decline, then solar will probably remain confined to comfortably well off homeowners.