Knowledge/Accreditation and audits/Self-accredit, or work under an aggregator?
Self-accredit, or work under an aggregator?
You can work out what self-accrediting costs. Nobody has published when it starts to pay off. What's on record is who wears the loss when a job fails. An aggregator, the accredited person you'd work under instead, loses a service fee if it knocks back a bad job. If you're self-accredited, you can lose the whole equipment value.
- Cost to self-accredit
- $5,000+application and registry, before renewals
- Audit
- Every 2 yearsyour cost, ongoing
- Break-even point
- Not publishedby anyone, us included
- If a job fails
- You lose morea fee for them, the gear for you
Read
this
first
Nobody has published a break-even, including us
We went looking for the number of jobs a year where self-accrediting starts to beat working under an aggregator. None of the sources we could get hold of has one.
The cost side we can give you. It's $3,000 to apply and $2,000 to open a Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) Registry account, which is where the $5,000+ comes from. Then it's $1,000 a year to renew and $4.35 for every certificate you create.
So this page is our take on the costs and risks that are on record, not a sum worked out from a published figure. Use it to think the decision through, not as the answer.
We'd rather tell you that than dress up a guess as maths.
Who wears the loss when a job fails?
This is the clearest point in everything we read, and it comes from the Energy Efficiency Council's April 2026 submission to the VEU review. If an aggregator knocks back a job that doesn't comply, its cost is limited to the loss of a service fee.
If you're self-accredited, you can also lose the entire value of the equipment or incentive provided upfront.
So it isn't the same risk at a bigger or smaller size. It's a different kind of risk. On a bad job the aggregator loses a fee. You lose the gear.
One thing about the source. The Energy Efficiency Council is the industry's peak body, and a submission like that is written to argue a case. The point about who wears the loss still makes sense on its own.
What I'd want to know before deciding
- How many certificates a year do you actually create?Not how many jobs. Certificates, because both the $4.35 creation fee and the money you make go by the certificate.
- Who in your business would carry the paperwork?Six years of records, an audit every two years, yearly CPD (continuing professional development) and a renewal deadline. If the honest answer is you, at night, that's a real cost.
- Can you carry a rejected job?Not a lost fee. The equipment. If one failed claim on a ducted changeover would hurt, the risk above is pointing you towards an aggregator.
- What does your current accredited person (AP) actually do for the fee?Some do genuine compliance work. Some just forward paperwork. You're paying for the first kind either way, so it's worth knowing which one you've got.
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 your accredited person pays you, and why nobody publishes itNothing in the scheme's rules sets what an accredited person pays an installer, and we found no published rate cards. Here's what to ask for instead.
- The training evidence your accredited person needs before you startThe rule change on 9 September 2026 (section 14FA). What you have to prove, who you prove it to, and which activities don't list VEU-specific training units.
- The assignment of rights that makes the job validYour customer hands their right to create certificates to the accredited person. What makes that valid, and why a pre-July 2025 template may not comply.
- On a rental job, the landlord signs the assignmentThe tenant holds the energy account, but section 16(2) treats the landlord as the consumer so they can sign. Likely to come up far more often from 2027.
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.