The Clean Energy Council has suspended a number of Canadian Solar inverters from its list of approved products, rendering them ineligible for use in various federal and state rebate schemes.
In a notice first issued on January 18, the CEC listed four Canadian Solar inverter models – CSI-8K-S22003-E (AS4777-2 2020); CSI-5K-S22003-E (AS4777-2 2020); CSI-9K-S22003-E (AS4777-2 2020); CSI-7K-S22003-E (AS4777-2 2020) – as suspended for three months, effective immediately.
The CEC says it took the action due to non-compliance with the inverter terms and conditions for product listing. In this case, the importer for Canadian Solar is not registered with EESS as a Responsible Supplier.
As Solar Quotes explains here, EESS stands for Electrical Equipment Safety System, a regulatory framework aimed at protecting consumer safety. A Responsible Supplier is a legally identifiable Australian or New Zealand entity manufacturing or importing electrical equipment covered by the EESS.
A second notice was issued on Wednesday this week, adding a further inverter model – CSI-5K-S22002-E (AS4777-2 2020) – to the suspension order, in this case starting on January 30.
Solar Quotes also notes that this effectively removes all of the Canadian Solar inverters from the CEC’s approved products list – all of them single-phase string inverters in capacities of 5kW, 7kW, 8kW and 9kW.
“If corrective actions are made within three months, the suspension may be lifted,” the initial notice says.
“If they are not, the products will be de-listed. We will share another update if the suspension is lifted or if we intend to proceed to a de-listing.”
The Clean Energy Council was last year reappointed as the product listing body (PLB) for solar panels and inverters eligible under the federal government’s Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), following a lengthy and sometimes controversial review of the scheme’s governance.
The review, which kicked off back in 2020, raised broad concerns that the CEC was ill-equipped to govern all aspects of the SRES – including installer accreditation – and faced potential conflicts of interest when taking action against parties who may be its members.
And while the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) wound up handing over control of SRES installer and designer accreditation to a new independent body, in July it indicated its intention to keep the CEC in charge of product listings.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
