How To End The CEC’s Monopoly On Solar Approvals

For many years, the Clean Energy Council (CEC) has been the gatekeeper approving which solar products can connect to the grid in Australia. As an installer, I assure you many of my boots-on-the-roof colleagues are keen to remove that responsibility from the CEC. Strap in while I explain why.

Where To Begin?

The Clean Energy Regulator (not to be confused with the Clean Energy Council) is the statutory government agency that administers Australia’s STC incentive scheme, the solar rebate. This scheme makes solar power around 30% cheaper for you and me to install on our roof. Introduced by John Howard, it’s a quasi-carbon tax mainly escaping the attention of the regressives. Thankfully, Tony Abbott was too incompetent to abolish it.

The Clean Energy Council Was Charged With The Technicalities

The CEC is a not-for-profit company that, until recently, oversaw the design and installation qualifications of people who do the work on on solar power systems.

After a push from installers, the responsibility for handing out this qualification has now passed from the CEC to Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA).

Product Approval; A Big Part Of The CEC Business

While the CEC has lost the solar design and install accreditation part of its business, it still has the solar panel and inverter accreditation business.

Panels and inverters must be accredited by the CEC to get STCs paid. This equipment list has also become the default for your DNSP’s (your local electricity network)  approval, so without a listing, you can’t even get permission to connect to the grid.

And it’s a lucrative little business. Running a curious block pricing structure, manufacturers can get up to 10 inverters or 20 solar panels approved for $5500.

It might be good value for a panel maker who offers 20 models; however, for those offering inverters and especially stackable batteries, it’s ludicrous, considering it’s simply a desktop review of testing and certification supplied by the manufacturer.

For example, the SigenStore range recently introduced by Sigenergy consists of six different inverter heads, two sizes of battery modules, and six stack sizes. You might assume that’s 14 units to approve, but with 200 different combinations, I’ve been told that every option requires separate approval from the CEC at a cost of $120,000.

Delays Cost Us All Dearly

Manufacturers can easily absorb a once-off or five-yearly approval fee. What really damages their business and, in turn, our solar market is that manufacturers have told me it can take the CEC an entire year just to do a desktop review and approval. As consumers, we miss out when innovative products bypass us for easier-to-access markets.

My Experience With CEC Product Approvals

I will detail a litany of failures in a following article, but to cut a long story short, Energy Safe Victoria kicked off an ACCC recall of dangerous non-compliant inverters at the start of this year. The CEC had approved the product years prior, and when I sought an explanation of just how this slipped through, none was forthcoming.

It took the CEC a whole month to come up with a response. An untitled Word document with no letterhead, no author and no answers as to whether the manufacturer’s response to the recall was adequate or if the CEC had even bought a unit themselves to study.

I’ve addressed complaints to the CER previously and found them almost as slow to respond and only slightly more detailed in saying they couldn’t comment about the CEC’s internal processes, and that I should complain to the ACCC about it.

The CEC is answerable to the CER; they’re responsible for the integrity of the STC scheme, yet the CER seems disinterested in exactly how things are being run or policed.

Until now.

What Can You Do?

I’m told there’s a new broom running the CER now, and they want some input to explain exactly what the history is and how things can be improved when it comes to the approval of solar products. There’s broad support from both the Smart Energy Council and those on the ground in the solar industry to have product approval taken away from the CEC.

Please submit to the CER here and let them know if you think the CEC should keep their product approvals business and what your firsthand experience has been. The deadline is 5pm, August 11th, 2024.