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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.
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 exported power in the afternoon peak than in the middle of the day. For a strata company that changes the design question — this is a market where orientation and, eventually, storage matter more than raw system size.
Governed by the Strata Titles Act 1985, administered by Landgate.
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 that discounts the up-front price of the system, applied by the installer at the quote stage.
Official pageGovernment of Western Australia
Current WA energy programmes and the Distributed Energy Buyback Scheme rates. Check for any open stream before you finalise the business case.
Official pageNot just the total — when the building uses power. WA's buyback rates make the shape of the day matter.
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.
Afternoon generation is worth more than midday generation under the buyback scheme. That changes orientation and sizing.
In Quarter: Recover the running cost through the same ledger as the levies, so charging is invoiced, collected and reconciled rather than tracked in somebody's spreadsheet.
Do the roof first if it is close.
Fifty per cent of lots is the highest threshold in the country and the usual reason a good motion fails in WA.
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.
So the project can proceed after the vote without a second meeting.
Required for larger WA schemes anyway, and the inverter replacement belongs in it.
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.
Under the buyback scheme these are not the same system.
The most common WA failure, and nothing to do with whether owners support the project.
It is a common property asset with a service life.
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 Western Australia, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with Landgate or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in Western Australia and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
