This week's newsroom update recorded NETCC opening 251 compliance cases in the January to March 2026 quarter, with 42 investigations resulting in compliance action. NETCC does not publish a breakdown of those cases by category, so the quarter says how much oversight activity there was rather than what drove it. A product update covered in ecogeneration's June 2026 edition is worth reading against that volume.
Current-guidance boundary: This bulletin records product features described in June 2026. Software output does not replace current rebate inputs, load analysis, site assessment, network requirements, manufacturer documentation or professional judgement.
Pylon's Battery Recommender now sizes to actual usage
Solar design software provider Pylon has upgraded its Battery Recommender tool, used by installers to model system sizing before a proposal goes to the customer. The update runs digital simulations of solar and battery performance against a property's actual consumption, rather than defaulting to the largest system a rebate can support.
Pylon co-founder Nelson Zheng told ecogeneration that the feature was intended to address battery designs based on large capacities rather than assessed customer needs. No direct article URL or transcript was retained with this record, so the original quotation is not reproduced here.
The update also adds:
- State-of-charge charts showing how a proposed battery would charge and discharge across a typical day.
- Utilisation metrics, including days of autonomy and cycles per day, alongside the existing heat-map sizing view.
- Automatic rebate handling. The May 2026 battery rebate reduction is already built into the model, so sizing reflects current settings without manual adjustment.
- Sizing up to 500 kWh, extending the tool to commercial and industrial jobs.
A companion feature in early alpha, the Automatic Bill Reader, lets installers upload a customer's electricity bill PDF and pulls usage and feed-in tariff data directly into the design, cutting the manual entry step that slows down first-visit quoting.
Sizing to the customer rather than the rebate ceiling
Oversizing is the vendor's own account of the problem, not a finding attributed to the regulator. Zheng's framing, that batteries have generally been designed to their maximum size rather than the customer's actual needs, describes the behaviour from inside the supply chain. A tool built to model actual usage against a rebate-adjusted system, rather than to hit a rebate ceiling, addresses that behaviour at the design stage rather than in the paperwork after it.
Worth a look, not a switch
This is not a directive to change software providers. It is worth PSW Energy's and Perth Solar Warehouse's design and quoting teams knowing this option exists and checking whether it, or an equivalent update in whatever tool is currently in use, would tighten the gap between quoted and needed system size ahead of the next NETCC compliance window.
Sources: ecogeneration, "Automation improves solar design" (ecogeneration.com.au, June 2026 edition); NETCC quarterly compliance report, January to March 2026 (opens in a new tab).
Current-status note
This bulletin was reviewed on 9 August 2026. The feature descriptions are based on vendor statements reported by ecogeneration and were not independently tested by McKercher. Software capabilities, embedded rebate settings and product data may have changed since publication. Design teams should validate current inputs and outputs against site data, manufacturer documentation, network requirements and applicable standards. Current compliance context is maintained in the WA solar and battery compliance centre and the battery retrofit guide.
