Natalie, from Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales, has cut her electricity usage to the bare minimum.
“I don’t run a heater, I rug up … I don’t have a telly and I’m very careful about closing all the curtains,” she said.
“I’m doing pretty much as much as I can to reduce my electricity.”
Natalie is on a disability pension, so money is tight.
Natalie wears two jumpers instead of turning on her heater(ABC News: Steve Keen)
Like many people, she recently received notice that her electricity bill will be going up.
The usage component of her bill is only going up to a few cents, but the fixed rate part — the daily supply charge — is going up to 43 per cent.
“I understand everyone is getting a price increase,” she said, “but it just feels a little bit unfair that they’ve put so much on the daily rate.
“I can’t reduce my electricity consumption to reduce the daily rate.”
The New South Wales Energy and Water Ombudsman, Janine Young, said every customer would be seeing price increases.
“Some energy retailers are saying [it will be] as much as 20-30 per cent more,” she observed.
NSW Energy and Water Ombudsman Janine Young says all customers will be in for a price hike.(ABC News: John Gunn)
Wholesale prices are at record highs, tripling in the three months to June, compared to the same time last year.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said it was because of high commodity prices, coal-fired power outages and a cold east coast winter.
However, Ms Young argued, those increases should flow through to the usage charge — the cents-per-kilowatt on a customer’s bill — instead of the fixed daily supply charge.
“Retailers can charge an additional amount in that fixed part of your bill. And that’s not price-capped [in NSW],” Ms Young explained.
“It could be that some retailers are increasing that element to offset the wholesale price increases that they’re wearing.”
Different states and territories regulate energy prices differently, observed the Australia Institute’s climate and energy director, Richie Merzian.
Coal-fired power still makes up a large portion of Australia’s total electricity generation.(ABC News: Freya Michie)
“The regulated daily supply charges are in Western Australia, Northern Territory and regional Queensland. For Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, that price can float and can continue to go up,” Mr Merzian said.
Energy market ‘struggling with its own resilience’
The peak body representing power companies, the Australian Energy Council (AEC), has defended the price hikes.
“We’re seeing a lot of reforms happening in the energy market, a lot of pressure on retailers and they need to recover their costs through bills,” AEC chief executive Sarah McNamara said.
For much of the east coast, the energy regulator sets a default market offer (DMO), which acts like a fall-back plan for customers who have not actively chosen a retailer.
Retailers are required to list this price on a customer’s bill.
The DMO usually acts like a price ceiling and retailers compete for customers by offering deals cheaper than that.
However, now, some electricity retailers are offering plans that are more expensive than the default market offer.
“We are seeing competition,” Ms McNamara said.
“But it is a market that is struggling with its own resilience in an environment of rising costs and shrinking margins as well.”
In a remarkable move, a number of small electricity companies have told their customers to go elsewhere, or face a huge hike in their power bills.
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It is not profitable for some to continue to service customers and four small companies have already collapsed.
“What we’re seeing already is that there is further concentration in the market,” Mr Merzian said.
“That means there’s less opportunity to shop around and find cheaper electricity prices.”
The competition watchdog is monitoring retailer pricing and will provide an update to energy ministers later this month.
The renewables industry has exploded in Victoria, with ambitious energy targets set by the state government and an abundance of job opportunities in the fledgling sector to be realised.
Key points:
Renewable Energy proponents and the state government are predicting more than 6,000 new jobs in Gippsland
Australian Renewables Academy hopes to harness lower-than-average work participation rates to fill the workforce
Training for the new workforce needs to begin quickly so locals can be placed in jobs
Gippsland, in south-eastern Victoria, has been touted as the golden child of the renewable energy industry.
The region has windy seas, extensive land resources, and existing grid infrastructure in the Latrobe Valley thanks to its coal mining legacy.
Thousands of jobs are set to be created during both construction and operational phases in the switch to renewable energies.
But in a job market crying out for people to fill 86,000 vacancies in rural and regional Australia, doubt remains on the ability to fill roles in the new industry.
In Australia, the labor force participation rate sits at 67 per cent, while in Gippsland, the rate is lower, varying between local government areas.
training gap
A recent renewable energy conference held in the region attracted interest overseas and nationwide interest.
Bernadette O’Connor, of Australian Renewables Academy (ARA), heads up a local organization tasked with training the workforce needed to work on renewables.
