The small-scale solar scheme expands tenfold on 1 October. This one runs through the mechanism that reaches your bill

Two schemes sit under the Renewable Energy Target. The small-scale one, the SRES, is the one behind rooftop solar: install a system, it creates small-scale technology certificates or STCs, and you take the value as an up-front discount. The large-scale one, the LRET, handles the big stuff and issues a different certificate. Until now the line between them for solar sat at 100 kilowatts.

From 1 October that line moves to 1 megawatt. The Clean Energy Regulator’s notice of 5 August says systems with a total onsite capacity between 100 kilowatts (kW) and 1 megawatt (MW) will be eligible to create small-scale technology certificates, where previously, systems larger than 100 kW were only eligible for large-scale generation certificates.

Nothing changes for a house. The regulator is explicit that existing arrangements for systems smaller than 100 kW under the SRES will not be affected by the changes, and anything above 1 MW still goes to the large-scale scheme.

Who it is actually for

The department names the sectors: commercial and industrial buildings including warehouses and logistics centres, farms and agricultural processing sites, and schools, hospitals and community facilities. Its stated purpose is to help businesses and community organisations install solar and lower their energy costs.

That is a real gap being filled. A 300 kW roof on a packing shed has been in an awkward place for years: too big for the simple certificate scheme, too small to be worth the paperwork of the large-scale one.

The part that touches households

STCs are not a government cheque. They are a certificate that somebody has to buy, and the somebody is your electricity retailer. The regulator puts the mechanism plainly: Energy retailers also have to buy and surrender a certain number of STCs to meet their obligations under the Renewable Energy Target. How many is set by the small-scale technology percentage, and the 2026 percentage is 11.67 per cent.

Now hold that against the battery rebate, which this site has covered at length. On the same regulator page, in the same explanation, is this:

How the two schemes reach a household bill, per the Clean Energy Regulator

Certificate type	Counted in the small-scale technology percentage?	Who buys it
Solar PV STCs	Yes	Liable entities, meaning electricity retailers
Solar battery STCs	No	The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

The regulator’s words on the battery side are unambiguous. Solar batteries won’t be added to the STP as the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water purchases STCs equivalent to all battery STC creations, and it adds: No costs will be passed onto energy retailers or households.

There is no equivalent sentence for solar PV, because there is no equivalent arrangement. Solar certificates go into the percentage, and the percentage is an obligation on retailers.

So the honest statement is this. The battery rebate was deliberately built so that its cost lands on the budget rather than on bills. This expansion uses the other mechanism. Whether that shows up on a household bill, and by how much, is not something either announcement addresses, and we have not modelled it. What we can say is that the two interventions are funded in structurally opposite ways, and only one of them has been publicly ring-fenced from your bill.

One detail in the fine print worth watching

How many certificates a system creates depends on how many years of generation it is credited with up front. For rooftop solar the regulator states that STCs are issued based on how much power the system is expected to generate until the scheme ends in 2030. That window shrinks every year as 2030 approaches.

For the new mid-scale tier, the department says something different: The STC factor that applies to mid-scale solar PV will be based on a 5 year deeming period each year to 2030.

Read literally, those are not the same rule. A shrinking window means a system installed in 2029 earns roughly one year of certificates. A five-year deeming period held flat each year to 2030 would mean a mid-scale system installed in 2029 still earns five. That is our reading of one sentence in a policy page, the regulations are not made yet, and we have not put it to the department, so treat it as the thing to check rather than a finding. It is the single number that will decide how large this expansion actually is.

What else has to be true

The department lists conditions, all subject to regulations: a maximum of 1 MW for new installations and 1 MW combined for expansions of existing systems; installer and product accreditation under the SRES; compliance with state and territory electrical safety rules; and compliance with planning approvals and network connection agreements. A written installer statement is required, and notably designer and retailer statements will not be required for mid-scale solar, which are required for standard rooftop work. The government also says it is considering additional design, installation and compliance requirements for this tier.

Our view, labelled as such

Filling the 100 kW to 1 MW gap is sensible policy and the sectors named are exactly the ones with big empty roofs and daytime loads. If a school or a packing shed generates its own power at noon, that is less demand on the grid at the time the grid is cheapest to serve, and the operators of those buildings are not households who will be caught out by complexity.

The reservation is about disclosure rather than design. The government made a point of saying, correctly and prominently, that the battery rebate would not be recovered from bills. This announcement says nothing at all about cost recovery, and it uses the mechanism that is recovered from bills. That is not a scandal, it is how the SRES has always worked, but a scheme expanding tenfold deserves the same sentence the battery scheme got, one way or the other. Until somebody publishes it, nobody can tell you what this costs a household, and that includes us.

Sources

1. Clean Energy Regulator, Expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV) eligibility under the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (published 5 August 2026, read 16 August 2026): the 5 August announcement, the 100 kW to 1 MW range, the intended 1 October 2026 start subject to regulations, that systems above 100 kW were previously only eligible for large-scale generation certificates, that existing accredited large-scale systems continue under the LRET, that arrangements for systems under 100 kW are unaffected, and that additional design, installation and compliance requirements are under consideration.
2. Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Renewable Energy Target scheme (read 16 August 2026): the stated purpose of helping businesses and community organisations lower energy costs, the named sectors, that liable entities must surrender STCs each year, the five-year deeming sentence, the eligibility conditions including the 1 MW caps and accreditation requirements, and that designer and retailer statements will not be required for mid-scale solar.
3. Clean Energy Regulator, Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (read 16 August 2026): that retailers have to buy and surrender a number of STCs set by the small-scale technology percentage, and that STCs are issued based on expected generation until the scheme ends in 2030.
4. Clean Energy Regulator, Small-scale technology percentage (page last updated 23 March 2026, read 16 August 2026): that the 2026 small-scale technology percentage is 11.67 per cent, that liable entities source and surrender STCs to meet scheme obligations, and that solar batteries will not be added to the STP because the department purchases equivalent certificates, with no costs passed to retailers or households.

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