Purchasing solar is complex and confusing for customers. They need help in determining which retailers meet higher standards of service and will provide a comprehensive whole-of-system warranty, whose marketing claims can be trusted and whose directors haven’t run other dodgy solar companies that avoid their obligations and rip people off.
Six years ago, a group of solar businesses came together to address this problem and preserve the integrity of the solar industry.
这是一个不同的群体。许多存在的人代表着小型或中型太阳能零售商。他们共同的共同之处是一个热情，以结束对底部的成本 - 最终的太阳能系统的竞争。他们还回应了关于少数令人肆无忌惮的经营者提出的担忧，他们已经开始进入一个产业。
在探索一系列选项后，在零售实践上提高酒吧 - 并限制臭名昭着的个人的活动与商业行为不良的历史 - 它同意建立一个自愿行业行业准则，以允许良好的家伙区分低位优质球员。虽然据认识到，游戏中有一系列监管机构（如澳大利亚竞争和消费者委员会（ACCC），能源安全机构和消费者事务），他们都没有赦免或能力来充分解决狡猾的零售。
It’s also worth remembering that regulators can only take action after someone has done something wrong – what was needed was proactive action to encourage better business practices and protect consumers rather than simply punishing them after the damage has been done.
The Approved Solar Retailer program was the result. Established as a voluntary industry code after extensive consultation with the solar industry, regulators and a broad range of consumer groups and stakeholders, it kicked off in 2013 after being established with an independent review panel and authorised by the ACCC.
The Approved Solar Retailer program was voluntary, meaning it took a while for the program to gain momentum and reputation. But we believed it was worth investing in for the long haul.
State governments became aware of the program and its potential for sifting out the good operators from the bad ones. And gradually more and more local and state governments have started to prefer Approved Solar Retailers in their own tenders and programs. It helps to give governments greater confidence that customers will have a better experience, and that government subsidies do not line the pockets of a dodgy business operator whose last company has just folded and started up again under another name. There are now over 250 Approved Solar Retailers in the program, many of them small and medium operators from regional areas.
Yesterday the Victorian Government announced it was requiring all systems purchased under the Solar Homes program – a $1.3 billion scheme supporting the installation of solar on 700,000 Victorian households over the next decade with a subsidy of up to $2250 – to be from an Approved Solar Retailer. It will be a phased-in requirement over the next eight months, giving retailers time to get their ship in order and go through the rigorous application process.
This will be annoying news for two categories of the solar industry. Firstly, low quality retailers who don’t meet the standards required by the Approved Solar Retailer program will be excluded from the Solar Homes program in the future. The current Approved Solar Retailer program rejects 35-40 per cent of all applications. Stand by to hear complaints about this new government requirement being anti-competitive to their business model (which essentially amounts to preying on naive customers with dodgy practices).
But we also need to acknowledge the second category that will be annoyed: some of the good operators. While there are already over 250 of them across the country that have gone through the process to become approved, this new requirement will mean hundreds more quality operators will need to go through the rigorous assessment process, just to confirm that their practices are (and may have been for years) ship shape. Unfortunately, this extra cost and effort is necessary because of a bunch of dodgy players.
一旦批准，所有零售商都需要确保他们继续履行其承诺并走路。合规制度已收紧，违反了守则调查，并对零售商采取的清晰采取行动，以扩大违约的严重性。零售商正在经常审核和调查，并达成一个神秘的购物者计划。我们致力于确保其绝对最高的完整性，这将涉及暂停和取消，如果需要它们。
Yes, this adds more burden onto solar retailers wanting to participate in the Solar Homes program. But governments are recognising the Approved Solar Retailer program as an effective, off-the-shelf way to encourage better behaviour and weed out the unscrupulous players that take advantage of customers and give the industry a bad name. For most businesses, the cost of doing business has just gone up slightly. But for those who aren’t interested in delivering quality to customers, they’re about to find that the cost of doing business has gone up a lot more than they bargained for.
