Aggregator Emerging Energy collapsed owing Australian solar installers A$90M

Australia's renewable energy target creates small-scale technology certificates (STCs) when rooftop solar is installed; installers discount them off installation prices and sell them through aggregators like Emerging Energy, which trade them to big electricity retailers. The flow is worth billions — an estimated 33.6 million STCs were to be created in 2024 — but almost nothing checks an aggregator's financial capacity. As trader Jeff Bye of Demand Manager put it, you could 'start a business tomorrow with $1 in equity, become an agent under the STC regime' and start creating certificates.

Emerging Energy used that slack. Queensland installer Matt Harold had traded about A$1M of certificates a year with the company; roughly two years before the collapse, payments slowed — he would upload A$10,000 of STCs and receive A$7,000-8,000 a week, and the gap kept growing. Other installers describe the same pattern: Emerging Energy told them to keep submitting new jobs so old ones would be paid, then went completely silent the moment they stopped. The end came when BP Energy Asia called in a A$24M debt and won in court.

The liquidation left hundreds of installers chasing nearly A$90M. Liquidators' first report said assets 'may have been transferred to a related party' and opened a phoenixing investigation. ABC traced the layering: Greenbot (whose director is Emerging Energy's previous owner), Net Zero Environmental and Hello Renewable Trading share addresses and ex-directors with the collapsed company. In September 2024 the Clean Energy Regulator permanently suspended Emerging Energy as 'not a fit and proper person'; it had already found it improperly created STCs on false information in 2017.

Nearly A$90M owed to hundreds of small solar businesses; trading firm Demand Manager was alone owed about A$4M

The STC regime let anyone become a certificate agent with no financial accreditation, so aggregators held installers' money with nothing behind it.

Emerging Energy financed itself on rolling payment delays, asking installers to keep trading so old invoices would be paid.

One counterparty — BP Energy Asia — could call in A$24M and take the whole structure down.

Customers and assets were moved to related companies (Greenbot, Net Zero Environmental, Hello Solar) around the collapse, which the liquidator is probing as phoenixing.

The Clean Energy Regulator says payment disputes are outside its legislative remit, so creditors' only recourse was costly individual legal action.

In an unregulated certificate market, the middleman holding other people's money can run on rolling delays until one counterparty calls a debt — and the smallest suppliers eat the loss.

The Clean Energy Regulator permanently suspended Emerging Energy in September 2024, saying non-payment was outside its remit. The liquidator's first report flagged possible illegal phoenix activity. Greenbot, suspended in June, kept operating under a Federal Court stay; Hello Renewable Trading cold-called former Emerging Energy clients to sign them up via the Greenbot app while denying any connection, despite ASIC documents showing a shared address. Installers now lobby for environmental certificates to be regulated as financial products — only ACCUs are today.