Regulator wins fraud conviction against solar installer as Bowen bats off battery rebate rorting claims

A Victorian solar installer has narrowly avoided a community corrections order after being convicted and fined for fraudulent conduct under the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) that governs federal rooftop solar and home battery rebates.

The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) – which oversees the SRES and the Cheaper Home Batteries schemes – said on Thursday that installer Toby Payne had pleaded guilty in the Frankston Magistrates’ Court to intentionally making a false statement in a statutory declaration and was convicted and fined $10,000.

CER investigators found the installer had falsely claimed in Commonwealth statutory declarations that he had attended solar installations onsite in Melbourne when he was interstate at the time. The declarations were relied on to create small-scale technology certificates (STCs) under the scheme.

The conviction and fine comes amid reports that the CER has fielded nearly 100 “tip-offs” alleging fraud and misconduct by industry participants in federal Labor’s hugely successful Cheaper Home Batteries scheme.

The ABC report says the allegations were found within “hundreds of pages” obtained from the CER through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which did not detail any regulatory action that may be underway. It says the FOI documents “included 95 tip-offs” sent between March and June to the CER.

The report says these tip-offs were “primarily about the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.”

The claims have been seized upon by the Coalition’s shadow energy minister Dan Tehan, who has taken the opportunity to call for a Senate inquiry into the home battery rebate.

He has asked federal energy minister Chris Bowen during question time if he could guarantee that all batteries installed under the scheme had been installed safely and in compliance with technical requirements.

In response, Bowen said he could guarantee that all batteries had been installed under the SRES – “one of the world’s most rigorous schemes for compliance, which has been operating under governments of both persuasions” since 2011.

Bowen also told parliament that the SRES had received a total of 315 complaints over the past year across solar panel installations, battery installations and solar hot water installations.

“That is 0.04 per cent of 800,000 installations in the last 12 months,” Bowen said. “Of those complaints, 106 matters were referred for other enforcement and 17 matters have needed to be progressed for formal investigations.

“That’s 17 out of more than 530,000 cheaper home battery installations and 800,000 others. That’s 0.002 per cent of installed systems referred for formal investigation and 0.01 per cent referred to other enforcement agencies.”

In its own detailed statement on Thursday, the regulator said the outcome of its latest investigation and legal action demonstrated that “where evidence of serious non-compliance exists, the CER will take appropriate enforcement action.”

“We have zero tolerance for fraud,” the statement says. “Enforcement action will be taken where it is warranted under our compliance, education and enforcement policy.”

The statement says investigations into fraud and non-compliance are part of the CER’s broad remit of compliance activities, and that in the past year it has suspended and removed five registered persons and two accredited installers from participating in the SRES.

“As a result, those registered persons are unable to create STCs and solar PV and battery installations completed by those installers are ineligible for STCs,” it says.

“In addition, two solar installers have now received criminal convictions for offences relating to fraudulent conduct in the scheme.”

In this week’s instance, the regulator says that the offending was regarded as serious, but the defendant’s guilty plea meant that he avoided jail or a Community Corrections Order.

“We remind all scheme participants that statutory declarations are legal documents setting out facts that a person declares to be true and accurate,” the regulator says.

“Providing false statements in a statutory declaration, such as claiming onsite attendance when a person did not attend, is a serious offence under Commonwealth law and undermines the integrity of our schemes.”

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