So apparently… ‘compliant’ plug-in solar kits don’t have to include mounting equipment after all!
Up to now, I think most of us have been working on the assumption that a compliant UK plug-in solar system had to be sold as a complete kit, meaning panels, microinverter, cables and mounting equipment.
That assumption came from the wording in the Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification:
“A mounting system should be supplied as part of a complete plug-in solar kit depending on customer mounting requirements.”
It now looks like the phrase “depending on customer mounting requirements” may be doing much more work in that sentence than many of us probably realised.
This week, the ENA approved several plug-in solar configurations from Worldwide Solar Ltd that do not include any mounting equipment, and a couple of those are already being sold.
In the ENA submissions (like this example), these kits are clearly marked as “mounting system not included”, so this wasn’t an omission or something hidden in the paperwork. The supplier has been completely open about the fact that these configurations are being supplied without mounting equipment.
I’d always read the wording above as meaning mounting formed part of the complete kit, but these approvals suggest that may not be how the ENA is interpreting it in practice.
One possibility is that the ENA’s main concern is the electrical side of the kit, meaning the PV modules, microinverter, cabling and how the system connects to the household installation.
If that’s the case, mounting hardware may simply sit outside the part of the product they are actually assessing for compliance.
That would explain how a configuration can be approved without a mount being supplied, even though the interim product specification talks about a complete kit including mounting depending on customer requirements.
I haven’t seen the ENA spell that out explicitly, so that part is just my interpretation based on these approvals.
Either way, assuming the approvals aren’t an error, this seems like very good news.
It potentially means you can have a fully compliant plug-in solar setup without being locked into whatever mounting system the kit supplier bundles with it. That gives people much more flexibility for flat roofs, sheds, walls, ground mounting, or reusing suitable mounting hardware they already have.
For context: 94 of the 109 plug-in solar kits approved so far include mounting equipment. These 15 new Worldwide Solar Ltd approvals last week are the first to specifically exclude mounting.