Installers search for a “distance rule” because they have heard of crews being questioned about sites that were too far apart on the same day. The honest answer is that the rule is about presence, and distance only matters because it makes presence impossible.
What the rules actually require
The accredited installer who signs the claim has to be physically on site for the key stages: at job setup, partway through the installation and at commissioning. Evidence is a set of time-stamped, geotagged photos, including the installer’s own on-site photo. The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) has taken action against installers who could not show they were there. For detail on the stages see installer attendance requirements.
On top of that, accreditation limits how many installations one installer can be responsible for in a day. At the time of writing that cap is reported as two. Check the Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA) installer requirements for the current figure.
Why distance becomes the giveaway
The CER and SAA do not need to guess. Photo metadata gives them a timeline per installer. If the same accreditation number appears at a site in Geelong at 9am and one in Ballarat at 9:40am with a third job claimed at lunch, the data tells the story. This is the sort of pattern risk-based audits are built to find. See how the CER chooses jobs to audit.
Handovers and multiple installers
Rules changed to allow more than one installer on a rooftop job where one cannot finish, or the work is handed from one accredited person to another. If you roster this way:
- Record who covered which stage, with dated photos for each person.
- Make sure each person is accredited for the system type.
- Do not list a supervising installer who was not there.
What this means for installers
- Cap daily installs at what one accredited person can attend properly.
- Take the setup, mid-job and commissioning photos at the right moment, not in a batch at the end.
- Keep a simple day sheet showing who was where. It costs a few minutes and answers most audit questions.
- Do not sign off jobs you did not attend. See what happens if you are liable for a false claim.
Photo requirements are covered in the STC photo requirements checklist. A pre-check of every claim before lodgement, as the compliance desk at Energy Merchants does, will flag timing clashes before the CER does. For the wider picture, start at STC trading.
A worked example
Take a two-person crew with one accredited installer. On Tuesday they book a 6.6 kW job in the morning and a second job 90 minutes away in the afternoon. The accredited installer needs to be present for setup and mid-installation at both, and to commission both. If the first job runs long, the second job’s setup photos will be taken late or by someone else. The metadata will show it. The fix is to book the second job for the next day, or to bring in a second accredited installer who is properly recorded on that job.