Most solar cancellations do not blow up because the customer changed their mind. They blow up because nobody wrote anything down, the deposit sat in the business account, and a polite “actually, we’ve decided not to go ahead” got treated as a maybe instead of a legal notice.
I have watched this play out from every side of the trade: sitting across the kitchen table on a quote, sitting in a supplier’s office when a deal fell over, and sitting with business owners trying to work out whether they had to give a deposit back. So this one is written for you, the operator. If you understand exactly what your customer is entitled to when they want out, you can handle the cancellation cleanly, keep it off the Clean Energy Council’s desk, and move on. Get it wrong and a two-minute phone call becomes a tribunal claim.
Here is how cooling-off actually works on a solar contract, what happens to the deposit, what happens to the STCs, and where it escalates when someone digs in.
The core right: unsolicited consumer agreements
The rule that catches most solar sales is the unsolicited consumer agreement provision in the Australian Consumer Law. If the contract was signed because you approached the customer rather than the other way around, at their door, over the phone after an unsolicited call, or at a shopping-centre stand, it is very likely an unsolicited consumer agreement.
That classification matters because it comes with an automatic cooling-off period. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission explains that for unsolicited agreements the consumer generally has 10 business days to cancel, and during that window the supplier must not accept payment or begin supplying for the first 10 business days in some circumstances (ACCC, n.d.). The clock starts the first business day after the customer receives the agreement documents, not the day of the doorknock.
This is the bit a lot of installers get wrong: the cooling-off right does not depend on the customer having a “good reason”. Inside the window, buyer’s remorse is enough. They can walk away with no penalty and no obligation to explain themselves.
A contract the customer chased, one signed in your showroom or completed online after they enquired, is a different animal. Those are not automatically unsolicited agreements, so there may be no statutory cooling-off period at all unless your own contract grants one. Sprintlaw makes the same point in plain terms: cooling-off rights in Australia are not universal, they attach to specific types of agreement rather than to every contract you sign (Sprintlaw, n.d.).
Why people say “by state” when the rule is national
Search around and you will see “cooling-off rights by state”, which confuses people because the Australian Consumer Law is a single national law. The 10-business-day cooling-off period for unsolicited consumer agreements applies the same in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and everywhere else.
What actually varies by state is who enforces it and where a dispute lands. The ACL is administered federally by the ACCC and in each state or territory by the local consumer protection agency: Consumer Affairs Victoria, NSW Fair Trading, Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading, Consumer and Business Services in South Australia, and their equivalents. When a cancellation turns into a fight, that state agency, and then the state civil tribunal, is the venue. So “by state” is really “which regulator do I ring”, not “how many days do I get”.
There is one more wrinkle worth knowing. The cooling-off window can extend well beyond 10 business days where the supplier failed to meet its obligations, for example not telling the customer about their cancellation rights or not providing the agreement in the required form. In those cases the ACL allows a much longer period to cancel. I would not quote a hard number at a customer, but the principle is simple: sloppy disclosure hands the customer a far longer runway to unwind the deal, which is one more reason to get your paperwork right at signing.
Before installation versus after it begins
This is the fault line that decides most solar cancellations.
Cancel inside the cooling-off window and before any real work has started, and the customer is entitled to get out cleanly. No panels on the roof, no metre reconfigured, no goods “supplied” in any meaningful sense.
Once the install has genuinely begun, the picture changes. The consumer’s position shifts from “unwind the whole thing at no cost” toward the ordinary consumer-guarantee framework, where remedies depend on whether the work and goods are up to standard rather than on a free withdrawal right (ACCC, n.d.). If you have already mounted the system, a customer cannot usually invoke cooling-off to make you rip it off for free.
The trap here is manufactured urgency. I have seen sales processes designed to get a truck on site fast precisely so the business can claim “installation has begun” and defeat a cancellation. Do not run your business that way. Beginning supply during a cooling-off period on an unsolicited agreement can itself breach the ACL, and it is exactly the kind of conduct that turns a routine cancellation into a regulator complaint.
Cancellation has to be in writing
A verbal “nah, we’ve changed our mind” is a courtesy, not a legal notice, and it is impossible to prove three months later. The customer’s cancellation should be in writing, dated, and sent somewhere you can confirm receipt. From your side of the counter, you should treat any written notice as the trigger and confirm it back in writing the same day.
Here is wording that does the job. There is nothing clever about it, and that is the point.
To [business name], I am cancelling the solar supply and installation agreement dated [date], reference [quote or contract number], signed at [address]. I am exercising my cooling-off rights under the Australian Consumer Law. Please confirm cancellation in writing and refund any deposit paid to [payment method] within 10 business days. Do not commence any installation or supply. [Name, address, date]
If you are the installer receiving that, your reply should acknowledge the date received, confirm the cancellation, and state when the refund will land. That single confirmation email is often the difference between “handled” and “he said, she said” at a tribunal.
The deposit: what you can and cannot keep
Deposit forfeiture is not automatic, and a “non-refundable deposit” line in your terms does not override the ACL. If the customer cancels validly within the cooling-off window and you have not done the work, you generally cannot keep the money for work never performed.
Where a business has incurred genuine, reasonable costs, it may be entitled to recover those, but the ACL frames cancellation charges around what is actually reasonable, not a round number picked to sting. A blanket “we keep 30% no matter what” clause is the sort of term that gets a business in trouble, because a cancellation fee that is disproportionate to any real cost can be an unfair contract term. When in doubt, refund promptly and keep the goodwill; a fast, clean refund is cheaper than a Fair Trading matter and a one-star review that mentions the word “deposit” six times.
