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Small scale renewable energy certificates

Solar Scams – a guide how to avoid them!

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With the rapid proliferation of solar in Australia has come many solar companies. How do you find a good solar installer? The vast majority of them try to do the right thing but there are some solar scams out there you need to be aware of. Here’s a guide to make sure you don’t get ripped off on your solar power installation!

Solar scams

The first thing to do if you’re interested in installing a solar system is check whether the company is accredited. 

The industry body for the designer, installer, and the actual products is the Clean Energy Council. Make sure your system is designed by a Clean Energy Council accredited designer. Double check that your installer is also CEC accredited. If you’re not sure, the CEC have a list of Approved Solar Retailers you can choose from. 

Solar Scams - Choose a CEC Accredited Installer
Solar Scams – Choose a CEC Accredited Installer (source: CEC)

Double check that your panels and the inverter are accredited and meet Australian standards. If they aren’t CEC accredited, you won’t get your rebates aka Small Scale Technology Certificates (STCs) – this rebate is generally around $2,000 for a 3kW system. Click here to read more about STCs from the Clean Energy Regulator or click here if you want to use their online STC calculator. 

How do I pick the right solar company to avoid solar scams?

Ask if the person designing your system is qualified to do so. According to Choice.com.au, this will shrink your retailer list by 90% and weed out all the designers who will do a poor quality job and leave you with an under-performing solar system. 

Avoid anyone with pushy sales tactics and avoid anyone that uses door-to-door sales as a sales technique. If they’re using language like ‘never pay a power bill again’ or trying to hurry you along by saying that the government rebates are about to end, avoid them again. 

For price, make sure you get 4 quotes at minimum. Watch out for dodgy T&Cs that allow suppliers to swap out for ‘equivalent’ models, upselling, surcharges, and so on. Don’t be afraid to stop a salesman from steamrolling over you. This is a big financial decision and you should do your due diligence before committing. 

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have a page about consumer rights for solar power that you should also check out (especially if you have a problem).

What information do I need on the quote?

  • A proper, printed out quotation showing the company’s name, address, and ABN.
  • A timetable of operation.
  • Model numbers, brands, and quantity for the panels, inverter, and battery (if applicable). 
  • An estimate of the system’s performance.
  • Product and installation warranty for the inverter.
  • Installation warranty, product warranty and performance warranty for the panels.
  • Any additional funds that may be payable. 
  • STCs should be included in the quote. This is a big one! Be wary because if you’re not careful some dodgy companies can just claim them without mentioning it to you.

If Saving With Solar can give you a hand to help pick the right solar company, please feel free to get in contact with us and we’d be happy to help. 

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Non-compliant solar panels from Euro Solar

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Australia’s biggest seller of solar panels, Euro Solar, have been identified by the Clean Energy Regulator for installing non-compliant solar panels and claiming STCs from them. To qualify for the STC system, the panels need to be approved and validated by the Clean Energy Council – and these hadn’t.

About the Non-Compliant Solar Panels

An investigation by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) found that Euro Solar claimed STCs (small-scale technology certificates) for 10 different rooftop PV solar installs despite using non-compliant panels. According to RenewEconomy, this was 1,058 STCs with a value of approximately $40,000. They’ve been asked to surrender the claimed STCs or replace the offending modules.

The next step, according to the CER website, is for P&N to validate serial numbers on solar modules for 78 installations within the next 12 months, and an additional 100 installations within 18 months. The relevant installations have already been flagged by the CER.

You can read more about the CER’s ‘current enforceable undertakings’ by clicking this link.

Clean Energy Regulator - Non-Compliant Solar Panels
Clean Energy Regulator goes after non-compliant solar panels (source: cleanenergyregulator.gov.au)

Euro Solar’s previous problems

A ‘winding-up’ order was issued to Euro Solar’s parent company, “P & N NSW Pty Ltd” back in June – which was dismissed by Euro Solar as a “miscommunication”, according to One Step Off The Grid. Euro Solar’s claims appeared to be substantiated and they also produced a notice for their website indicating that they “remain focussed and committed to provide our customers with a high level of service and at a cost-effective price.” A post about the situation has been deleted from Renew Economy’s website as well, so it appears this was an erroneously sent ‘winding-up order’.

This comes on the back of Euro Solar being fined $145,000 in 2014 for making false and misleading representations, namely that their Chinese made solar panels were Australian, and also for publishing fake video testimonials on Youtube and fake written testimonials on its website.

You can click here to view the press release from the Federal Court.

The fake testimonials and misleading representations about their solar panels were made online, in newspapers and on TV between November 2012 and September 2013. According to the court ruling, they were brought to the ACCC’s attention by competing businesses – for example Solar Choice published an article about the fine in January 2014 where they advised they wrote to a consumer advocate organisation about Euro Solar’s advertising.

It’s good to see the industry self-regulating like this, when misleading information can harm solar energy and the Australian solar power industry as a whole.  However, if something does happen to Euro Solar, what will become of warranties and repair? This goes to show it can be worth paying a few extra dollars to invest in quality panels from a reputable installer – the recent sharp drop in small scale renewable energy certificates has left a lot of installers who are on wafer thin margins out in the cold (or awfully close). Solar panels are a long term investment – make sure you do your due diligence before committing to a certain installer or brand!

 

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Small scale renewable energy certificates

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A sharp drop in the price of small scale renewable energy certificates (STCs) has led to a sudden and (for many) unexpected rise in the cost of household solar installations – which is estimated to be approximately 10%. This will have major ramifications for installers as well.

Small scale renewable energy certificates
Small scale renewable energy certificates price history (source: greenmarkets.com.au)

STC Prices – How and Why?

According to Greenmarkets.com.au, STCs trade on the wholesale market at minimum parcels of 5,000. As per the above image, their website shows the last 6 months of STC movement – it’s actually been stable for a couple of years before that as well. According to Tristan Edis via Renew Economy , this month the “supply of STCs is substantially outstripping power retailers’ obligations for this year as set by the Clean Energy Regulator”. Edis noted on Twitter this morning that he was incorrectly quoted in a section of that article – and that the Q4 forward prices for STCs are $30.50, not $37.85. This projects more pain to come for the industry (at their lowest on Wednesday the STCs were at $26). Edis said that this is as a result of the Clean Energy Regulator underestimating the amount of STCs that would come on the market this year – so they’ll need to account for that when setting 2018’s target in order to try and stabilise the cost and keep it around $40. The short term effect is a ~10% rise in the cost of installations, which will slow down installers and also could affect current install contracts they have.

Small scale renewable energy certificates – how will this affect the market?

The drop in STC price will have a significant effect on installers at the lower end of the market – many installs are quoted nett of STCs i.e. leaving the risk of STC price fluctuation in the hands of the installer.

The price of an STC refers to a rebate (per kW) of an installed solar system – calculating a drop from $40 to $32 means the price for a 5kW system will increase by around $600 (it varies from state to state). It’ll also mean any installers who have quoted nett of STC will be out of pocket by a similar amount – so any installers who have a lot of current installs on the books and a cash flow problem could find themselves in serious trouble over these drops.

It also means the end user will be paying ~10% more for their solar installs for the rest of 2017 – assuming projections from the forward market hold up. We’ll see how this impacts Australian solar power as a whole over the coming months.

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