What you can and can't say in a battery retrofit ad

You are writing a retrofit ad, or reading one an agency wrote for you. Two separate sets of rules apply to it, and it is worth knowing which is which before you argue about a headline.

The Australian Consumer Law applies to every business making a claim. You do not sign up to it and you cannot sign out of it. It reaches you whether you have heard of the other one or not.

The New Energy Tech Consumer Code, NETCC, is voluntary. It binds the businesses that sign it. If you are a signatory it asks for things the statute does not, and it is written in far more detail — which makes it the more useful document to check a draft against, even for the parts of it that only bind signatories.

Everything below with a clause number is NETCC and applies to signatories. Everything below with a section number, or attributed to the ACCC, applies to you either way.

Where the code stands right now

NETCC runs under ACCC authorisation. The ACCC made its final determination on 28 August 2026, authorising an amended code with conditions until 19 September 2031. The current code stays authorised until 19 December 2026.

The clause numbers below are from the September 2020 text of the code. That is the version published on the NETCC site and republished by the Clean Energy Council, and the clause 3 wording is identical in both.

What clause 3 actually says

Our advertisements and other promotional material will not include any false or misleading claims about us or our New Energy Tech.

Thirteen sub-clauses follow, (a) to (m). These are the ones that bear on a retrofit ad, in the code’s own words.

One thing to hold in your head while reading them: the code is written to the customer. Inside a quoted clause, “we” is the signatory — you — and “you” is the homeowner. Everywhere outside a quote, “you” is you again.

• 3(a) — “ensure all relevant incentive schemes (government and non-government) are honestly and accurately represented”. The rebate is the reason a retrofit ad works at all, so this is the sub-clause your best line is standing on. Describe the scheme as it actually operates: certificates created against usable capacity, assigned to a registered agent, and applied as a discount on the price.
• 3(b) — “not misrepresent our association with government or falsely claim to be part of a government scheme”. Installing eligible product as an accredited installer is not the same as being part of a government program. “Government approved installer” is the phrase to search a draft for.
• 3(c) — no false or misleading claims about “the price, value, quality, capacity, output or other performance characteristic”, including “through selective advertising, exaggeration or misleading focus on one or a few aspects only”. The second half is the part most people miss. A true fact given misleading prominence is caught here.
• 3(f) — “not mislead you about the impact our New Energy Tech will have on your energy usage or costs”. Every bill-saving line in a retrofit ad sits under this one.
• 3(g) — “ensure that any claims relating to performance and energy cost savings of our New Energy Tech are reasonably based and where available, based on reputable sources”. This is the load-bearing sub-clause for any number in the ad. It has its own post: what has to back up a savings number before it goes in an ad.
• 3(i) — “provide information that is specific to the state or region in which the promotional activity takes place”. A single national ad set carrying one state’s arrangements into an Adelaide audience is the failure mode here.
• 3(j) — “ensure that any disclaimers are clearly outlined and not buried in small print”. Worth checking against a Meta ad specifically. A qualification that only appears once the reader expands the post is a qualification most readers never see.
• 3(k) — “only include a statement, promise, prediction or opinion if it is reasonably based”. Urgency copy lives here. “Beat the cut-off” is a prediction about what a particular customer will receive, and it has to be reasonably based on when you can actually install.
• 3(l) — see below. This is the one that will catch the most people, on a date already published.

The clause that catches a signatory when the rate changes

not include information that is no longer current, for example, quote an offer or financial incentive that is no longer available

The certificate rate that sets the size of the battery rebate steps down on published dates. The schedule, the current rate and the next change are set out on our battery retrofit campaigns page, sourced and dated — deliberately not repeated here, because a rate typed into an article is a rate that goes stale in an article.

The day after a step-down, an ad still quoting the old rate is quoting a financial incentive that is no longer available. So is the landing page. So is the automated email sequence nobody has opened since October, the PDF on your website, the quote template, and the Meta ad you paused in November and switched back on in February.

Nothing breaks when this happens. The ad keeps running. The form keeps filling. Nobody tells you.

Two practical things follow.

Make one list of every place a rate appears, before the date rather than after it. Ads, emails, SMS templates, landing pages, quote documents, the brochure in the van.

