Solar

The regulator permanently suspended a solar certificate agent. Here is how to check yours

On 7 August the Clean Energy Regulator permanently suspended the registration of Emerging Environmental Group Pty Ltd under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, saying it was no longer satisfied the company was a fit and proper person for the purposes of the Act. The company can no longer create certificates under the small-scale scheme, and it has 60 days to seek an internal review. For a household the interesting part is not the company but the mechanism: a registered agent is who turns your solar or battery install into the certificates that pay for the discount on your quote, and there is a public register of them that almost nobody knows exists.

17 August 2026 3 primary sources, read 17 Aug 2026

What the discount on your quote actually is

When a solar or battery system goes on an Australian roof, it creates small-scale technology certificates based on the generation it is expected to produce. Those certificates have a market value, and the installer almost always takes them off your hands in exchange for a discount on the price. The paperwork that creates them is not done by you and usually not by the installer either: it is done by a registered agent, a person or company registered with the Clean Energy Regulator for exactly that purpose.

That registration is a licence to create something with a cash value, which is why the Act makes it conditional on remaining a fit and proper person, and why losing it is the end of the business.

What happened

The regulator published the decision on 13 August. It says that on 7 August 2026 it permanently suspended the registration of Emerging Environmental Group Pty Ltd as a registered person under the Act, because it was no longer satisfied the company met the fit and proper person test. The consequence it states is direct: the company is no longer permitted to create renewable energy certificates under the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES).

Two things should be said clearly. The regulator does not say what the company did, and neither will we. And the decision is not final in the ordinary sense: the notice records that the company has the right to seek an internal review of this decision within 60 days of being notified. Anything beyond those two facts would be us filling in a document that has deliberately not been filled in.

The line worth reading twice

The notice does not stop at one company. It sets out what the regulator will do next, and the scope is wider than a single decision. It says it will continue to monitor participants and act where it identifies concerns about a person’s continued eligibility, and then specifies what that includes: associations with individuals or entities that have previously been found not to be fit and proper persons, or whose participation in CER-administered schemes has been suspended.

That is a regulator saying, in a routine enforcement notice, that being connected to someone already disqualified is itself a thing it will look at. For an industry where businesses close and reopen under new names, that is a meaningful statement of posture, and it is the sentence an installer or agent should be reading rather than the company name at the top.

How to check the agent on your own install

The register of registered persons is public and, as the regulator’s own page notes, required under the Act. It lives in the REC Registry, and it includes those currently suspended. So if you are getting quotes, or you have a system on the roof already, you can look up whether the agent handling your certificates is registered and in good standing.

Now the honest part, because we tried it. The register sits inside a JavaScript application: the page loads a shell, the search runs in the browser, and the underlying endpoints redirect to a login when asked directly. It is public in the sense that anybody may look, and it is not public in the sense that you can link someone to a result or check it quickly on a phone. You will need a desktop browser and a few minutes, and the thing you are looking for is the agent’s company name on your contract, not the installer’s trading name, which is often different.

That gap is worth naming because the regulator is plainly relying on the register as the public-facing half of its enforcement: the notice points readers to it twice. A register that is technically public and practically awkward does less work than the enforcement behind it deserves.

One more thing that changed at the regulator this month

On the same day the suspension decision was made, 7 August, the regulator published the Minister for Climate Change and Energy’s announcement that Tony Chappel has been appointed its Chief Executive Officer and Chair. He comes from the NSW Environment Protection Authority, where he had been chief executive since 2022, and before that was an executive general manager at the Australian Energy Market Operator.

We are not suggesting any connection between the two: the dates coincide and nothing in either document links them. It is worth recording because the person now running the scheme that pays for household solar has spent the last four years running an environmental enforcement agency, and enforcement posture is exactly what the notice above is about.

Sources

Clean Energy Regulator, Emerging Environmental Group’s registration permanently suspended (published 13 August 2026, read 17 August 2026): the 7 August 2026 decision, the permanent suspension of registration under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, the fit and proper person ground quoted above, that the company may no longer create certificates under the SRES, the 60-day internal review right, the statement about associations with individuals or entities previously found not to be fit and proper or suspended, and the pointers to the fit and proper person posture, the registered agents guidance, the compliance policy and the REC Registry.
REC Registry, Register of registered persons (read 17 August 2026): that the register is available to the public and required under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act. The page is a JavaScript application; three underlying endpoint paths were tried directly and each returned a redirect to login, which is the basis for the description of it as awkward rather than unavailable.
Clean Energy Regulator, Tony Chappel announced as new Chair and CEO of the Clean Energy Regulator (published 7 August 2026, read 17 August 2026): the appointment announced by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and Mr Chappel’s roles at the NSW Environment Protection Authority since 2022 and previously at the Australian Energy Market Operator.

How we read this. Everything about the suspension is from the regulator’s published notice, quoted where it matters. The notice does not state the conduct behind the decision and this story does not speculate about it; the internal review right is reported because a decision under review is not a settled fact. We have not contacted the company or the regulator. The description of the register is from trying to use it: the search page loads as a shell to a plain request and the endpoints behind it redirect to a login, so it needs a browser. We have not looked up any individual agent.

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