Knowledge/Accreditation and audits/The register timing trap that kills finished jobs
The register timing trap that kills finished jobs
The product has to be on the Essential Services Commission (ESC) register on the day the certificate is created, not the day you installed it (regulation 16). If it's not listed then, there's no certificate. Products come on and off the register all the time, so a job can pass at install and fail weeks later.
- Regulation
- 16product must be listed
- Tested at
- Certificate creationnot at installation
- Register
- veu.esc.vic.gov.aupublic registry
- Also required
- GEMS 2019Greenhouse and Energy Minimum Standards, not the 2013 version
Why is the timing a trap?
Read regulation 16 slowly. The test is whether the product is on the ESC register at the time the certificate is created. Being on the register on install day only ticks the separate pre-installation product check. It doesn't mean the certificate will go through.
Products go on and come off the register all the time. So here's how it goes wrong. You install a listed product and the job's fine on the day. Then the model comes off the register before you create the certificate.
That's a finished, paid, working install with no certificate at the end of it. The shorter the gap between the install and creating the certificate, the less exposed you are.
Which other registration does the product need?
The ESC register isn't the only product gate. Space heating and cooling jobs come under Part 6 of the Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) Specifications, and there the product has to be registered under the GEMS (Air Conditioners up to 65kW) Determination 2019. Products registered under the older GEMS 2013 Determination aren't eligible.
For water heaters, from 1 July 2024 only products registered as tested to AS/NZS 4234:2021 are eligible, and the refrigerant has to have a global warming potential (GWP) under 700.
Two registers, two answers
A product can qualify for federal STCs (small-scale technology certificates) and still not qualify for VEECs (Victorian energy efficiency certificates). They're different lists, checked against different standards. If you're quoting both, check both, because passing one tells you nothing about the other.
Not
the
register
The VEEC calculator isn't the register
It's the obvious tool to reach for, and it isn't the authority. The version of the calculator we checked only listed products approved up to 23 May 2025, and we couldn't find out whether a newer version exists in the current registry.
So a product can be properly listed and missing from the calculator, or the other way round. Either way you'd be making a compliance call off a tool that isn't the register.
Check the public registry itself at veu.esc.vic.gov.au, and check it close to when you create the certificate, not when you quoted.
Working out whether to get accredited?
It's a real decision with real numbers on both sides, and most of the people offering advice make money whichever way you go.
Kevin has no stake in which way you go. Ask him.
Who this is for: small and medium HVAC contractors in Victoria. If you're a homeowner after a rebate or a repair, you need a licensed contractor, not us, and yours can point you the right way.
Related
- What actually triggers an audit, and who pays for itThree different things get called an audit. One is routine and scheduled, one needs reasonable grounds, and one happens to every certificate you create.
- Everything the regulator can do to you, from a warning upFrom a warning up to an order to hand back certificates at 600 penalty units. Every step, its section number, and what it comes to in dollars.
- The two March 2026 cases, and what actually got them$4.2 million in certificates refused and one five-year ban. Exactly what the two businesses did, straight from the regulator's own media release.
- If your accredited person loses accreditation, the offence is yoursKeep doing scheme jobs for an accredited person who's lost accreditation and you're the one committing the offence. And suspension can be immediate.
Review date: 1 January 2027. Figures in this area change without much notice and this page carries some that will go stale. Every number above is dated and sourced so you can check it yourself. If you find something out of date here, tell us and we will fix it.