Solar Installations – How to Regulate Location and Size?

Working on the assumption (danger! danger!) that your scheme’s attic space is common property, as are the roofs, then the body corporate can regulate solar installations any way it likes.

However, you could create by-laws or guidelines that are fair and reasonable on sharing the space, or even devise a collective plan whereby everybody could share in the benefits of a communal installation (which would be cheaper and more efficient).

Talk to solar power installers then offer the owners some options, but the one you don’t want is “first come, first served”.

Sounds like a job for Sir Humphrey.  Send him a PM, just in case he’s not reading this.

I am accustomed to the ACT’s ‘class B’ townhouses where each unit’s roof is their own. The owners corporation (OC) can regulate erections and alterations to units and consider the appearance of the development but it can’t just out-right prohibit the installation of ‘sustainability infrastructure’ such as solar panels.

Is the roof configured so that each unit has a bit of ‘its own’ roof over it, even if it is common property as per Qld legislation? If so, I think it would be sensible for the OC to adopt a policy that each unit can be given permission to use the bit of roof that is over that unit but no more. It might be possible to pass a resolution for a by-law or rule or whatever Qld calls it that says that the individual unit owners can expect that subject to approval and over-sight of the details from the committee.

Perhaps the roof is such that each unit could reasonably and practically be allocated a portion even if it is not as simple as above. Then, a question would be: Could you have an array that looks like one big array but is actually a set of electrically independent smaller arrays, one for each unit? Whether that would work would depend on where your meters are among other things. An advantage of this is that each unit with a small system might be able to largely self-consume their production with their fridge, dishwasher, washing machine and other appliances set to run during the day. In contrast the OC might have almost no electricity consumption during the day. It might be possible to organise a ‘bulk buy’ whereby the owners who want to go in on it share the cost and the OC gets a neat uniform looking large array. I agree that you should leave sufficient space for each unit to be able to have an equitable benefit from the common property roof space at some point in future even if they don’t want to do it now.

If the configuration is a large blocks of flats with small roof space relative to the number units below, then it might make more sense to have one OC system that could offset the OC’s costs for running the lifts, corridor lighting, fans in the basement car park etc. Then every unit owner would benefit in direct proportion to their contribution to its cost.