Ms O’Connor said mediocre participation rates should be seen as an opportunity to bring more people into the workforce.
The group has intentions to retrain skilled workers in the move away from the coal, oil and gas industries.
“We need to look at who’s existing in the sector to transition across to the renewable energy industry,” Ms O’Connor said.
“[We look at] what level and what skills. Who is not in the sector, but could be in the sector, because they’ve got skills that could transition.”
Australian Renewables Academy director Bernadette O’Connor presenting at the the Gippsland New Energy Conference.(Supplied)
The federally funded ARA identifies entry level jobs and determines which people could be recruited with basic training.
Given offshore wind is in its infancy in Australia, skills and knowledge to train the workforce in the new technology will likely come from overseas initially.
Ms O’Connor said the industry was evolving at a fast pace, and communication around the sector’s resourcing needs was imperative.
“If we can have really good teachers who know how to teach and know how to facilitate learning, partnering with industry who know what the industry needs, then that would be the ideal scenario,” Ms O’Connor said.
Shift in thinking
Historically, the offshore oil and gas industry in Gippsland has attracted fly-in fly-out workers from across the country, but the number of interstate workers have dropped in the past few years, according to unions.
As offshore assets have been sold off or decommissioned in Bass Strait, FIFO workers have needed to look elsewhere.
In 2017 when the Hazelwood Power Station closed, 700 Latrobe Valley workers were left without jobs. At the time, it was suggested the lucrative roles often brought more than $100,000 into the household budget.
When it was operational, Hazelwood fed 1.65 gigawatts (GW) into the grid.
The Star of the South offshore wind project will alone generate 2.2GW.
After Hazelwood’s closure, there was little talk of renewable projects setting up in the region to take advantage of existing grid infrastructure.
Victoria bets big on offshore wind
For years, community groups and environmentalists have touted the potential for renewables in Gippsland, but efforts were dampened when the former state government’s investment in private companies attempting to find clean ways to use coal came up empty handed.
Five years on, hundreds descended on the Gippsland New Energy Conference last week, a forum to present pipeline projects and investment opportunities in renewables.
At a packed theater in Sale, Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio received an enthusiastic response when she spoke of the state’s ambitious targets.
They include supplying 13GW of offshore to the energy grid by 2050 and for the state to produce 50 per cent of its power from renewables by 2050.
While offshore wind drew the most buzz, solar was also a key player, with eight solar farms in the pipeline or operational across the region.
community concerns
However, renewable projects were not entirely met with open arms.
Friends of Nooramunga Coastal Reserve did not want turbines along the “pristine” coastline, while farmers in Giffard did not want above-ground pylons erected on their land.
Fishers are also concerned about not being able to use waters in the construction phase of offshore wind farms and said they needed to be compensated.
A panel which discussed how renewable energy companies should engage with communities affected by infrastructure put forward that communities should be provided with clear information that would indicate which aspects communities could and couldn’t have influence over.
Woodside farmer Rosemary Irving fought against the Bass Link in the early 2000s.
She told the ABC she wouldn’t be overly happy to have underground cables through her property, but preferred them over the above-ground pylons expected to be built by Ausnet Services.
“If we’ve got to have renewable energy the best practice to date is to have the turbines out to sea and the cables underground, which causes no disturbance to anybody,” Ms Irving said.
“It’s not fair for landholders to have overhead cables.”
Energy sector ‘exploding’
At this stage, Star of the South has committed to underground cabling while other proponents have not, while Ausnet Services would construct the transmission lines.
It has not yet committed to whether they will be above or below-ground, but underground cables are much more expensive.
Offshore wind farms in Gippsland will include turbines standing at 196 metres, drilled and grafted into the seabed.
Flotation Energy plans to build the 1.5GW Seadragon project off the Gippsland Coast.
Flotation’s chief operating officer Tim Sawyer said Seadragon’s location was closest to Exxon Mobil’s offshore assets.
He said it was chosen in hope of using existing or decommissioned platforms, the Barry’s Beach terminal and other infrastructure.
“We can potentially reuse some of those assets whether that is a platform itself for a substation, whether that is shore crossings, easements for existing pipelines,” Mr Sawyer said.
“We can potentially reroute electrical cables along existing easements to reduce some of that disturbance.
“But it also extends to personnel that may be transitioning out of the oil and gas industry and retraining.”
