Do I have to tell my network operator about plug-in solar?

What G98 actually is

G98 is an Energy Networks Association engineering recommendation covering “the connection of Fully Type Tested Micro-generators (up to and including 16 A per phase)”. It is the route small domestic generation uses to reach the network: you tell the operator what you have connected, rather than applying for approval before you connect it.

It is not legislation. That distinction is the whole reason this page exists. SI 2026/848 made the product lawful to sell; the specification says what the product must be; but the number of devices a home may have sits in a document that the Energy Networks Association publishes and amends on its own timetable.

What the specification requires

Version 2 of the specification puts the notification duty on the product, not just on you. The label must carry:

• a “statement that notification to distribution network operator (DNO) about connection and disconnection is mandatory, including a link to instructions on how to do so”

and the accompanying information must give:

• “clear information on current registration and deregistration obligations with the Distribution Network Operator (DNO), including provision of a QR code directing consumers to the relevant guidance and registration process”

Note disconnection and deregistration. If you take the device down — moving house, replacing it, giving up on it — the specification treats telling the operator as part of the obligation, not a courtesy.

There is also a physical requirement that is easy to skip and worth doing: the instructions must tell you to “affix the label provided to the consumer unit in a clearly visible location”, and to fit a new one if the consumer unit is ever replaced or relocated. The point is that the next person to work on your electrics learns there is generation on the circuit.

How the notification works

In G98 Issue 2 (10 March 2025), the timing is set out at 8.3.1:

the Installer shall ensure that the DNO is advised of the intention to use the Micro-generator in parallel with the Distribution Network no later than 28 days (inclusive of the day of commissioning) after commissioning the Micro-generator

The notification is made by completing an installation document — Form B in Appendix 3. G98 defines the installer as “the person who is responsible for the installation of the Micro-generator(s)” and the customer as “a person who is the owner or occupier of premises that are connected to the Distribution Network”.

Why G98 decides how many devices you may have

The consultation asked the question directly: should the specification “limit the number of microinverters to one per household or one per household circuit?” Of 429 responses, 63% said one per household circuit and 21% said one per household.

The government sided with the majority, but conditionally:

the government has decided that the IPS should allow one plug-in solar device per individual power circuit protected by a circuit breaker at the consumer unit, subject to a corresponding amendment to G98. Until such an amendment is made, the current requirement in G98 limiting installations to one device per household will continue to apply.

So the specification’s label statement — one inverter of up to 800 VA per household circuit — describes the destination, not necessarily where things stand. The reasoning for allowing more than one was that “most UK dwellings have a minimum of two power circuits”.

The Type Test Register

G98 also carries the compliance list. The government response says products “will be listed on the Energy Networks Association (ENA) G98 Type Test Register”, and is explicit that registration alone is not the test:

only devices assessed and identified as compliant on the Type Test Register are considered to have demonstrated compliance with the relevant G98 requirements

If you are choosing a kit, that register is the check that a claim of compliance means something.

What we could not confirm

Stated plainly rather than papered over, because two of these change the answer.

Whether G98 has been amended. We could not obtain a copy of the current amendment. The version we read is Issue 2, dated 10 March 2025, which predates this work and does not itself state a per-household device count. Respondents to the consultation referred to “Engineering Recommendations G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1”, so a later amendment exists, but the Energy Networks Association publishes current versions through its engineering database rather than as an open file, and we could not reach it.

Where the one-per-household limit is actually written. We are relying on the government’s characterisation of what G98 currently requires. We have not read that requirement in G98 itself.

Provenance of the G98 text quoted above. The copy of Issue 2 we read was a third-party mirror rather than an Energy Networks Association file. The quotes are what that document says; we would rather cite the publisher’s own copy and will replace these once we can. We are flagging it because a page that tells you to check sources should be checkable itself.

If you have access to the current amendment, please tell us — this is the outstanding fact in the whole cluster.