It is very difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, as someone once said. I will still take a punt, though.

The differences between domestic installations now and twenty years ago are not too great, even though it might seem that they are. Increased use of RCDs and the introduction of AFDDs together with a change from plastic enclosures might seem quite a lot, but essentially it is just the CU that has changed. I will take a guess and say that the biggest change will be the non-standard installations where residential buildings have solar cells introduced and supplement them with the use of battery storage. Bearing in mind the UN meeting this week and the talks on climate change, there may be a push for new build residential homes to be carbon neutral with all the problems advantages this brings. However I think this will be a political driving force rather than from consumer demand. I also think it will take the wiring regs a decade to catch up (unless they are smart and start planning for it at the next update).

Alasdair

Nearly every house that is standing now, will still be standing in 20 to 30 years as we do not seem to be building very many new ones (and of the new ones, many I see round here are destined to become modern slums, too small, too close, and almost  designed to encourage conflict between neighbours and to stress the occupants, I think many of these will need demolition first, sadly.) Many will still have the same decor, though some will have had the inadequate kitchen re-jigged 3 times in a futile attempt to make it bigger. Every piece of PVC cable in use now, that is not overloaded, will still be serviceable, and the majority  will still be in service, though hopefully some of the 1970s  unearthed lighting circuits will be getting rewired. Hopefully most fused neutral incomers will be gone, and hot wire fuse consumer units will be getting rarer. 

The other way to look at this is to look back - how much has changed in wiring practice since say 1980 or 1990 ? Some, but not that much, electricians probably do have a copy of the regs now, back then many would not have bothered, filament lamps give way to LED, but the the bayonet lamp holder is still going strong as the popular interface (and by 1990 we had CFL lamps already ). USB sockets may come and stay or come and go.

If anything as we have to use less energy, and it looks like  the next generation will rebel against consumerism generally ,  the rate of change may actually reduce.

I suspect the biggest changes won't be in power or lighting circuits - but control and signalling, communications and data. I'm sure my house already has a much greater length of cable for the various heating controls, data, TV co-ax, alarm system etc than it does for conventional mains power & lighting. I'm sure there'll be more communication/control for the power system too - EVSE and immersion heater controllers talking to the smart meter so that they draw current at the most economic times (whether by signal cable or wireless). I guess as gas is phased out we'll see more electrical heating too - probably a mix of resistive and heat pump.

   - Andy.

I expect to see more load-shedding technology. The "smart" meter in some fashion tells the EV charger, immersion + storage heaters etc to switch to a lower power mode when the wind stops blowing.

We've now got flat TVs in the middle of a wall rather than the obligatory double and co-ax in the corner to start with!


Well I'm glad I've been "tardy" with my house extension to relocate kitchen and provide bedroom/ensuite over the last decade or longer!


I intend to do a "French" so that every socket is a dedicated radial so that the controls/metering mentioned above can be readily accommodated (including E7 or equivalent), hard wire Cat 5e or 6 as a network everywhere, provision for an ELV system of back-up lighting, use of the combination plates of two double sockets and modules in every room wired back to a future UPS supply, power and comms at high level adjacent to windows etc etc. Obviously as it's mine, time and the associated minimal material cost isn't an issue...............


Regards


BOD

I think that some houses in the future will have TP&N supplies, depending on what they decide to do with cars and heating.

Are building electricians generally stubborn people resistant to change or, to a certain degree, prone to luddism? There has been plenty of opposition towards alternative ways of wiring ceiling lights and strong defence of the ceiling rose junction box with its loop-in wiring over on the other discussion, so how exactly will similar minded electricians fare when dealing with solar panels and smart home technologies?


There was a time, around 1990ish, when many car mechanics were quite stubborn when it came to technology. They were spanner on a nut types who held an intense dislike to anything electronic or digital as it was unfamiliar and over their heads. To use a plug-in fault code reader was anathema to their upbringing and even smacked of being a computer geek.


It's possible that the building electrician community may even split in two - one faction dealing with modern technologies and smart homes, and the other dealing with established and traditional technologies in houses with basic functionality.

• Network operators will stop providing customers with an earth terminal for new properties, they will all have to be TT with foundation earthing.

• The standard maximum demand for domestic properties will be set at 45-amps with tariffs that enforce a penalty tariff if you exceed the agreed maximum demand for your home, so domestic main switches will have a built in trip to disconnect the installation if it looks like usage is going over the agreed level.

• The number of circuits installed in a domestic installation will be reduced from what people currently consider is required, back to a cooker circuit, a lighting circuit, a couple of socket circuits and a heat pump circuit, so around five circuits.

• With the reduced number of circuits it will become viable to install arc protection to all circuits along with double pole RCBOs.

• The lighting circuit will be so well constructed with maintenance free LED lighting without any potential points of failure, so having more than one lighting circuit will be pointless, but there may be emergency lighting to most areas anyway in case of outages.

• All homes with parking spaces will have EV charging points along with solar PV if external space is available and battery storage.

• All homes will have the battery storage anyway to even out the demand.

• More homes will have renewable hot water systems, such as wet panels on their roofs.

Andy Betteridge

?    "There has been plenty of opposition towards alternative ways of wiring ceiling lights and strong defence of the ceiling rose junction box with its loop-in wiring over on the other discussion, so how exactly will similar minded electricians fare when dealing with solar panels and smart home technologies? "

Very well, thanks.


I think that this statement, likely being a reflection of attitude

Are building electricians generally stubborn people resistant to change or, to a certain degree, prone to luddism?

is perhaps a reason the OP stated in another thread

In my locality it's a bit tricky to find an electrician who is good when it comes to owner occupied houses where the owners want to add advanced features like smart lighting or home automation.

I expect the OP's phone number is  in several electrician's contacts as "PITA AVOID!"

Electrium describe a Wylex eight way consumer unit with surge, arc protection and double pole RCBOs as the ultimate consumer unit.


Eight ways is more than enough for most homes.


 Andy Betteridge.