The construction stage alone for Seadragon is estimated to employ 1,000 workers, while up to 250 jobs will be ongoing in operational maintenance.
Businesses encouraged to take part
During the event in Sale, Ms D’Ambrosio encouraged local businesses hoping to get into the sector to register with the Industry Capability Network.
She said her department was in the process of mapping out the supply chain.
The first offshore wind project set to be up and running is the Star of the South, which aims to feed power into the grid by 2028.
That’s the same year Energy Australia’s Yallourn Power Station in the Latrobe Valley is due to close.
As part of its decommissioning agreement, Energy Australia is required to build a 350 megawatt (MW) battery at the site to store surplus energy.
AGL, which runs the nearby Loy Yang A power station has plans to build 200MW battery.
Gippsland Climate Change Network chairman Darren McCubbin, who described the sector as exploding, organized the event.
He praised the state government’s targets and acknowledged protesters, encouraging business to take notice of the community throughout consultation periods.
“These are once-in-a-lifetime alterations to our infrastructure… There are going to be enormous challenges with that, there are clearly communities concerned about it.
“It will be a much more abundant and cheap electricity.”
Some of the world’s richest men are funding a massive treasure hunt, complete with helicopters and transmitters, on the west coast of Greenland.
The climate crisis is melting Greenland down at an unprecedented rate, which – in a twist of irony – is creating an opportunity for investors and mining companies who are searching for a trove of critical minerals capable of powering the green energy transition.
A band of billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, among others, is betting that below the surface of the hills and valleys on Greenland’s Disko Island and Nuussuaq Peninsula there areenough critical minerals to power hundreds of millions of electric vehicles.
“We are looking for a deposit that will be the first- or second-largest most significant nickel and cobalt deposit in the world,” Kurt House, CEO of Kobold Metals, told CNN.
The Arctic’s disappearing ice – on land and in the ocean – highlights a unique dichotomy: Greenland is ground zero for the impacts of climate change, but it could also become ground zero for sourcing the metals needed to power the solution to the crisis.
The billionaire club is financially backing Kobold Metals, a mineral exploration company and California-based startup, the company’s representatives told CNN. Bezos, Bloomberg and Gates did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment on this story. Kobold is partnered with Bluejay Mining to find the rare and precious metals in Greenland that are necessary to build electric vehicles and massive batteries to store renewable energy.
Thirty geologists, geophysicists, cooks, pilots and mechanics are camped at the site where Kobold and Blujay are searching for the buried treasure. CNN is the first media outlet with video of the activity happening there.
Crews are taking soil samples, flying drones and helicopters with transmitters to measure the electromagnetic field of the subsurface and map the layers of rock below. They’re using artificial intelligence to analyze the data to pinpoint exactly where to drill as early as next summer.
“It is a concern to witness the consequences and impacts from the climate changes in Greenland,” Bluejay Mining CEO Bo Møller Stensgaard told CNN. “But, generally speaking, climate changes overall have made exploration and mining in Greenland easier and more accessible.”
Stensgaard said that because climate change is making ice-free periods in the sea longer, teams are able to ship in heavy equipment and ship out metals out to the global market more easily.
Melting land ice is exposing land that has been buried under ice for centuries to millennia – but could now become a potential site for mineral exploration.
“As these trends continue well into the future, there is no question more land will become accessible and some of this land may carry the potential for mineral development,” Mike Sfraga, the chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission, told CNN.
Greenland could be a hot spot for coal, copper, gold, rare-earth elements and zinc, according to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. The government of Greenland, according to the agency, has done several “resource assessments throughout the ice-free land” and the government “recognizes the country’s potential to diversify the national economy through mineral extraction.”
Sfraga said that pro-mining stance is not without regard for the environment, which is central to Greenland’s culture and livelihood.
“The government of Greenland supports the responsible, sustainable, and economically viable development of their natural resources to include mining of a broad range of minerals,” Sfraga said.
Stensgaard noted that these critical minerals will “provide part of the solution to meet these challenges” that the climate crisis presents.
In the meantime, Greenland’s vanishing ice – which is pushing sea level higher – is a great concern for scientists who study the Arctic.
“The big concern for Arctic sea ice is that it’s been disappearing over the last several decades its predicted to potentially disappear in 20 to 30 years,” Nathan Kurtz, a NASA scientist who studies sea ice, told CNN. “In the fall, what used to be Arctic ice cover year-round is now just going to be seasonal ice cover.”
