Plug-in Solar and Your DNO: The 28-Day G98 Rule

Yes, you must tell them. No, you do not need their permission.

Notification to your distribution network operator is mandatory for plug-in solar — the product itself has to be permanently marked with a statement saying so, including a link to instructions. But it operates on a connect and notify basis: the device is installed and commissioned first and the notification follows within 28 days. It does not hold anything up, and the operator cannot refuse.

The part almost nobody knows: the same obligation runs in reverse. When the device is removed, the operator should be told that too.

Engineering Recommendation G98 covers the connection of fully type tested micro-generators in parallel with the public low voltage network. The words “fully type tested” are doing the work: the device has already been tested against the network’s requirements before it was ever sold, which is why the operator needs a record of it rather than an opportunity to assess it.

That is why the specification requires manufacturers to have devices type tested to G98 requirements and registered on the ENA Type Test Register, and to obtain confirmation that the device has been assessed and identified as compliant, before placing it on the market. The assessment happens once, to the product — not every time somebody plugs one in.

So there is no application, no waiting, and no decision to be appealed. Install it, commission it, then tell them.

Worth being precise, because this gets misattributed constantly — including, briefly, by us.

The Interim Product Specification (§8.2.3.1) requires the product to state that notification about connection and disconnection is mandatory, and requires the documentation to explain how. It sets no deadline at all — the word “days” does not appear anywhere in it.

The 28 days is a G98 requirement. Notification is made using the Installation Document at Form B, Appendix 3 of EREC G98, within 28 days of commissioning, and that is what the network operators themselves publish.

If you are citing this in writing — on a certificate, in a handover pack, in a letter to a managing agent — cite G98 for the clock and the specification only for the duty. Anyone who quotes the specification for the 28 days has not read it.

Your distribution network operator is not your electricity supplier. It is the company that owns and maintains the cables in your street, and it is determined by geography rather than by who you pay. If you do not know which one covers you, the Energy Networks Association publishes a postcode lookup.

Most operators provide an online form. In broad terms you will need the address and MPAN, your contact details, the manufacturer and model of the device, its declared output, and the commissioning date. Because compliant devices are on the ENA Connect Direct register, the device details can usually be picked from a list rather than typed.

It typically takes ten to fifteen minutes and gives you an instant acknowledgement. Keep that acknowledgement — it is the only evidence you have that the obligation was met, and it is the sort of thing a purchaser’s solicitor or a managing agent may eventually ask for.

The documentation supplied with the device must include a QR code directing you to the relevant guidance and registration process, so the easiest route is usually the one printed in the manual.

This is the genuinely overlooked half. The specification requires the product to be marked with a statement that notification about connection and disconnection is mandatory, and requires the documentation to set out current registration and deregistration obligations.

Plug-in solar is designed to be removable — the mounting must be reversible and non-permanent — so devices will be taken down and taken to new addresses far more often than rooftop systems ever are. Each of those moves is a disconnection at one address and a connection at another, and both are notifiable.

If you are handing a property over, or a tenant is leaving with a device they installed, that is the moment to deal with it. Nobody else will.

G98 applies to Great Britain only. Northern Ireland connects under G98/NI, and the interim product specification records in a footnote that its application to Northern Ireland is subject to further consideration.

If you are in Northern Ireland, treat everything on this page as indicative and check the current position with NIE Networks before relying on it.

The duty sits with the person installing and operating the device, which for plug-in solar is normally the householder — that is the whole design of the route. In a rented property it is the occupier, not the landlord, though a landlord granting permission would be sensible to make it a written condition.

For an electrician, this is a small thing worth offering. Most customers have no idea the obligation exists, it takes a quarter of an hour, and doing it on their behalf as part of the visit is the kind of detail that gets you recommended. If you are already recording a commissioning date, the 28-day clock runs from it.

The wider rules and limits are on the plug-in solar hub page.