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The roof is already there.

Shared solar for apartment buildings: how the power actually gets used, what your owners corporation has to decide, and which grants are open where you are.

Where is your building?

The job is the same everywhere. The rules, the words and the money are not. Pick your state or territory and we will show you the version that actually applies.

New South Wales

NSW

Strata Schemes Management Act 2015

New South Wales runs the best apartment solar programme in the country. The Solar for Apartment Residents grant co-funds half the cost of a shared solar system on an eligible apartment...

Read the NSW guide

Victoria

VIC

Owners Corporations Act 2006

Victoria's Solar for Apartments programme is the most generous per-household support in the country, and it is structured differently from New South Wales': it pays per participating...

Read the VIC guide

Queensland

QLD

Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997

Queensland has no apartment-specific solar grant open at present, which puts the project on its own numbers — and in Queensland those numbers are unusually good. The state has the...

Read the QLD guide

Western Australia

Strata Titles Act 1985

Western Australia has no apartment solar grant, but it has something most states do not: an excellent solar resource, and the Distributed Energy Buyback Scheme, which pays more for...

Read the WA guide

South Australia

Strata Titles Act 1988 and Community Titles Act 1996

South Australia has the highest share of renewable generation of any Australian state, which cuts both ways for a building considering solar: the resource and the installer market are...

Read the SA guide

Tasmania

TAS

Strata Titles Act 1998

Tasmania's grid is already overwhelmingly hydro, so the argument for solar here is a bill argument rather than an emissions one — and it still works, because a building's common load runs...

Read the TAS guide

Australian Capital Territory

ACT

Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011

The ACT's support is zero-interest finance through the Sustainable Household Scheme rather than a direct grant, and Canberra's climate gives an apartment building a genuinely good solar...

Read the ACT guide

Northern Territory

Unit Titles Act 1975 and Unit Titles Schemes Act 2009

The Northern Territory has the best solar resource in Australia and, unusually, a dedicated apartment solar rebate: grants covering up to half the installation cost of a shared system, to...

Read the NT guide

Why solar pays differently in an apartment building

A house puts solar on to cut one household's bill. A building puts solar on to cut a bill every owner is already paying through their levies — lifts, lighting, pumps, ventilation, the car park. That common load runs during the day, which is exactly when the panels produce.

Common power is a daytime load: Lifts, corridor lighting, pumps and ventilation run while the sun is up. The match between generation and consumption is better in an apartment building than in most houses.
It reduces levies, not just a bill: Every dollar off the common power bill is a dollar that does not have to be raised from owners. That is the argument that carries a general meeting.
The roof is doing nothing else: In most buildings the roof is an asset with no use and a maintenance cost. Solar is the cheapest way to make it earn.
Grants exist here in a way they do not for most common property work: Almost nothing else a building has to do comes with public co-funding. Solar frequently does.