The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued its final determination on the New Energy Tech Consumer Code on 28 August 2026. Authorisation is granted with conditions, and expires on 19 September 2031. The register entry for the application, AA1000702, is now recorded as complete.
The determination ends a process that has been open for two years. The Clean Energy Council lodged the application for revocation and substitution on 26 August 2025, seeking authorisation for the code including a set of amendments to it. Interim authorisation followed on 11 September 2025, which is what has kept the code operating on a firm legal footing since the previous authorisation lapsed. The ACCC published a draft determination on 28 May 2026 proposing authorisation with conditions for five years, and took submissions until 25 June 2026.
The final determination is the decision that draft proposed. It is worth separating the two, because a draft determination is a proposal the ACCC can depart from, and until this week the outcome was not settled.
The December date is the operative one
Two authorisations sit inside the determination rather than one. The amended code is authorised with conditions for the full five-year term. Giving effect to the current code without amendments is authorised separately, without conditions, until 19 December 2026.
That second date is the one with a deadline attached. It marks the end of the period in which the unamended code can be relied on, and therefore the point at which the amended version becomes the operative document for signatories. Anything a seller currently does by reference to the existing code text (contract templates, disclosure documents, sales training, complaint handling procedure) is drafted against a version with a published expiry.
The conditions attached to the five-year authorisation are set out in the determination document published on the ACCC register. They are not summarised here, because their terms should be read from the determination rather than from a description of it.
What this settles for Western Australia
The code is not a voluntary credential in this state. Since 1 October 2025, accreditation to the WA Residential Battery Scheme has required the vendor to be an Approved Seller under the code, either at the point of application or within three months of becoming an Accredited Vendor. That makes the code a condition of trading under the scheme.
The consequence of that arrangement is that the legal standing of the code and the ability to sell under a WA government incentive are connected. While authorisation was running on an interim basis, the foundation of a state trading condition rested on a temporary instrument. A five-year determination replaces that with a fixed term, and gives both sellers and the scheme administrator a horizon to plan against.
The sequence this completes
The reauthorisation lands two weeks after the first independent review of the code was published, and the two documents answer different questions. The review examined whether the code is working and set ten priorities for its future operation, including governance, audit capacity and a move to data-led compliance. The determination decides whether the code may lawfully operate at all, and for how long.
Read together they describe a code that has been found effective in principle, judged to be carrying more weight than its original design anticipated, and now given a five-year term in which to act on that finding. The review's implementation plan, which the NETCC Council and the Clean Energy Council are preparing, has a defined period to run in.
Neither document alters an obligation on an Approved Seller today. The change with a date on it is the 19 December 2026 transition to the amended code, and the work that precedes it is a documentation review rather than a change in conduct.
Verifying a seller's standing
Approved Seller status is held on the NETCC register, which is the record that reflects current standing. A certificate shows what was true when it was issued. PSW Energy and Perth Solar Warehouse hold separate NETCC Approved Seller certificates, each expiring in May 2027.
The limits of what the code can enforce against a seller who has already lost that status were set out in an earlier record of multi-state investigations. Expulsion removes a credential, and in Western Australia it also removes the basis for scheme accreditation, which is the exception that makes the code carry more weight in this state than elsewhere.
The determination and its supporting documents are published by the ACCC on its authorisations register under application AA1000702, at accc.gov.au (opens in a new tab).
