Australia announces enhanced safety rules for solar panels

Share

The new regulations include:

  • To be eligible for Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), installations must now comply with state and territory regulations for siting panels and building codes, including for panel mountings and connection;
  • Installers must be both Clean Energy Council (CEC) accredited and licensed electricians, with the exception of some remote non-grid connections; and
  • Requiring installers of solar panels to retain documentation of how they have met the above requirements.

The requirement to be a licensed electrician, which is already part of the CEC accreditation requirements, will now be an explicit requirement for the RET and its compliance regime. If these requirements are not met, installers will face penalties such as fines, injunctions, ineligibility to create RECs or criminal charges, the government said.

"Solar panels allow householders to play their part in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions," Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Senator Penny Wong said. "The government takes safety for solar PV very seriously and these additional measures will further strengthen safety arrangements for solar panels supported by the Renewable Energy Target."

Senator Wong added that the enhanced RET, currently before the Senate, also includes a number of new compliance measures such as civil penalties, tougher financial penalties and more stringent documentation requirements to prove compliance. The RET Bills were introduced on 12 May 2010 and the Government is committed to passage of the legislation before Parliament rises.

She continued: "The amendments give the Renewable Energy Regulator more power to use against people that do the wrong thing, including breaches of safety requirements."

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Longi introduces 665 W HPBC photovoltaic modules

11 October 2024 The Chinese PV manufacturer said its new module series has a power conversion efficiency of up to 24.8% and temperature coefficient is -0.26% per C.

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.