Prepping for Solar - Installing Cable

[Sard]

Hi all,

I am in the final stages of my renovation and would like to consider having solar on my garage roof which is South/South West facing. The issue however is that my garage, whilst attached to my house, iron the other side to the CU and Mains Supply. Therefore I am wondering if I should preemptively install a cable of the suitable size through my floor joists, running from my CU to the garage and leave it unconnected.

Id really appreciate feedback on my suggestion and any thoughts on cable sizing. I am thinking of 6mm2 Twin and Earth, so extra margin of safety and allows any future upgrades or potential increases in invertor output to take place.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ericmark]

Rules keep changing, so a conduit OK, actually cables, not so cut and dried.

 

[Sard]

Rules keep changing, so a conduit OK, actually cables, not so cut and dried.

Sorry I didn't follow that at all

Are you saying its ok to run 6mm2 TE cable clipped to floor joists and underneath my floorboards to allow a future installation of Solar? Or that I need run it through a conduit?

 

[BS3036]

He's saying that he thinks that if you run a conduit of some kind it will allow you to pull though whatever turns out to be required when the time comes. If you can do that easily it might be a good idea.

 

[Sard]

He's saying that he thinks that if you run a conduit of some kind it will allow you to pull though whatever turns out to be required when the time comes. If you can do that easily it might be a good idea.

Ohhhh, thank you for clarifying. Unfortunately that would be a lot of work and I dont want to risk not being able to do it due to a bend somewhere.

 

[Diver Fred]

Both neighbours who have had solar installed in the last three years their installers used 10mm T&E for the interconnect cables. One has a Battery, one doesn't.

 

[BS3036]

Yeah, if your supply voltage is too high you risk the voltage drop down this cable causing the inverter to see too high a voltage and just shutting off. In my case our supply is almost always 250V, and at 253V at the inverter it's supposed to turn off. So I installed a really beefy cable.

 

[ericmark]

Once fitted, you will get notification if voltage out of range, but until that point you don't really know how often voltage will be out of range.