Update on refrigerated cabinet activity

22 July 2022

Assessment of pending Victorian energy efficiency certificates

The Essential Services Commission thanks you for your ongoing support as we continue our investigation into multiple installations of refrigerated cabinets under the Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) program.

As we communicated earlier this month, we have recommenced our assessment of pending Victorian energy efficiency certificates for the refrigerated cabinet activity, focusing initially on those claims that have a lower per premise certificate total.

We are assessing pending certificate claims according to our usual process to review whether they comply with the program rules, including the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act and Regulations and the commission’s guidance. For certificates in higher risk categories, this will also involve validation whereby the commission requires further information from accredited persons before registering certificates.

Our current assessment process includes closely reviewing geo-tagged photographs of installations and phone audit recordings to verify that the installations comply with program rules.

We have now processed over 40 per cent of these non-duplicate lower risk claims. We aim to complete our assessment of the remaining lower risk claims over the next 14 days, and we thank you for your continued cooperation.

In respect of certificates for multiple refrigerated cabinet activities with higher certificate claims and associated higher compliance risk, we will continue to update you on our progress as we move through our assessments.

We recommend that accredited persons have all required information ready for us to collect when we contact you so we can assess your certificates as efficiently as possible.

Refrigerated cabinets installed on 29 June 2022

We have received enquiries seeking clarification on refrigerated cabinets installed on 29 June 2022 which is the date that the discount factor for this activity was set at zero. 

The commission confirms that a refrigerated cabinet product (as listed in sub-section (b) of the Notice of Declaration of a Discount Factor dated 24 June 2022) installed on or after 3.35pm on 29 June 2022 is subject to a zero discount factor.

Accordingly, the commission confirms that a certificate created based on those refrigerated cabinet products installed on or after 3.35pm on 29 June 2022 is not eligible for registration by the commission.

We appreciate this has been a difficult month for accredited persons and scheme participants who have been contributing to the success of the program in good faith and may have been adversely affected by these events. We thank you for your ongoing cooperation and we remain focused on finalising the registration of eligible certificates for compliant refrigerated cabinet installations as efficiently as possible.

However, the commission has zero tolerance for unethical, fraudulent, misleading or unsafe behaviour by businesses accredited under the program. Our investigation into refrigerated cabinet installations is ongoing and we will take action where we find breaches of the program rules.

We appreciate your support on this matter and welcome any information you may have that will aid our investigation.