Then remember what sets the rate. The Clean Energy Regulator states it plainly: “Rebates are determined by the installation date, not when a contract is signed.” A customer who signs in December and installs in February is on the new rate no matter what the December ad said. That makes a step-down campaign a question about your install capacity, not your pipeline. The published schedule and the dates each rate applies from are on the page about battery retrofit campaigns to your own customer list.

Direct marketing is its own category

An email or SMS to your own past customers is marketing under the code, not just an ad, and a different clause covers it.

Clause 57:

We will not provide you with marketing material unless we also provide a simple, easy way for you to ask not to receive future direct marketing communications and include a clear, prominent opt-out provision in each marketing communication.

Each communication. Not the first one in the sequence.

Clause 5 covers the manner of it. Signatories “will adhere to responsible marketing practices at all times and avoid high-pressure sales tactics”. The examples the code gives include “applying psychological pressure to persuade you to make a quick purchase decision” and “offering discounts for agreeing to provide testimonials and/or referrals”. Read the first of those next to a step-down campaign and the line is reasonably clear: the date is real, so say it once, accurately, and let it do its own work.

Clause 55 lists laws a signatory undertakes to comply with, including the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the associated telemarketing standards, the Australian Consumer Law, and “Do Not Knock” and “No Hawkers” stickers. If any part of your reactivation is a phone list, that is the clause to read in full.

Clause 20(e) reaches past the ad and into the contract. Where the contract is an unsolicited consumer agreement under the ACL, the front page must “conspicuously and prominently” state cooling-off rights, “including the right to terminate the contract within 10 business days”. A campaign that begins with contact the customer did not ask for can end in a contract that needs that on the front.

Separately, and under different law with a different regulator: consent, sender identification and a working unsubscribe are governed by the Spam Act and enforced by the ACMA. Our position on who answers that question is set out in how we handle consent before the first send.

The quote has a stricter rule than the ad

Clause 3 governs the ad. Clause 15 governs the quote, and it asks for considerably more.

If the quote claims the customer is likely to achieve a favourable return on investment, it must include an ROI calculation “based on reasonable assumptions and where available from reputable sources”, setting out assumptions including system design and output, financial incentives, energy prices and usage, financing costs, maintenance costs and end-of-life costs.

Clause 13 sits alongside it. The quote “will specify the total value of any discounts, regulatory certificates, incentives or rebates (government and non-government) or government relief schemes and how and when these may or may not apply”.

None of that applies to the ad. All of it applies the moment a number is put in front of one named customer. Keeping those two duties apart is the single most common mistake in writing about this, and an installer who conflates them does the wrong work in both places.

Two regulators, two different jobs

Installers hear “the regulator is watching” in two contexts and they are not the same body.

Who	What they cover
Clean Energy Regulator	The rebate program itself. Eligibility, installer accreditation, approved product, and the installation date that sets the rate. Says of its own posture: “we inspect battery installations, and we will investigate and remove bad players.”
ACCC	Advertising and claims, under the Australian Consumer Law. Also the body that authorises NETCC.

The CER has also said publicly that “retailers are urged not to rush installations to try and beat the changes.” That is worth reading before anyone briefs a deadline campaign, because it names the exact behaviour a deadline campaign can produce.

If a claim gets questioned

Intent does not help you. The ACCC puts it in one sentence: “It makes no difference whether a business intends to mislead or not.”

And on evidence: “A business must be able to prove any claim they advertise.”

The mechanism behind that sentence is a substantiation notice. The ACCC can require a business to produce evidence supporting a claim, and the business has 21 days to respond. Twenty-one days is not long enough to build the working from scratch. That is the practical point of this whole post: the evidence has to exist before the ad runs, not after the notice arrives.

There are penalties for failing to respond. The amounts are set in penalty units, penalty units are indexed, and every dollar figure we could find is from an old publication. We are not printing one.

Before you sign off a draft

1. Every incentive figure in it is the one that applies on the installation date, not the sale date.
2. Every place that figure also appears — email, SMS, landing page, quote template, brochure — is on a list with a date against it.
3. Every savings or performance number has working behind it that already exists.
4. Any disclaimer is where the reader will actually see it.
5. Each marketing message carries a clear opt-out, not just the first one.
6. Nothing in it implies you are part of a government program.

If you want to see all of this applied to a real database campaign end to end, that is the walkthrough of a compliant battery retrofit campaign.