Could be worth looking at PV Ultra cable by docaster cables.

Personally I would not recommend the invertor or a battery system in the loft space for several reason

Fire hazard

Weight

Heat in summer and cold in winter

Regular maintenance

If I had to choose a location for a battery fire I would say outside is best.

Ah, but you presumably don't live in the kind of terrace houses that are common around here. You can hardly put such a thing over the pavement.

Outside your front or back door is no good either as this will block your fire egress routes. 

Depends on which way the escape path goes relative to the position of the unit, spacing and whether alternatives routes are available. We don't particularly worry about a petrol filled "bomb" being left on the drive after all. It all depends on the particular situation in hand  - hence the advisability of regs saying what needs to be achieved rather than rigid rules that won't work in many specific situations.

   - Andy.

Terrace houses could pose some interesting debate.

Place in an existing outhouse or coal store or ouside toilet

Place at the end of garden in a brick pigen house

Maybe with some clever engineering put it in a chimney breast

I concur with your statement that terrace houses could pose some interesting debate for the installation of solar inverters and batteries. I think you have proposed some inventive and practical locations for them, such as an outhouse, a pigeon house, or a chimney breast. I also think that outdoor installation will always be better than the chance of the inverters and battery system catching fire inside the house. Most solar inverters can be installed outdoors, but they should be shielded from direct sunlight, rain, wind, dust, and corrosion. They should also have sufficient ventilation and heat dissipation, and be reachable for maintenance.

I shall take your remarks as being completely tongue in cheek. In England, the coal store will be rapidly depleted, so there will be no fire and a hearth could be removed to make way for an inverter or battery. Problem with the outhouses is that they may well be on the other side of the back yard - my grandparents' were.

More seriously, if you put a battery outside, might it not be stolen?

ETA: I am now wondering whether I missed a trick when I put distribution circuits through my coal store.

Sergio Fernandez said:

Terrace houses could pose some interesting debate.

Well, any housing really. We should not forget that existing housing is unlikely to meet current building standards ... including those for fire safety and resistance to the spread of fire.

Simply taking the cash to sling a battery system in the loft or one of the bedrooms just won't do really - especially with 'guilty knowledge' of how dangerous it can be due to the very rapid fire escalation with little warning. Compartmentation to habitable spaces is important, as is keeping the batteries away from means of escape.

Chris Pearson said:

More seriously, if you put a battery outside, might it not be stolen?

Back to terraced housing, the loft spaces of some terraced housing is "shared' and there's not always dividing walls to prevent the spread of fire between properties. Think also about weight of the batteries, and possibility of weakening floor/joists in a loft space.

Properly tested EESS batteries are not as dangerous as some of the e-scooter batteries that have been discussed recently, BUT if they do go up, they are much larger, and the fire will happen in much the same way ... so that really doesn't leave anywhere inside some terraced houses where it might be considered safe to put a battery, so that there's time for the occupants to escape, which is all-important. The same perhaps goes for smaller semi's etc to be honest.

Battery theft may well become a thing of the future due to there cost.  However they are normally quite heavy.

Good point about the communal loft space in some dwellings

not sure that re-purposing a fire place is so silly  -it is after all one of the few parts of a modern (post 1900) house designed to withstand a fire. The only problem is that round our way quite a few houses have gas boilers or wood burners fitted in them, or have been opened out into book cases or removed altogether etc.

I'm reminded of the problems of plastic water tanks falling through lofts when immersion heaters jam on, and falling hot batteries could become is a similar unexpected effect.

Mike.

I have reminded many a person that the joists in a lot of lofts boarded or not were designed just to hold up the ceiling below.  This is normally a fairly eveningly distrubuted weight load.  If you look in the loft of an average dwelling and see the water tank it sits on top, or it should sit on top of a fairly thick board 1inch thick or 22mm in new money.  But water systems don't catch fire so I would say wood board is still used and then over boarded with a cement based board. 

Indeed , and I remember the plumbers surprise when I sistered up some 2 *6 joists to the existing that were little more than glorified battens, and laid on gloss painted 18mm ply for the water tank to stand on. ('no one bothers with that..') But that is my own house, and there are a number of unusually engineered features. I imagine that batteries on Hardibacker or similar over ply would be OK. The problem is not really the well engineered examples, it is the ones with little or no thought at all.

M.

Indeed , and I remember the plumbers surprise when I sistered up some 2 *6 joists to the existing that were little more than glorified battens, and laid on gloss painted 18mm ply for the water tank to stand on. ('no one bothers with that..') But that is my own house, and there are a number of unusually engineered features. I imagine that batteries on Hardibacker or similar over ply would be OK. The problem is not really the well engineered examples, it is the ones with little or no thought at all.

M.