A decision to cease funding for a successful statewide community renewable energy program is leaving hundreds of projects important to Victoria’s de-carbonisation targets in limbo.
Key points:
The Victorian government funded the Community Power Hub program for 12 months
Community groups are disappointed funding has not been extended
More than 200 community renewable energy projects have been supported
The Victorian government has not re-funded the Community Power Hub program, which ran in six areas across the state for the past 12 months.
Program leaders say the abrupt end to the program will create an uncertain future for the community renewable energy projects it was designed to help progress.
Not-for-profit organization Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions (BREAZE) led the Community Power Hub for the Grampians region, which supported 40 projects through the feasibility stage.
President Mary Debrett said many active community members would continue driving their projects to completion, but others would struggle to get off the ground without external support.
Grampians Community Power Hub worked on a renewable energy project with the Halls Gap Botanic Gardens.(Supplied: Mary Debrett)
She said she was disappointed the program was not re-funded.
“It will be those communities that have proactive people that will be the ones advantaged and those that don’t will be disadvantaged,” Ms Debrett said.
“For those organizations and communities where we have done feasibility studies, they are going to be needing some extra support.
“They are slow-burn projects that take a lot of work.”
Grampians Community Power Hub staff and volunteers worked with communities in Ballan and Pomonal to investigate community battery options and residents in St Arnaud on a renewable energy hub.
The Pomonal Power People group worked with the Grampians Community Power Hub on a community battery feasibility study.(Supplied: Keith Ward)
They facilitated energy audits at Grampians Health and J Ward in Ararat and the installation of solar panels at golf clubs, disability services, schools, community halls, and sporting clubs.
Slow, complex projects
Natimuk Community Energy president Edwin Irvine said their community solar farm project had been progressing for 14 years, but the Grampians Community Power Hub assisted them through crucial steps.
Natimuk residents are working to create a solar farm owned by the community.(ABC Back Roads: Dai Cookes)
He said Grampians Community Power Hub staff and volunteers helped them through a complex design and approvals process as well as governance and finance decisions, which they could not have done on their own.
“Before doing this, I didn’t know anything at all about energy regulation or the physics of a solar farm and how it connects with the grid. I needed that help,” Mr Irvine said.
“I can imagine there are a lot of other community groups that are going to need that help.
“If that help is not there, those other community groups are going to find it really, really hard.”
energy revolution
Experts say community renewable energy projects will play an important role in Victoria’s renewable energy transition.
Professor Pierluigi Mancarella is the energy systems program lead at the Melbourne Energy Institute.(Supplied: Pierluigi Mancarella)
Melbourne Energy Institute’s Professor Pierluigi Mancarella said sharing energy on a community level made sense because of cost and efficiency.
He said smaller renewable-based power plants with batteries and storage should replace “gigantic” fossil fuel-based plants and community-level batteries would be more efficient than household ones.
Professor Mancarella said supporting community renewable energy projects would be fundamental to Victoria’s decarbonisation process.
“There is so much learning… it is a competing revolution,” he said.
“It completely destroys the business models, commercial models and regulatory environment, which we have operated in so far.”
New funding scheme
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the successful Community Power Hub program had been funded for 12 months and progressed 200 proposed projects in that time.
“We hope these local success stories inspire more renewable energy projects in the community, taking advantage of our rebates and programs for households, community groups, and businesses,” she said.
Hepburn Wind has been a community energy pioneer, establishing a community-owned wind-farm near Daylesford.(Supplied: Amy Kean)
The Victorian government has created a repayable grants program, where at least $50,000 is available for community group renewable energy projects, but loans must be repaid in five years.
The money is a low-interest-rate loan to help groups secure third-party funding.
The Victorian government has legislated a target of 50 per cent renewable energy for the state by 2030.
Small regional communities are working to secure their own energy futures amid electricity price rises and widespread fears of blackouts.
Key points:
Regional Victorian towns Ballan and Pomonal are investigating a community battery
Experts say batteries will be a big part of Australia’s renewable energy transition
Questions remain around the role community level batteries will play in the mix
A new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator shows electricity prices rose to their highest levels on record in the three months to June 30, leading to increasing energy bills across the east coast.
