The panels are on the roof, generating, and not allowed to export
More than half the elapsed time between deciding to install rooftop solar and being permitted to export is waiting for a meter. A regulated 15-business-day limit exists; the ombudsman has recorded waits beyond 40 business days with no timeline given.
Steps this would change
Rationale
The process models at 58 days from quote to
export, and 30 of them — 52 per cent — are the meter. It is the only
queue in the chain and it is the largest single component.
Everything before it works. Network connection approval takes 3 to 10 business days. Installation takes a day. The subsidy is applied at the point of sale with no application, no window and no claim — the best delivery mechanism in this database.
Then the household waits, with a working generator on the roof that it is not permitted to export from, and is paid nothing for what it produces beyond what it happens to use at the time it produces it.
The regulated position and the observed position differ. Digital meters have been required to be installed within 15 business days since 1 February 2019, and a metering coordinator must repair or replace a faulty meter within 10 days of notification — although this is often not occurring. The Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW has recorded a customer more than 40 business days past notification, who had contacted the retailer four or five times and been given no timeline. In South Australia, complaints about meter installation and removal rose 29 per cent in one year, with solar-related upgrade delays the largest subcategory.
And the structural problem is that nobody in this step is the household's counterparty. The householder bought from an installer, who has finished and left. The retailer appoints the metering coordinator. The coordinator does the work. The network authorises the result. The customer has a contract with the retailer and a complaint about a party they have never dealt with.
What should change:
- Publish metering coordinator performance against the regulated timeframe — by coordinator, by retailer, by jurisdiction, as median and 90th percentile. Nothing is published now, which is why the 30-day figure on this site is built from ombudsman case evidence rather than data.
- Give the customer a date, in writing, at the point the retailer is notified. The ombudsman case that defines this entry is not really about 40 business days; it is about a person contacting a retailer five times and being given no timeline at all.
- Deem export permitted at the regulated timeframe. If the meter is not in place within 15 business days of a compliant installation, the system may export and the household is credited on a deemed basis until the meter arrives. The risk of the delay then sits with the party that controls it.
Recommendation 3 is the one that would work and the one that would be fought.
It is the standard deem structure this site proposes elsewhere, applied to a
commercial timeframe rather than a regulatory one.
Days saved: 21, being the difference between the modelled 30 days and the regulated 15 business days — which is to say, the saving is compliance with the existing rule.
What is being traded away
Deemed export without a bidirectional meter means estimated settlement, and estimates get gamed. Somebody has to decide what the system would have exported. Any assumption generous enough to protect households will overpay some of them, and the cost lands on other customers through network and retail charges. It is a real transfer, not a free correction.
Metering coordinators are constrained by things a deadline does not fix. Meter availability, licensed field technicians, site access, switchboard non-compliance discovered on arrival, and the sheer volume created by a subsidy that is working — the Cheaper Home Batteries Program has added a large new stream of metering work to the same crews. A penalty for missing a timeframe does not create a technician, which is the same objection this site made about clinical placements.
Publishing performance by coordinator invites gaming of the measurement. The clock starts when the retailer notifies the coordinator, and if that is the measured trigger then the delay migrates upstream into the notification step, where nobody is looking. Recommendation 1 needs the clock to run from the installation's compliance certificate, not from an internal handoff.
And the numbers here are the weakest in this batch. The 30-day median and 60-day p90 are this project's estimates, constructed from two ombudsman observations and one state complaint statistic. They are labelled as estimates in the process and they should not be cited as measurements. That is precisely the gap recommendation 1 is meant to close — and until it is closed, the honest statement is that the meter is clearly the largest wait and its size is not known.
Precedent
The regulated timeframe already exists — digital meters were required to be installed within 15 business days from 1 February 2019. This proposal does not create an obligation. It asks for the existing one to be measured and published.
Sources
- From 1 February 2019 regulations required digital meters to be installed within 15 business days; current rules require a metering coordinator to repair or replace a faulty meter within 10 days of being notified, although this is often not occurring
- Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW case: more than 40 business days after being notified that a smart meter needed reconfiguration, with no timeline provided after four or five contacts with the retailer
- South Australia 2018-19: a 29 per cent increase in complaints related to meter installation or removal, with delays in meter upgrades associated with solar installations the biggest subcategory
- The retailer assigns a metering coordinator to install a bidirectional meter; only once the meter is in place and the DNSP authorises can the system legally begin exporting
- For standard residential systems, DNSP connection approval typically takes 3-10 business days