If you want the fuller picture on deposit risk from the customer’s side, including what happens to their money if a business collapses, I have covered what happens to a solar deposit when the installer goes under separately.
What happens to the STCs when a contract is cancelled
Most residential solar deals discount the up-front price because the customer assigns their right to create Small-scale Technology Certificates (STCs) to the installer or retailer. Quick refresher for anyone newer to the trade: STCs are tradeable certificates created from an eligible small-scale system’s deemed generation, and liable entities such as electricity retailers must buy and surrender them to the Clean Energy Regulator under the Renewable Energy Target (Clean Energy Regulator, n.d.). They are not a rebate, even though the up-front discount makes it feel like one to the buyer.
The practical point for a cancellation: STCs cannot be created until the system is installed and the paperwork is complete. If the contract is cancelled before install, there is no system, no deemed generation, and nothing to assign. The “STC discount” baked into the quoted price simply disappears along with the contract. Nobody is out of pocket on certificates, because none ever existed. Where operators get tangled up is when they have quoted a net price and try to claw back the notional STC value as a cancellation cost. That does not fly, because the value was contingent on an install that never happened.
When the retailer digs in: the escalation ladder
Sometimes cancellations are not handled well, and it is worth knowing the ladder your customer can climb, because it tells you how much leverage they actually have.
- Back to the business first. A written cancellation and a request for the refund, in writing, with a deadline. Most disputes should end here.
- The Clean Energy Council. For CEC Approved Solar Retailers, the Council runs a consumer feedback and complaints process tied to its code of conduct (Clean Energy Council, n.d.). A retailer that signed up to the code has real skin in the game here.
- State consumer protection agency. Consumer Affairs Victoria, NSW Fair Trading, Queensland Office of Fair Trading and the rest can take a complaint and, in many cases, attempt conciliation, before it heads to the relevant state civil tribunal.
- The ACCC and energy.gov.au guidance. The Commonwealth government’s solar dispute-resolution guidance maps these pathways and where each type of complaint belongs (energy.gov.au, n.d.). If a business has folded entirely, the ACCC’s guidance on dealing with a company that has gone bust becomes the relevant reference (ACCC, n.d.).
The lesson from the operator’s chair is blunt: every rung of that ladder rewards the party with the better paper trail. The business that can show the exact date the notice arrived, what it said, and what was done in response almost always comes out fine. The one relying on memory does not.
Why this is really about your records
None of the above is hard once you have handled it a few times. The reason it goes wrong is almost never the law. It is that the cancellation email landed in a personal inbox, the deposit refund got forgotten in the Friday rush, and three weeks later nobody can say for certain when notice was received.
This is the gap I am building CurrentFlow to close. The idea is that every customer interaction, including a contract status changing to cancelled and the date notice was received, sits on one timeline you can point to if a dispute ever surfaces. It will not write your refund cheque for you, but a business that can show exactly when a cancellation came in and what it did next is a business that does not lose these fights. If that sounds like a problem you have, join the waitlist and I will keep you posted as it comes together.
References
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (n.d.). Contracts. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/contracts
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (n.d.). Repair, replace, refund, cancel. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-service-you-bought/repair-replace-refund-cancel
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (n.d.). When a business goes bust. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/stay-protected/when-a-business-goes-bust
Clean Energy Council. (n.d.). Feedback and complaints. https://cleanenergycouncil.org.au/for-consumers/feedback-complaints
Clean Energy Regulator. (n.d.). Rooftop solar, solar battery and solar water heater complaints information. https://cer.gov.au/schemes/renewable-energy-target/small-scale-renewable-energy-scheme/small-scale-renewable-energy-systems/rooftop-solar/rooftop-solar-solar-battery-and-solar-water-heater-complaints-information
Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (n.d.). Dispute resolution. https://www.energy.gov.au/solar/solar-retailers-and-installation/dispute-resolution
Sprintlaw. (n.d.). Cooling-off periods in Australian contracts: Essential legal guide. https://sprintlaw.com.au/articles/cooling-off-periods-in-australian-contracts-essential-legal-guide/
FAQ
How long is the cooling-off period on a solar contract in Australia?
For an unsolicited consumer agreement, one signed after a doorknock, an unsolicited call, or at a public stand, the Australian Consumer Law generally provides a 10-business-day cooling-off period, starting the first business day after the customer receives the agreement (ACCC, n.d.). A contract the customer sought out, such as one signed in a showroom, may carry no automatic cooling-off right at all unless the contract itself grants one.
Does the cooling-off period change from state to state?
The cooling-off period itself does not, because the Australian Consumer Law is national. What changes by state is the enforcement agency and the tribunal a dispute goes to, for example Consumer Affairs Victoria or NSW Fair Trading. So the number of days is the same everywhere; only the escalation contacts differ.
Can a solar retailer keep my deposit if I cancel?
Not usually, if you cancel validly within the cooling-off window before work has started. A “non-refundable deposit” clause does not override the ACL, and any cancellation charge has to reflect genuine, reasonable costs rather than an arbitrary penalty (ACCC, n.d.). Money held for work never performed generally has to be refunded.
What happens to the STCs if I cancel before installation?
Nothing, because STCs cannot be created until the system is installed and the deemed generation exists (Clean Energy Regulator, n.d.). If there is no install, there are no certificates to assign, and the STC discount simply disappears with the cancelled contract.
What should I do if the retailer refuses to cancel or refund?
Put the cancellation in writing with a deadline, then escalate: the Clean Energy Council for an Approved Solar Retailer, your state consumer protection agency, and the pathways set out in the government’s solar dispute-resolution guidance (energy.gov.au, n.d.). Keep every dated document, because at every step the party with the better records tends to prevail.