New standards BAN battery systems in Lofts - PAS 63100:2024 

Really balanced & informative - thank you! Wish I'd seen it earlier, or my installer had mentioned the new BSI PAS. Everything I'd read, including the battery specs themselves suggested performance, esp charging, is adversely impacted close to or below 0 . Room temp being optimal. I'd chosen a LiFEPO4 battery given their low risk of fire. Installer's tech team came last Thurs, under the stairs would be ideal - so I removed all the shelving yesterday ready for an install this week, only to now find out about the new guidance! With no garage, the only other options are to pause installation & either put it in the utility room that's being built on the side of the house over the summer or get a separate battery 'cupboard' built on the external wall.

I had three 3kwh Pylontech batteries installed in my loft, along with solar and Solis 3kw hybrid inverter. Each battery has internal battery management and along with the Solis, should stop the batteries being used past their operating parameters and thus shouldnt cause a fire. I understand that if the house catches fire the batteries could drop into the flames. But at the time I was more concerned that the inverter and electronics were mounted to a wooden board. I had my system installed by Solar Together, so local government approved supplier. Who subcontracts everything out and invariably some cowboys got in. The house is about 100 years old and the loft has good airflow. I have a large detached garage used mainly for storage

Good stuff Mark

As soon as i seen the batterys in phones going off and then EV's i said i will never install a battery system in a vulnerable place that could take a house out in the process. Good of you to be doing a video like this.. it needs to be made, cheers fella.

Thanks for the details you cover Mark. The document can be downloaded for free, as a retired customer I just made some company details up and it was downloaded, no need to put it in a basket. I can see where this is coming from, safety has to be paramount. I haven't checked the people who installed mine system and only picked it up on Joes eFix news the other day so, as a customer, this is a bit of a bolt out of the blue. I do see it leading to a bit of a lag for installers whilst the challengers are considered but fear some will, as you say, apply it as a guideline!

The battery storage system(s) should be in a separate building outdoor(s), away from the house, as lithium fire(s) ain't no joke.

If they don't do it already, I suspect house insurers will start to ask their customers whether EESS are installed in the building. If they are installed, I would be surprised if the insurer doesn't eventually require certification by installers to the effect that the installation complies with the requirements of BS7671 and, now, PAS63100. I would also expect installers' own insurance to require this too.

Thought about a lot they already linked smoke alarm in garage not attached to the house batteries in a server rack enclosed by glass door but still enclosed, heater insulated to keep humidity down and to keep batteries at a stable temp and a bathroom fan in the wall to outside controlled via humidity and the light switch so hopefully 🤞🏾 I’m all good 😊

By all means have PV systems. But I often wonder if in 10yrs time we will look back at all this home battery madness as a fashion trend that got out of hand trying to solve a failed Govt energy problem. The better and safer solution is for the Govt /energy companies to invest in commercial ESS facilities (not burden the home owner) and we all pay a small amount on the electricity bill towards that yet benefit at the appropriate time interval.

I was thinking over the weekend with my black hat on. You explained that these type of regulations are pushed through by manufacturers and other large companies, so ignoring lofts, is it possible that the companies behind the number of new mass battery installations are using the regulations to reduce the effective competition from home owners with battery installations. Generally in the energy industry a few large companies want to control everything so they have as much money as possible. And they really dont like people doing it themselves. I am planning to move my batteries to a large storage/garage in my garden, I want to make it safer and add more batteries. I can also then add individual battery monitoring rather than rely on the current Solis API for data

Hopefully the introduction of sodium batteries will inform the reversal of this standard. In the meantime i shall stick with fossil as I have no outbuildings nor space nor funds for such

Excellent content again, wonder if there is a business opportunity for external battery box

All my batteries have always been out side the dwelling I have been using batteries to run and help run my house for years I started with lead acid batteries and they can't be inside due to off gassing so have always kept batteries away form the house

So, basically in most cases it is not possible to fit storage batteries inside most homes ; definitely not under wooden staircases, which I have seen a few times. The logical place is in an underground pit in the garden, preferably with through ventilation provided.

I am not electrician myself however just spoken to my brother, he is. He also installs battery storage systems... I live in terraced house and just like that, my home is no longer eligible for battery storage, unless I add few grands on top of the cost of already expensive battery... This set of recommendations opens very, very large grey area... It is all it does.

