CEC accreditation and how to check your solar installer is legitimate

For years, "Clean Energy Council accredited" was the phrase Australians were told to look for on a solar installer's business card, and it is still repeated constantly in advertising. What has changed, and what a lot of that advertising has not caught up with, is who actually issues that accreditation. As of 29 May 2024, responsibility for accrediting individual solar installers and designers transferred from the Clean Energy Council to a dedicated body called Solar Accreditation Australia, usually shortened to SAA. Old Council accreditation numbers only remain valid for work completed before that changeover, or until an installer obtained their new SAA number, whichever came first, so a business still leaning on an old-style accreditation claim today is worth questioning directly.

This matters for reasons well beyond terminology. Only designers and installers currently accredited by Solar Accreditation Australia can carry out work eligible to generate small-scale technology certificates under the federal rebate scheme, administered separately by the Clean Energy Regulator. In practice, that means an unaccredited installer, or one whose accreditation has lapsed, cannot legitimately deliver the rebate most people are counting on to make their quoted price achievable. If a business cannot produce a current, checkable accreditation number when asked, that alone is reason enough to look elsewhere before signing.

The Clean Energy Council itself has not disappeared, and it is worth understanding the distinction rather than assuming the two bodies are simply rivals covering the same ground. The Council remains a significant industry body and runs its own Approved Solar Retailer program, a separate accreditation aimed at the retail businesses that sell and arrange installation, covering sales conduct, contract terms and consumer protections rather than the hands-on technical competence of the tradesperson doing the install. A retailer can hold Council approval while the installer sent to your roof separately holds their own current SAA accreditation; asking about both is a reasonable, specific question.

Checking a claimed accreditation is genuinely straightforward and worth doing before you sign a contract, not after. Ask the installer or retailer for their current accreditation number directly, and verify it through Solar Accreditation Australia's own website rather than taking a badge on a van or a website footer at face value, since logos and badges can be copied or left up long after they stop being accurate. It is also worth asking specifically whether the panels and inverter being quoted appear on the Clean Energy Regulator's approved product lists, since using unlisted products can affect rebate eligibility regardless of how qualified the installer themselves is.

A few warning signs are worth taking seriously. An installer who cannot produce an accreditation number without hesitation, who becomes evasive when asked to confirm it, or whose quoted price sits so far below every other quote that it seems to leave no realistic margin for a properly accredited, properly insured business, deserves real scepticism rather than the benefit of the doubt. None of this guarantees a good outcome on its own, since accreditation reflects a baseline of technical competence and scheme eligibility rather than a guarantee of good service or business longevity, but it remains the most concrete, independently checkable starting point available. Our directory lists solar installers by area if you are ready to request quotes and check credentials.

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