Communities like Ballan, 80 kilometers north-west of Melbourne, are driving their own renewable energy projects as they seek reliability, lower costs, and reduced environmental impact.
The volunteer-run Moorabool Environment Group is working with residents on the first steps of a project to bring a community battery to the town of almost 3,400 people.
Rose De la Cruz has solar panels on her home in Ballan and would like to link to a community battery.(Supplied: Rose De la Cruz)
Resident and group member Rose De la Cruz said Ballan was a “good candidate” for the technology.
“We do suffer from power outages quite a lot here and we have a growing lot of residential houses with solar on their roofs,” she said.
“At the moment everybody is talking about the cost of electricity, so people are interested in anything that will bring down the cost.”
The basic concept was for households and organizations with rooftop solar to feed into a shared battery and draw out electricity when needed.
Ben McGowan inspects a mid-sized battery at Yackandandah.(ABC News: Emilia Terzon)
Increasing take-up
Community batteries are becoming an increasingly popular option for regional communities.
The first community battery in Yackandandah, a small tourist town in north-east Victoria, was launched in July 2021 after two years of planning and fundraising.
The 274-kilowatt-hour battery that supplies electricity to 40 homes from solar panels on the roof of an old sawmill is part of a bigger mission to have the entire town powered by renewable energy.
It also serves as a backup power supply.
Residents in the western Victorian town of Pomonal, on the edge of the power grid, are also looking for solutions to eliminate blackout concerns.
Pomonal Power People member Dee-Ann Kelly said more people had become interested in the idea of a community battery.
Grampians Community Power Hub hosted a community meeting at Pomonal.(Supplied)
“I am interested in the idea that not everyone needs to have solar,” she said.
“Down the track I am willing to do get solar, but for now I want to be able to utilize where we have got solar and where we may have solar in the future.”
She said the project was also about supporting people who did not have the ability to put solar panels on their properties.
“We have talked about not leaving people behind,” she said.
The town is part of a community battery feasibility study and is waiting for a report before deciding on the next steps.
Ms Kelly said sustaining interest and driving the project could be a challenge, given it could take many years and was not an “overnight solution”.
A community battery in Meadow Springs, Western Australia, is accessed by 52 homes.(Supplied: Western Power)
But she said she was confident the community’s desire for power reliability during disasters, such as bushfires, and broad focus on sustainability would drive continued support.
“We live in the beautiful Grampians and have nature all around us. This is what drives people to want to have a future and be involved in making really important decisions,” she said.
clean energy future
Australia Institute energy advisor Dan Cass said Australia had been over-reliant on “risky and expensive” coal and “increasingly expensive” gas.
Mr Cass said the community battery model would be part of the move to build clean energy resources quickly to avoid another energy crisis.
A community battery in the Perth suburb of Port Kennedy.(Supplied: Western Power)
He said the Australian Energy Market Operator modeling showed a need to build thousands of gigawatts worth of battery storage over the next several years.
“We need a lot more batteries on the grid and we need them urgently,” he said.
“The question is who owns the batteries and what is the scale at which they are built?”
Mr Cass said it was likely large batteries, mid-scale community batteries, and small household batteries would be part of the solution.
“I think we will find eventually every freestanding roof in the country will be able to have solar panels and in some cases that will be backed up by batteries,” he said.
“It will give enormous power and control back to energy consumers and communities as well as being more resilient and zero emissions.
“Australia is in a great position … it is just a matter of planning this out well and this will be the last energy crisis Australia will ever need to face.”
Ricky Barone installed a solar system on his roof in 2014 to make the most of the North Queensland sun and save money on his electricity bills.
Key points:
Ricky Barone has been told his installation is a fire hazard but the retailer won’t uninstall it
A number of regulatory bodies are receiving complaints about solar retailers, manufacturers and installers
Some of the main issues raised relate to price, quality and high-pressure sales
Since its installation, however, it has cost him thousands of dollars and years of sleepless nights.
It wasn’t until a so-called solar doctor inspected his rooftop panels this year that the Mackay man realized the potential hazard he was living under.
“I have [the solar inspector] basically said it’s badly installed and there’s a big chance it could catch fire,” Mr Barone said.
“I was so ticked off and I haven’t been sleeping well thinking about it.”
Mr Barone said it was a two-year wait to get a solar system installed by a local company, so he instead turned to a company based in Melbourne.
