The federal scheme, and your state's
How the solar rebate actually works.
It is a discount taken off the price before you pay it, not a cheque that arrives later. That one sentence is most of what people get wrong — and it is why a quote can look like it has no rebate in it when it already has.
The mechanism
Three steps, and you are only present for one of them
Certificates are created
when the system is installed
A grid-connected system earns small-scale technology certificates under the federal scheme. How many depends on where you live, how big the system is, and how many years are left in the scheme — which is why the answer is different for two identical roofs in two different towns.
You assign them to the installer
a form in the paperwork
Almost everybody does this, because the alternative is creating and selling the certificates yourself in a market you have no reason to be in. Signing them over is what lets the installer take their value off the price on the spot.
The price you are quoted is already lower
before you pay anything
That is the whole of it. There is no rebate to claim afterwards and nothing to wait for — which also means a quote that does not show the deduction as its own line is not necessarily hiding it. Ask, and it should be there.
The awkward part
Why there is no figure on this page
Every comparison site prints one. Here is what is wrong with all of them.
It depends on where you live
Australia is divided into four zones by postcode, and the same panels earn more certificates in one than in another. That table is published by the Clean Energy Regulator and it is the same one this site uses for its generation figures.
It depends on the size of the system
Certificates scale with the capacity installed, so a figure quoted for a 6.6 kW system tells you nothing useful about a 10 kW one — and the number of panels that fit on your roof is not something a web page knows.
It shrinks every January
The scheme counts the years left until it ends, and one of them disappears each year. So any amount written down today is smaller by the first of January and wrong by February — which is how a site ends up quietly over-promising for eleven months.
The authoritative source is Clean Energy Regulator — small-scale renewable energy scheme. If you want a number for your own address, the installer quoting you has to work it out anyway — so ask them to show it.
What to do about it
Three things to ask for on the quote
All three are ordinary questions, and a business that answers them without blinking is telling you something useful about itself.
- Show the certificate discount as its own line. Not so you can argue about it — so you can compare two quotes that may have taken different amounts off. Two prices that look the same can have very different systems behind them.
- Tell me the system size and the panel and inverter models. The discount follows the capacity, and the capacity follows what physically fits. This is also the line that makes two quotes comparable at all.
- Confirm what I am signing over. You are assigning the certificates to them; that is normal and it is what funds the discount. It should be said out loud rather than buried in the paperwork.
On top of the federal one
Your state may run its own
They change, they have their own eligibility, and an installer who works in your state deals with them weekly. What each state page does say is what a roof there is expected to generate — which is the figure nobody else will give you straight.