Western Australia's Director of Energy Safety has prosecuted an electrical contractor and an electrical worker over a home battery installation that was wired so it could feed electricity back to the network when the network was supposed to be dead. The combined penalties were $25,000.
The defect was found by an inspector, a fortnight after sign-off
The installation was carried out at a Maylands property in October 2025. An electrical worker and two apprentices under his supervision fitted solar panels and a battery storage system on behalf of the contracting business.
A fortnight later, an inspection identified incorrect wiring associated with the battery storage system. The wiring could unintentionally back-feed electricity to the network during a power outage. Building and Energy classes that as a dangerous defect, because a worker attending equipment they have every reason to believe is de-energised can receive an electric shock from it.
Both parties pleaded guilty to breaching Western Australia's electricity licensing regulations. On 19 June 2026, in the Perth Magistrates Court, Magistrate Jennifer Hawkins fined the contracting business $20,000 and the electrical worker $5,000. The magistrate noted the worker's remorse, absence of prior offences, and the measures taken to prevent a repeat. Building and Energy published the outcome on 29 July 2026.
The paperwork offence sits separately from the wiring offence
The two charges are worth separating, because they describe different failures and they landed on different parties.
The worker was prosecuted over electrical work that did not comply with the wiring rules. The contracting business was prosecuted over the notice of completion, which declared that the electrical work was complete, compliant and safe when the wiring meant it was none of those things.
A notice of completion is a declaration, not an administrative formality. Lodging one is an assertion that the installation has been tested and found safe. In this matter the declaration was made and the defect survived it, which is the failure the regulator pursued the business over.
The sequence also shows what did not catch the fault. It was not found during commissioning, and it was not found by the business that lodged the sign-off. It was found by an inspector two weeks later, on a system that had been declared safe and left connected to a customer's home.
Back-feed during an outage is the hazard the testing exists to exclude
A battery system with backup capability is designed to keep supplying a property when the network supply drops away. Whether it also keeps that supply inside the property, rather than pushing it toward the network, depends on how the transition arrangement is wired and on the testing that proves it.
Three points follow for anyone completing battery work in this state:
- Isolation of the network side is a tested outcome, not an assumed one. The relevant test is whether the installation actually stops exporting when supply is lost. That determination belongs in the test records that support the notice of completion.
- Supervised apprentice labour does not move the compliance duty. Two apprentices worked on this installation. The penalties fell on the licensed worker and on the contracting business.
- A defect that reaches an inspector has already passed a sign-off. The gap between the two is where the second charge in this case lives.
Building and Energy has published guidance on this class of work. WA battery installation safety and compliance checks sets out the records expected to support a notice of completion, and testing requirements for grid-connected hybrid inverters covers the backup-mode testing that a system of this type has to pass before it is declared complete.
Sources: Government of Western Australia, "Electrical prosecution for dangerous battery installation" (opens in a new tab); Electrical Connection, "Workers placed at risk of electric shock" (opens in a new tab).
