Rebates

The battery rebate vets your installer and your battery. It does not vet who sold it to you

Three things stand between a household and a botched battery job: the product, the installer, and the business that sold it. The Cheaper Home Batteries discount puts hard conditions on the first two. On the third it says only that You can choose to purchase a battery from a New Energy Tech approved seller. Choose. The code that covers sales tactics, quotes, contracts, warranties and complaints is real, and it is optional, and almost nothing tells a buyer that at the moment they are getting the quote.

29 August 2026 Checked 29 Aug 2026

We have written about the product list your rebate depends on, and how a battery can be de-listed between the quote and the install. This is the other half of the same question, and it is the half nobody puts in a brochure: the scheme checks the hardware and the hands, and leaves the sales conduct to a voluntary code.

What the money actually requires

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water sets out the eligibility. On the installer it is unambiguous: The battery installation must be undertaken by or with supervision on site from a battery installer accredited by Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA). The department also says the program supports batteries approved by the Clean Energy Council, and that changes to the program came into effect on 1 May 2026.

The scheme has other conditions we are not covering here, including the 5 to 100 kWh nominal capacity range and certificates for the first 50 kWh of useable capacity. This piece is about who is vetted, not about how much the discount is worth.

What you get if you do choose one

The New Energy Tech Consumer Code is a written code, dated September 2020, that an approved seller agrees to be bound by. It is worth knowing what is in it, because the obligations are specific and several of them bite exactly where solar and battery selling has a reputation for going wrong.

• On the doorstep and the phone. A signatory promises that we will explain up-front the purpose of any un-requested (“unsolicited”) contact by us, in person or by telephone and advise that you can ask us to leave or end the contact at any time.
• On the quote. It must carry, conspicuously and prominently on the front page of the quote, your cooling-off and termination rights (if applicable) under the Australian Consumer Law (including the right to terminate a sales agreement within 10 business days if the sale resulted from an unsolicited contact) and this Code. It must also state that we are bound by this Code.
• On price. Our quote to you will specify the deposit payable (if any) and the total price of all offered New Energy Tech including any taxes that apply.
• On the contract. If you accept our quote and agree to purchase our New Energy Tech, we will provide you with a written contract that is clear, uses plain language and is in legible print.
• Afterwards. We will honour all guarantees and warranties you may be entitled to and we will promptly fix service issues, and make repairs or replacements. And on complaints, the seller will keep you informed as to progress and if you are not satisfied with our response, refer you to independent complaints bodies.

Read that list against the way these systems are actually sold and the point of the code is obvious. The cooling-off disclosure and the unsolicited-contact promise are aimed squarely at door-knocking and cold calling. The deposit and total-price clause is aimed at a quote that turns into a different number later.

The gap, stated plainly

None of that is a condition of the rebate. A household can buy from a business that has never signed the code, use an SAA-accredited installer and a Clean Energy Council approved battery, and receive the full discount. The scheme is indifferent to how the sale was made.

Our view, and it is a view rather than a finding: that is a defensible design and a poor consumer experience. Tying a rebate to a private code would hand a code administrator control over who can trade, which is a real objection. But the practical effect is that the one protection covering sales conduct is the one the buyer has to know exists, ask about, and check themselves, at exactly the moment they are least equipped to. The code administrator says it has Over 2,000 Australian retailers of solar, battery storage, EV chargers and more, committed to consumer protection, which is a large number of sellers and tells you nothing about the one in front of you.

The check is free and takes a minute: the code publishes a directory of approved sellers. If the business quoting you is not in it, that is not a reason to walk away, and it is a reason to ask which of the promises above they will put in writing.

Sources

1. Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Cheaper Home Batteries Program: eligibility information (read 29 August 2026): the quoted requirement for an installer accredited by Solar Accreditation Australia, on site or supervising on site; that the program supports batteries approved by the Clean Energy Council; that electrical wiring must be undertaken by a licensed professional in the relevant state or territory; that changes to the program came into effect on 1 May 2026; and the 5 to 100 kWh capacity range and certificates for the first 50 kWh of useable capacity. The page carries no mention of the New Energy Tech Consumer Code or of approved sellers.
2. energy.gov.au, Batteries (read 29 August 2026): the quoted sentence that you can choose to purchase a battery from a New Energy Tech approved seller who has signed up to the code, and the description of what those standards cover.
3. New Energy Tech Consumer Code, the code itself (September 2020, 29 pages, downloaded and read 29 August 2026): every quoted obligation, being the unsolicited-contact explanation, the front-page cooling-off and termination disclosure including the 10 business day right after unsolicited contact, the statement that the seller is bound by the code, the deposit and total price clause, the written contract clause, the warranties clause, and the complaints clause referring consumers to independent complaints bodies.
4. New Energy Tech Consumer Code, home page (read 29 August 2026): the quoted claim of over 2,000 Australian retailers of solar, battery storage, EV chargers and more committed to consumer protection, which is the administrator's own description of its scheme.
5. New Energy Tech Consumer Code, Find an Approved Seller (read 29 August 2026): the public directory a buyer can check a business against. The seller count is not stated on this page, which is why it is cited to the home page above.

Methodology. Every requirement in the table was read first-hand from the department's own eligibility page and is quoted or paraphrased from it; the code obligations were read from the 29-page code document, downloaded rather than summarised. We say the code is optional because the department's eligibility page does not list it among the conditions and the government's consumer page frames it as a choice in those words, not because we could not find it stated anywhere. We have not asked the department or the code administrator whether tying the two together has been considered, and we do not report what any seller has done. The closing section is labelled as our view and rests on the sourced facts above.

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