100kW
The old rebate ceiling. Above it, a project dropped into a slower, more paperwork-heavy pathway with worse economics for a mid-size roof.
The solar rebate cap is lifting from 100kW to 1MW — the size range most commercial roofs actually sit in. Worth checking, whatever your size.
The change is set to take effect 1 October 2026 and is not in place yet. Incentives depend on eligibility, system size, installation date and location.
Australia has around 22GW of solar on houses and a fraction of that on commercial roofs. This change is aimed squarely at the gap.
The old rebate ceiling. Above it, a project dropped into a slower, more paperwork-heavy pathway with worse economics for a mid-size roof.
Ten times the headroom. A warehouse, cold store, packing shed or factory roof can now be sized to the load instead of to a policy ceiling.
For most sites the ceiling is now available roof area, structure and your network connection — not a number written into a rulebook.
The change is set to start on 1 October 2026. It is not in effect yet, and we won't pretend otherwise. What is certain is that a commercial system takes weeks to scope: a site visit, a roof and switchboard assessment, usage data, a network application. Businesses that start the quoting process now are ready when the door opens. Businesses that wait until October start from zero.
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Electricity is one of the few large line items most operators treat as a fixed fact of life. It isn't — it's the one you can put an asset against.
Every quarter you pay the grid, that money is gone and you own nothing. The same money directed at a system on your own roof buys a piece of plant that keeps producing for two decades and shows up on the balance sheet.
Demand charges, time-of-use windows, capacity charges and export limits all shape what solar is worth on your specific site. Two businesses with identical bills can have completely different answers.
If your operation runs when the sun is up — retail hours, refrigeration, machining, irrigation, pumps, packing — you're the best-case scenario for commercial solar, because you consume what you generate instead of exporting it cheaply.
A worked example, not a quote: what two decades look like for a site paying roughly $2,500 a quarter, if nothing changes versus generating a share of your own power.
A bill buys you nothing. A system sits on your balance sheet.
Panels are built for decades. That's when the gap really opens.
Illustrative only, to show the shape of the two paths. Not a quote, a projection or a guarantee of savings. Real figures depend on your tariff, usage profile, roof, network and system size — which is exactly what a site-specific quote establishes.
Here's what separates a real one from a number on a letterhead — and what you should be lining up against each other.
A serious quote is built off interval data or at least a full year of bills. If nobody asked for your usage data, they've guessed — and you'll find out in year two.
On many commercial tariffs, peak demand is a large slice of the bill. Solar may or may not touch it. A quote that only talks about kWh is telling you half the story.
Your distributor decides how much you can export, and sometimes how much you can install. A quote that hasn't factored in the connection application is a quote with a hole in it.
Sheet metal age, purlin spacing, asbestos, penetrations, fall arrest, roof warranties. On a commercial roof this is a real engineering line item — not an afterthought.
Site visit, design, network application, install, inspection, switch-on. A quote with no dates in it is a wish. Ask when each step happens and who owns it.
Monitoring, O&M, response times, and whether the entity signing the warranty is the one doing the work. Commercial assets need a maintenance answer, not just an install date.
Site type, address, roughly what you spend on power each quarter, whether you own or lease, and your timeline.
Plenty of installers do houses. Fewer do a 400kW warehouse properly. Only ones that do — and that cover your postcode — see your enquiry.
Same scope, same site, line by line. Take it to your accountant. Or take none of them.
At the end you can upload a recent electricity bill and a photo of the main switchboard. Optional — but a commercial bill shows your tariff structure and demand charges, and the switchboard shows available capacity. It's the difference between a real number and a guess.
It's set to apply from 1 October 2026 and it is not in place yet. Until it starts, nothing is guaranteed — and we'd rather say that than pretend otherwise.
The practical point is that a commercial system takes weeks to scope and quote. Getting the site assessed now means you're positioned either way, and you'll know today what your current options are under the existing rules.
Yes. Systems under 100kW were always covered and still are. The change adds headroom at the top; it doesn't remove anything at the bottom. A shop, café, clinic or small office is a completely normal commercial job.
No, but it changes the conversation. What matters is how much of the lease is left, whether the landlord will consent, and whether the structure is a direct purchase, a landlord-funded install with a rent adjustment, or a power purchase arrangement. Tell us the lease situation in the form and the installers can quote to it.
It depends entirely on your tariff, your daytime load and how much roof you have. A site that runs machinery from 7am to 5pm is a very different proposition to one that runs overnight. Anyone who gives you a percentage before seeing your bill is guessing — which is precisely why we push you to attach one, so the number you get is calculated rather than claimed.
Usually it's the roof and the network connection that set the ceiling, not the policy. Available roof area, orientation, structural capacity, shading and your distributor's export limit all bind before the certificate cap does. An installer will model this properly from your address and roof plan.
Nothing. There's no fee to your business at any point. Installers pay us when we send them a genuine, well-matched commercial enquiry. If we sent them junk, they'd stop paying — which is why we screen enquiries rather than forward everything.
We don't install and we don't own an installer. We're a comparison service, so we have no particular system to push. The installers you hear from quote you directly and you contract with them, not with us.
Yes. Start with the largest or highest-consumption site so the installers have something concrete to work from, and note the others when you submit. Multi-site rollouts are usually scoped one representative site first, then replicated.
From first site visit to switch-on, most jobs run several weeks to a few months. The design and install are rarely the slow part — the network connection application usually is, and it's outside your installer's control. That's the main reason to start scoping early rather than waiting.
Two minutes to tell us about the site. Commercial-capable installers do the rest. Quotes you can hold against each other, no obligation to proceed.