Have your say on BS7671 Amendment 4, from 7-aug-2024, due 2026

Its on the IET forum now, Ive brought up the burgeoning content, much of which is not applicable to the vast majority of people, so I said why not concentrate on sections 1 to 6, which is the 'old' regs, then put Sections 7 and 8 to Guidance Notes, which can be updated every year or two, at a small cost, rather than update the full book every 2 years, and charging £90+ for it. The IET just cannot keep up with technology, PEN devices were in the market and being used before the IET mentioned them, I suspect there are lots more technologies that bypass the IET, then they have to do an update to catch up. If you have 7671, have a look at annex b82, around page 389. Does anyone really read all of that and understand it all? A lot of it is gibberish, and should be made much clearer.

Amendment 3 is essentially just a bug fix release that relates to circuit protection devices when used in circuits where there might be bidirectional current flow (think powering your house from a storage battery on your garage circuit):

Some of it seems to be IEC60364 cast into a UK context. I wonder if that's driving some of the updates?

For example, IEC 60364-4-43:2023 has been published (corresponding to section 430 of BS7671):

"Low-voltage electrical installations - Part 4-43: Protection for safety - Protection against overcurrent IEC 60364-4-43:2023 provides requirements for:

- protection of live conductors, PEN conductors, PEM conductors, and PEL conductors against the harmful effects caused by overcurrent;

- coordination of measures for protection against overcurrent. This fourth edition cancels and replaces the third edition published in 2008. This edition constitutes a technical revision. This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition: a) the standard has been restructured, see Table 1 (Correspondence between IEC 60364‑4‑43:2008 and this document) below; b) the measure "automatic disconnection of supply" has been designated as the preferred measure for protection against overcurrent; c) all measures except the measure "automatic disconnection of supply" have been transferred into new normative annexes to indicate that these measures are usable in certain applications and under certain restricted conditions only (see Annex A, Annex B and Annex E); d) a new clause "Terms and definitions" has been added; e) new requirements have been added for the protection of the neutral or mid-point conductor (with and without triplen harmonics)."

The only thing I can say is you don't want to have to buy IEC60364 as well - if you think £90 for a book is pricey you don't want to look at their prices. Just section 43 is CHF235 (about 210 quid).

Theo