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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.
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 excellent, and the value of exporting power in the middle of the day is low. The consequence is simple — in South Australia, solar that offsets the building's own daytime consumption is worth far more than solar sized to export.
Governed by the Strata Titles Act 1988 and Community Titles Act 1996, administered by Consumer and Business Services.
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.
Australian Government
The national certificate scheme discounting the up-front price of a system. Applied by the installer at the quote stage.
Official pageGovernment of South Australia
Current South Australian energy programmes and any open household or building support. Rounds appear periodically — worth checking before you finalise the budget.
Official pageIn South Australia the self-consumption number is the whole business case.
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.
An array matched to the building's own daytime consumption beats a larger one exporting at a low rate.
Strata or community titles. It changes the meeting procedure and the common property rules.
Remaining life and condition, before anything is mounted on it.
Consumption, quotes, saving, funding route, minuted properly.
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.
South Australia does not mandate a 10-year plan, so nothing but the corporation itself will prompt this.
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.
In the highest-renewables market in the country, midday export is the least valuable kilowatt-hour you can produce.
Removing and reinstalling an array is a cost with no offsetting grant.
It will need replacing before the panels do.
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 South Australia, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with Consumer and Business Services or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in South Australia and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