Ricky Barone and his son in Mackay.(ABC Tropical North: Hannah Walsh)
He said the problems started after about six months and then he had difficulty getting parts replaced, such as when the inverters failed after 18 months.
On one occasion a neighbor called Mr Barone to alert him to a fire.
“They blew up the meter box,” he said.
“It should have clicked from day one… we’ve had nothing but trouble with it.
“The system has never worked … we got it to try and save money to do some other renovations, but we haven’t been able to.”
Mr Barone said he wanted the company to uninstall it but the ABC understands the firm has not sold solar in a number of years.
“They just keep saying someone will get in contact, and they never do,” Mr Barone said.
“They’ve got a complaint site and there’s a lot of people in the same boat.”
The company has been contacted by the ABC for comment.
What is a solar doctor?
Jemal Solo started his own solar-inspection business in Mackay because he said no-one was advocating for home owners with solar installations.
Jemal Solo says most people do not consider getting their solar installations serviced.(ABC Tropical North: Hannah Walsh)
“We hold installers and manufacturers accountable for their products and workmanship,” Mr Solo said.
“We took this on because we saw nobody was addressing this … and when it comes to pensioners that’s when you get really upset because people buy this to save money.”
Mr Solo, who has installed solar panels and conducts inspections for the Clean Energy Regulator, said installers had a five-year defects liability period to fix their work.
“It’s your fault really if you find six years later that it hasn’t been installed properly,” he said.
“The problem is there’s no feedback loop … nobody is checking the installers’ work.
“The solar retailers don’t really care as long as they’re getting paid.”
Brian Richardson from the Queensland Electrical Safety Office said there had been instances in which interstate companies had come to Queensland without the appropriate licences.
Who can consumers turn to?
Australia does not have a national authority responsible for electrical safety.
Mr Barone said he had referred his case to the Queensland Office of Fair Trading as well as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
A solar-inspection business in Mackay says no-one is advocating for home owners with solar installations.(Unsplash: ulleo: Public Domain)
He’s not alone.
The Office of Fair Trading deals with approximately 350 complaints a year involving solar products.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman Queensland (EWOQ) deals with complaints about solar billing and metering.
Jane Pires of the EWOQ said in the 2021–22 financial year, it received 142 complaints about solar billing errors, an increase of 92 per cent from the previous year.
It passed 153 cases related to installation and 17 related to solar warranties to the Office of Fair Trading.
Delia Ricard, deputy chair of the ACCC, said her organization was also receiving a large volume of complaints concerning consumers’ experience with retail solar panels and installation.
“If it is a small local regulator, we are likely to refer it to Queensland Fair Trading,” she said.
“Where it’s a larger national or more systematic problem, we may take enforcement or regulatory action.
“The Clean Energy Council and new tech codes are designed to lift the standards in terms of manufacture and installation of solar systems.
“While they are voluntary codes, in most states where there are rebates, you can only get the rebate if the system was purchased from somebody who comes under the code.”
There are currently no state or territory requirements for electricians to hold extra qualifications for solar.
A scheme introduced 22 years ago by the federal government aimed to address this but it will be phased out by 2030.
The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme run by the Clean Energy Regulator provides households and businesses with financial incentives to install solar systems approved by the Clean Energy Council.
The scheme’s general manager, Matthew Power, said he had been consulting with states and territories to embed some of the scheme’s aspects into normal state and territorial electrical rules.
It is recommended a solar installation be checked once a year.(ABC Tropical North: Hannah Walsh)
“The Commonwealth scheme is setting an obligation above and beyond the state and territory requirements that are already in place,” Mr Power said.
“The system needs to be installed by a Clean Energy Council-accredited installer who has done additional qualifications and training above their normal electrical licensing.”
‘Shoddy workmanship’ complaints
Ms Ricard said some of the main issues coming across the ACCC’s desk involved misrepresentations about price and quality, as well as unsolicited high-pressure sales.
“There’s a raft of issues people complain to us about, including shoddy workmanship,” she said.
Ms Ricard said a number of regulators were looking into cases where the retailer had gone out of business.
Jemal Solo agreed he had seen too many “come and go” retailers.
“Usually what happens is the manufacturer disappears and the home owner doesn’t know who the installer is,” he said.
“Thirty per cent of the cases we deal with, the manufacturers have already withdrawn from Australia, so here you are years later with a piece of paper with a warranty on it that’s worth nothing.”
