Solar Citizens welcomes the new $25 million NSW Solar for Apartment Residents incentive for owners’ corporations and strata managers to install shared rooftop solar systems. This program is co-funded with the Federal Government as part of the Community Solar Banks program.

It will cover up to half of the cost of installing shared solar systems on apartments with up to 55 dwellings, and is expected to help around 1,000 of NSW’s total ~90,000 strata schemes across NSW to install rooftop solar [1].

Solar Citizens CEO Heidi Douglas said:

“This is fantastic news for people living in low and mid rise apartments who have previously been locked out installing rooftop solar due to the upfront installation costs.

“About 1.5 million people in NSW live in apartments but only 4% of those are connected to rooftop solar power, compared with around a third of standalone homes across the state [2] [3]

“However the NSW Government still needs to prioritise clean energy solutions for the growing number of people living in high-rise apartments, who make up nearly one quarter of all apartment dwellers in Greater Sydney, many of whom will be unable to access the rooftop solar savings offered by the NSW Solar for Apartment Residents program [4]

“High-rise living is set to grow even more with the NSW Government’s Transport Oriented Development (TOD) program set to deliver 185,000 new dwellings over 15 years, mostly apartments and high density housing.

“It’s a serious oversight that there is currently no requirement or incentive for new apartments being built under the TOD scheme to have rooftop solar, or other clean energy infrastructure.

“This shows a sheer lack of inefficiency under the Minns government – on one hand the government is incentivising apartment residents to install solar, but on the other hand they are approving thousands of new apartment developments without rooftop solar or any other clean energy infrastructure.” not mandating it on the development of high rise builds.

“We urge the Minns government to mandate rooftop solar under the TOD Program to deliver affordable energy bills for future apartment residents, and avoid a cost-shifting exercise whereby the cost of installing solar or other clean energy upgrades is unnecessarily pushed  onto consumers” concludes Ms Douglas.

Solar Citizens’ Electrify Wolli Creek Project [5] engaged with residents living in ‘Discovery Point’ – a 2018 high-rise development in Sydney’s South-West that’s home to 3,500 residents. All thirteen of the apartment buildings house more than 55 units and are therefore unable to participate in the new scheme.

[1] Australasian Strata Insights Report (2022) UNSW

[2] Census Data (2021) ABS there are 630,030 apartment households in NSW. Average household size is 2.6 people = 1,638,078 apartment residents.

[3] Small-scale installation postcode data (2025) Clean Energy Regulator

[4] ABC News: Sydney leads the nation in high-density apartment living, housing a staggering 45% of Australia’s high-rise population. That’s a quarter of a million high-rise apartment residents in Greater Sydney, the vast majority of whom will be unable to access the rooftop solar savings offered by the NSW Solar for Apartment Residents program as these buildings are likely to house more than 55 units.

[5] Electrify Wolli Creek Report (2024) Solar Citizens

About Solar Citizens

Solar Citizens is an independent, community-based organisation working to protect and grow renewable energy and clean transport in Australia. Our website is https://www.solarcitizens.org.au/