No, no and please do not! SANS10142-1 should also be read in conjunction. It is never good practice to mix AC and DC. Also your AC and DC does have different insulation levels on the cables. The “spirit” behind the clause in SANS is to avoid different insulation levels. So strictly speaking this would apply to Battery Cables (100V rated) and PV string cables (1500V rated).
So the way I read it is 5m, so length terms. Why am I reading this as such? Due to having talked to people on the committee that has been part of the development. I have requested clarification as well.
The first draft stated the following: “Where conduit is used for DC cables, it shall be metal conduit. Conduit shall be bonded at all junctions to ensure electrical continuity of the conduit. The metal conduit shall be bonded to earth at a suitable location.” It was then changed to state a limit. I was told the limit was set to 50m, so I am surprised that it now states 5. I think this might have been a drafting error in the document (note the document is rife with cross-references not being there and various other errors.
Note that everyone on the list here was on the drafting team. So they are aware of this, not sure how the final version came to be. If you have direct access to Carel Ballack please ask him as well. I think they were blindsided as well. This standard was planned for mid 2022, so how it came to be this year is strange.
Yes, this is very unfortunate and I find it strage that there was no fanfare!