I was waiting for your video on this! Interestingly even if it wasn't explicitly disallowed, the ventilation requirements alone would prevent installation within a loft as the soffit vents are more often than not within 1m from the upstairs windows. I liked your note about the safety of energy storage in general and the comparison with stored fuel - It's a very good point to make. When you have a heating oil (Kerosene) storage tank, there are many rules which greatly exceed the restrictions within this document: "Your tank must be situated 1.8m away from non-fire rated structures such as sheds and non-fire rated buildings as well as openings such as windows, doors and appliance flues. Your tank must also be 600mm away from non-fire-rated screening and 760mm away from non-fire-rated fences that are not part of your home’s boundary. Alternatively, you can install a fire protection barrier to comply with these regulations. To do this, the barrier must have a minimum 30-minute fire rating and there must be 300mm between the barrier and the oil tank." It makes me wonder if the rules will be tightened further in the future, in line with the oil storage regulations. Regarding the interlinked fire alarms, when we purchased a new-build about 6 years ago we asked them to install an interlinked alarm within the integral garage. We were told that they were not allowed to interlink an alarm within the garage to the alarms within the house. Were they telling porkies? It's also worth noting that (As far as I'm aware) heat detectors are recommended for garages due to dust, while this new guidance calls for both smoke and heat detection.

I was not a fan of fitting these indoors anyway and the crazy place people have fitted them litter the UK RU-vid sparky content creators. We see them in almost inaccessible cellars, others in lofts, main-entrance hallways and in one RU-vid case you can see an installation of 2 batteries and equipment in a tiny downstairs loo (you know the one) within the width of an electrician's thigh. Equally we have some batteries (eg GivEnergy) with very small operating temperature ranges that drive them towards indoor fitting only. I have even seen advice for those batteries to be enclosed in kingspan-type insulation to keep them warm enough to operate (gulp!). As always, these new rules, guidance and notes are written to protect the authors, regulators and associated trade bodies before we get down to consumers and installers. So we are left with unanswered questions such as - why are homes with 200m2+ floor areas outside of this document, only to reappear in the notes whilst throwing in something about a fire safety expert? What is defined in the 200m2 area anyway - is it ground floor only, or all space within the property; does it include integral garages or carports? I don't consider my home massive, albeit larger than the UK average but my downstairs area is 170m2. If I add the integral garages and carport it becomes ~230m2. If I add the upstairs I am over 400m2. This did give me space to mount a battery under the integral brick carport and within the safe location limitations of the new PAS 'rules' - but it looks like I compromise it by parking a regular car there. If larger homes can be struggling to meet the requirements then houses such as my first one (small 3-bed semi) would have no chance. My SolarEdge battery has a very generous temperature range but it should not be exposed to direct sunshine - we could see batteries only being fitted to 1 side of a street due to a combination of all these rules - even if you can find the minimum distance from windows, doors, vents, air bricks, waste-pipes etc or other service penetrations into a property. Staying within the bounds of this PAS is going to be very hard indeed for those of us in the UK - our houses are tiny compared with our peer countries. I'm not saying the new 'rules' are without merit (clearly they are) as mounting a battery in the hallway of new-breed of miniature 3-story townhouses that grace many housing developments is verging on madness. But the UK building regs for new houses are so out of date with respect to insulation and renewables as it is we will now add batteries as another thing that the few big-name builders will make no provision for. Now about those MC4 DC connectors that can be removed by a squeeze and pull...

Power Wall lithium battery storage systems MUST NEVER be installed inside a dwelling space. PERIOD. Forget all the BSI self serving verbiage. BTW the bottom line is that any Solar or Lithium is open season for every cowboy chancer out there. Hairdresser/roofer one day, get some vinyl sticky for the van sides and - bingo - your the instant family friendly Leccie. Thats the sad reality in UK. Call yourself a gas fitter and start trading and you can get a criminal prosecution round your neck. No such protection for Joe Public for electrical stuff (Pete the bellend plumber 'll fixit).

Guidance

Wonder how many electricians in the UK thought it would be a good idea to fit batteries inside lofts 🤣

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