Helcro Solar expands commercial work as all-electric rule lifts peak charges

The company holds a Victorian electrical contractor licence alongside its solar accreditation, covering both the supply and switchboard work an all-electric building needs and the rooftop system that offsets it.

The rule applies to new commercial buildings that need a planning permit, including commercial kitchens. Industrial and agricultural buildings are exempt, and existing commercial premises are not required to retrofit.

For everyone else, a building that would have run its cooking, hot water and space heating on gas now draws all of it through the meter.

The cost of that shift is not only in kilowatt hours. Commercial electricity carries a demand charge set by a site’s single highest peak draw, so one busy afternoon can re-price a building’s tariff for the year even if the load never repeats.

Electrifying cooking, heating and hot water raises that peak. On some sites it also tests the capacity of the grid connection itself, where drawing more than the connection can supply risks outages on the premises.

Solar and battery systems reduce that maximum draw rather than only offsetting consumption, which can move a site onto a lower tariff. Helcro Solar has modelled tariff reductions worth around $30,000 a year on a single site.

The underlying economics are stronger again for businesses that use power as it is generated, offsetting it at the commercial rate of 25 to 30 cents per kWh instead of exporting it for a fraction of that.

The company puts typical payback at three to four years and savings at 40% to 70%, with the heaviest daytime users, fabricators, manufacturers, cold storage and logistics operators, at the stronger end of both. 

“A building’s biggest half hour of the year sets what it pays for the other 17,000,” said Luke Rose, Director of Helcro Solar.

“Most operators find that out after the fact. Going all-electric lifts that peak, and whether anything on the roof offsets it gets decided at the drawing stage, a year before anyone moves in.”

Helcro Solar models each site against years of its own metered usage across hundreds of system configurations before quoting, optimising for whichever outcome the client is after, fastest payback, highest return, or lowest upfront cost.

Site assessments are carried out by a qualified A-grade electrician rather than a salesperson, and mounting uses penetration-less clamp systems that avoid drilling the roof.