I was standing outside my child’s preschool recently, and I was talking to another parent about Rewiring Australia’s Electrify 2515 Community Pilot working to electrify more people’s homes in the Illawarra, where I live.
She was excited about the project and its energy bill-saving prospects. But she told me she didn’t apply to be a part of the program despite being so enthusiastic about it. Why not? Because she’s a renter.
Renters have been locked out of bill-saving upgrades like solar for too long. That’s why the Greens’ new proposal to give renters the right to request rooftop solar – and to fund it with a property-secured loan paid back on sale – is such a game-changer.
Millions of Australians rent their homes. They pay the same energy bills as everyone else, but they’ve had no practical way to install solar or electrify their homes. That’s not just unfair – it’s inefficient. We need every household participating in the energy transition if we want to bring down bills and emissions.
The Greens’ ‘Renter’s Right to Solar’ policy directly tackles this structural barrier. It gives renters a voice, gives landlords a fair and funded way to respond, and makes the economics of rooftop solar work for rentals for the first time at scale. And it does it without adding lots of complexity or red tape – just a clear, smart mechanism tied to the property.
When the renter requests the upgrade, the landlord can’t unreasonably refuse it, but they have the option: either install it at their own expense, or use a government-provided loan that’s indexed to inflation, secured by a caveat on the property, and can be paid down at any time, but doesn’t have to be repaid until the property is next sold. It’s simple, fair, and allows for upfront investments in energy upgrades to be paid back on a timetable that works for the borrower instead of the lender.
This approach is closely aligned with proposals we’ve been developing at Rewiring Australia and written about before: indexed, property-secured finance that stays with the home, not the person.
And the payoff is huge. Our research shows households that fully electrify – rooftop solar, heat pumps, induction cooking, efficient appliances and an EV – can save over $4,000 a year. That’s life-changing for families already doing it tough. But unless we tackle the rental barrier, a third of the country misses out.
We’ve seen this challenge firsthand through our Electrify 2515 Community Pilot near Wollongong where I live. Despite strong community enthusiasm and wide uptake among homeowners, participation from renters has been limited.
I still encourage renters to apply for the pilot and explained that the pilot team would be making the case directly to local property managers. But the reality is, we’ll be relying heavily on the goodwill of landlords – their environmental values or sense of community – because the basic economics don’t yet stack up for them.
Without a policy shift like the Greens are proposing, renters will keep bumping up against the same wall. That’s not a failure of personal motivation – it’s a systemic problem, and it needs a systemic fix.
That’s why we’ve written to the Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, and the Assistant Minister Josh Wilson, calling for a National Strategy on Renter Energy Bills.
Modeled on the National Electric Vehicle Strategy, it would provide the coordination, policy levers and funding pathways needed to make energy upgrades possible in rental homes – and to break the market failure that keeps tenants stuck in high-cost, fossil-fuelled homes.
The Greens’ proposal is a great example of the kind of thinking that could underpin such a strategy: targeted, equitable, and effective.
And while this is a renter-focused policy, the underlying model – property-tied, repayment-secured finance – opens up exciting possibilities well beyond solar. It could be extended to support low-income homeowners to access heat pumps, insulation, or electric stoves, unlocking deeper energy savings and health benefits for those who need them most.
We applaud the Greens for leading on this. And we’ll keep pushing to make sure every household – no matter who owns the roof – has access to clean, affordable energy.
If the next government enacts a policy like this, hopefully I’ll soon be comparing electrification savings with more parents at the preschool gate, no matter whether they’re a renter or homeowner.
Francis Vierboom is the CEO of Rewiring Australia
