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Australia and New Zealand put solar on more detached houses than almost anywhere on earth, and almost none on apartment buildings. Not because the roofs are wrong — because nobody owns the decision. A building's roof is common property, the power bill it would offset is a common cost, and the paperwork sits with a committee that has enough to do. That is a solvable problem, and in several states somebody will pay for half of it.
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 building or multi-unit dwelling, and by mid-2026 it had already funded around two hundred projects covering several thousand households. It is open to owners corporations, strata managing agents and residents — and it has a closing date, which is the reason to start now.
Governed by the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, administered by NSW Fair Trading.
Programmes open, allocate and close, and the terms change between rounds. Check the current position with the administering body before you budget around any of these.
NSW Government
Co-funds 50% of the cost of installing a shared solar PV system on eligible apartment buildings and other multi-unit dwellings in NSW, up to $150,000 per project. A separate 'Boost' stream applies in designated suburbs. Applications close 4 December 2026 unless the funding is exhausted first.
Official pageAustralian Government
The federal certificate scheme that discounts the up-front price of a solar system. It applies nationally and is normally taken off the quote by the installer, so it stacks underneath the state grant rather than competing with it.
Official pageThis is the number the whole project rests on, and it is the number that makes the case at the meeting. Do it before you call an installer.
In Quarter: The building's common property spending is already in Quarter — this year's power bills and the two years before them — so the figure the whole business case rests on is one you pull rather than reconstruct from a drawer.
If the roof is due within the capital works plan's next few years, do the roof first. This is the single most expensive sequencing error available.
It changes the level of support materially, and takes a minute.
Two or three quotes, the expected saving from your own bills, and the funding route. Put it as a resolution for a general meeting with 14 days' notice.
In Quarter: Build the motion from the quotes and the budget, send the notice to every owner off the ownership register on the statutory clock, and record the vote as it is cast — a decision carries its majority automatically and emails the outcome to whoever raised it.
The programme closes 4 December 2026 or when the money runs out, whichever comes first. Buildings that already hold a resolution and quotes are the ones that get in.
In Quarter: The resolution, the quotes, the scheme details and the building's own numbers are most of any application — and Quarter already holds all four.
A new asset with a service life belongs in the 10-year plan from day one — particularly with the standard-form plan now in use.
In Quarter: Upload the plan you already have and Quarter reads it into a costed schedule of items, lifecycles and due years. From there it projects the fund thirty years out and tells you the annual contribution that actually funds it.
Removing and reinstalling an array is a real cost that no grant covers. Check the roof first, every time.
This programme has a hard deadline and finite funding. The buildings that miss out are rarely the ones that were refused.
A system much larger than the building's daytime consumption exports at a low rate and pays back slowly. Size it against the bills.
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.
The physical job takes a few days. The decision takes most buildings a year. Quarter compresses the second one.
Your actual common power spend, from your actual bills, rather than a vendor's estimate of a building like yours.
Scope, cost, funding, and the effect on levies — put as a resolution rather than a proposal, with the quotes attached.
The resolution, the quotes, the scheme details and the consumption history, in one place, on the day the round opens.
Quotes, contracts, approvals, invoices and warranties recorded against the decision that authorised them.
The bill before and the bill after, visible to every owner, so the next project is an easier conversation than this one was.
General information about New South Wales, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with NSW Fair Trading or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in New South Wales and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
