Plug-in Solar supposedly going to be 'easier'?

Solar PV on outside of the building and a molded plug on the inside of the building fabric.  That's a nice little trick I think

Do they mean Ring Final Circuits as apposed to Ring Main Sockets?  

Sparkingchip said:

Meanwhile, over on Ebay.

What's not to like? That is very cheap and they seem to be doing a steady trade in different sizes. Not quite 'balcony' solar though.

As noted above, this is the art of the possible running ahead of the regs and so forth, Its not helped by existing systems of work, local authority and DNO registration and so forth  being more cumbersome and expensive than it needs to be, so it becomes worthwhile to not bother. 

I'm sure these will slowly  appearing in all sorts of odd places, and paper trails will not match what is installed. The truth is that many of these systems are such a saving that they will have paid for themselves long before they are 'discovered' to be non-compliant.
There are parallels - in the plumbing domain, all sorts of folk relocate toilets and move hot water cylinders, hopefully washing their hands in between, without observing the legal requirements to use approved parts or notify anyone, and much of electrics is very similar.

Mike.

That's a nice little trick I think 

Methods I have seen.. 

wire feed in through letter box or fan light window. (DNO have been seen to do this too for ' no drill'  temporary power while repairing street main )

Wire up middle of toilet overflow pipe and then onward out of top of cistern.
Or cut., feed though hole and use an 'economy cable jointing kit' ..

my experience suggests we should not  under estimate the ingenuity of folk who only half know what they are doing.

Mike.

mapj1 said:

Wire up middle of toilet overflow pipe and then onward out of top of cistern.

I'll have to remember that one ;-)

I've used the letterbox trick in the past to run ethernet to my parents house when they moved in next door and a broadband connection was going to take a while...

The units proposed are safe, in the fact that they need mains to work. So if you pull the plug you don't have live pins in your hand, and similarly if you have a mains outage, you cannot feed back into the mains to give some guy working on the circuit a shock. I am going to install one of these units, but have questions, particularly for the IET, as they may have had an input with government discussions. As a DIY person will be able to plug these in, there will have been no qualified person involved, so :- You will still need to fill out a G98 as you are connecting to the network. The present G98 needs qualification details from the Electrician installing it. Will this form be changed to allow an unqualified person to apply. 

Once you get the form at apply for a  DNO, will you be able to apply for export payment. Presently not allowed unless installed by a MCS certified Electrician, but of course it won't be. The rules say you can't export without these forms, but once plugged in, you will export on a nice day. My base load is only around 350w, and I fully expect to get 750w from my proposed set up. Can anyone in the know, let me know what the new proposals are going to be. Thanks

I get the impression that the government wants to sweep away the bureaucracy for balcony solar up to 800W. No forms to fill in, but no export payments either.

If the government consulted the IET, then balcony solar would never happen. The requirements would be so onerous that nobody would bother. So long as the kit comes with a 13A plug, it can sidestep the Wiring Regulations entirely.

Until there's legislation in the UK that specifies exactly which qualifications are required to carry out electrical installation work, then you don't need to put anything down on the G98 application form regarding qualifications. As for being paid for export, there's nothing that says an installation not carried out by an MCS accredited installer cannot receive Smart Export Guarantee scheme payments. The guidance from Ofgem regarding SEG payments simply states than an installation carried out by an MCS installer (or an installer with membership of a similar certification scheme) MUST receive SEG payments. Under SEG, the customer does not have to have an import account with the same electricity supplier that makes the SEG payment for export. Any supplier that insists on the customer having an import account to qualify for an export account is operating completely outside of the Smart Export Guarantee scheme. Octopus Energy already allows non-MCS certified installations to receive export payments, but the customer must also have their import account with Octopus Energy as well.

Thanks for this. So are you saying that as I am not a "qualified" electrician, but am a very competent DIY, and am FIET, so will hard wire my unit into a fused spur, install an bi directional RCBO, fully bond the roof frames etc,  that I can submit a G98 and perhaps put FIET in the qualifications part. Then that would be ok. Then apply to export.