Electrical Safety in Future Homes

As the UK transitions to net zero, heat pumps, solar panels, battery storage, electric vehicles and smart technologies are becoming part of everyday life.

But they all depend on one thing: a safe electrical installation.

As with the foundations beneath a house, a home’s electrical installation is largely invisible, but everything built upon it depends on it.

Many of the homes being asked to support new technologies were never designed with modern electrification in mind.

The UK has some of the oldest housing stock in Europe. In England alone, around one in three homes were built before 1945 and more than half were built before 1965.

Yet the condition and capacity of domestic wiring is not routinely assessed, meaning many homes may not be prepared for the technologies being installed within them.

Put simply, homes are being asked to support more electricity than they were designed for. 

The research highlights three important insights:

• Most households have no obvious way of knowing whether their home is electrically ready for new low-carbon technologies. More than half had never heard of an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) – a safety check for your home’s electrics which is similar to an MOT for your car or a gas safety check for your boiler.
• More than four in five households recognise the value of electrical safety checks, demonstrating strong public support for preventing problems before they occur.
• Seven in ten households said they would act if a trusted professional recommended an electrical safety check, highlighting the vital role of competent, qualified installers in helping households make safe decisions.