How to set up Incentives for the Victorian Solar Homes Rebate Program?

This article talks about the Victorian Solar Homes Rebate program and is in continuation of How to set up Incentives. Please visit the previous article if you want to see the types of incentives available and how to set them up. This Article guides you through:

• How to configure the Victorian Solar Home Program incentives in the Control zone of the app, and then
• How to apply these to a project in the Studio zone for that particular project.
• How to configure and apply the Loan repayment schedule.

The Victorian Government gives rebates of up to $1888 (or 50%) for Solar installations, to homeowners and rental properties, and subject to eligibility, the homeowners can also apply for an interest free loan, for an amount equivalent to the rebate amount, which can be repaid over four years.

The rebate is ‘up to’ a value of $1,888 or 50% of the price of the system; whichever is lower (Note: Price of System is the amount after the STC point of Sale discount is applied). 

So, the rebate can work in the following 3 ways:

• Case 1: If you sell a system for $6,000 the customer can only apply for a maximum of $1,888 rebate + a $1,888 interest free loan – because it’s capped. If eligible for the loan, the customer pays $2,224 upfront and $1,888 as Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly repayments for a period of 4 years to Solar Victoria (or $4,112 upfront without the loan).
• Case 2: If you sell a system for $3,776 the customer can apply for the maximum $1,888 rebate + a $1,888 interest free loan. If eligible for the loan, the customer pays $0 upfront and $1,888 as Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly repayments for a period of 4 years to Solar Victoria (or $1,888 upfront without the loan).
• Case 3: If you sell a system for $3,500, the customer can apply for a $1,750 rebate + a $1,750 interest free loan. If eligible for the loan, the customer pays $0 upfront and $1,750 as Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly repayments for a period of 4 years to Solar Victoria (or $1,750 upfront without the loan).

With large systems, most common would be Case 1.

Configuring the Victorian Solar Homes Incentives

To configure any of the 3 cases, click on the Control icon on the right hand side of the bottom toolbar, then click on Incentives in the OtherZ section of the control zone. From here you will be taken to a list of your current incentives.

If the Victorian Solar Home Rebate incentive already exists in the list, you can click on edit to verify the settings,

and if it does not appear in the list, click on create.

This will take you into the incentive setting, where you can specify the following fields:

• Title: Set the title of the incentive as "Victorian Solar Home Rebate".
• Description: Set a description for the incentive which would be visible to the customer on the proposal. It could be something as simple as a line saying "Up-to $1,888 Solar Home Rebate provided by the Victorian Government".
• Incentive type: Set it as a Price Based Incentive.
• Price based incentive type: Set the type as Price Payable Including Tax.
• Percentage of Price(%): As the incentive is up-to 50% of the price payable, set it to 50.
• Incentive Paid to: Select Installer from the drop-down menu. This just affects how the incentive would be applied to the cost of the system and how it appears on the proposal.
• Cap amount ($):Set the cap amount to $1,888.

Similarly, after setting up the Rebate incentive, you can create another incentive for the Victorian Solar Home Interest Free Loan. To do this, click on create, which should take you to the Create Incentive page. Here, you can specify the following fields:

• Title: Set the title of the incentive as "Victorian Solar Home Loan".
• Description: Set a description for the incentive which would be visible to the customer on the proposal. It could be something as simple as a line saying "Up-to $1,888 Solar Home loan (0% interest) provided by the Victorian Government."
• Incentive type: Set it as a Price Based Incentive.
• Price based incentive type: Set the type as Price Payable Including Tax.
• Percentage of Price(%): As the loan value is an amount equivalent to the rebate value, set this to 100.
• Incentive Paid to: Select Installer from the drop-down menu. This just affects how the incentive would be applied to the cost of the system and how it appears on the proposal.
• Cap amount ($): Set the cap amount to $1,888.

Applying the Victorian Solar Homes Incentives to a Project 

Once you have configured the above incentives in your account, you can proceed to the Studio zone for the project where you wish to apply these rebates. 

Once designing of the system is complete with Full design mode enabled  perform the following steps in the exact same order (as the order in which the incentives are applied is important):

• Go to Incentives in the Pricing & Payment Options in the side-bar in the studio zone.
• Click on Override Default Incentives
• Select the following incentives in the same order:
  1. STC Point of Sale Discount
  2. Victorian Solar Home Rebate
  3. Victorian Solar Home Loan (if customer is eligible and applying for the loan)

Once these incentives have been selected, the amount for incentives Claimed by installer should be updated and visible in the side-bar.

Configuring and applying the Loan repayment schedule

The loan repayments to the Victorian government are not included in the financials, but they can be shown as a separate recurring cost for the customer.

Again, considering the 3 cases as done before, there can be 3 different scenarios for repayment. 

You will need to calculate the recurring repayment cost for each case, as the loan amount can be different and also depends upon the repayment frequency (i.e., Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly).

The repayment amount should be calculated by dividing the Loan Amount by the Number of payments over 4 years (for example for monthly repayment of $1,888 in case 1, we get the repayment amount as ($1,888)/(4 x 12 Months/year) = $39.33/month).

This amount can be added as an other component in the Control zone of the app to configure the recurring payment schedule for the customer.

Click on Add Other Component to Your Account  and then Create Your Own once in the Other Components section of the control zone. This will take you to the Create Other Component window, where you can specify the following fields:

• Code: You can enter any code for example, VIC Loan to represent that component.
• Title: The title is what the customer will see as the heading for the repayments, for Example "Vic Solar 0% Interest Loan Repayment".
• Manufacturer: The manufacturer field can be left blank in this case.
• Description: A description of how the repayments will work should be entered here. This will help the customer understand the process of repayments and the loan.  It could be something as simple as a line saying "Choosing to take the VIC Solar 0% interest loan free loan reduces your Upfront Purchase Price. You will however be required to pay back this loan over 4 years at up to $10.70 per week (fortnightly and monthly options as well)."
• Enable both the toggles Show Customer and Enable Additional Costs.
• Formula: From the drop down menu select "Specify Value"
• Value: in the value field enter the $ value of the repayments, which you would have calculated as shown in the example above. The value depends on the amount of the loan and the repayment cycles. Taking the example of monthly repayments from Case 1, the value would be $39.33.
• Cycle Units: From the drop down menu, you can select Monthly, Fortnightly or Weekly, depending on what option you want to show the customer. Using the above example of Case 1, you would select Monthly.
• Start Cycle: Start cycle should be set to 0, indicating the current Month as the starting cycle for payments.
• End Cycle: The end cycle value is the Number of repayments minus 1 (N-1) and so for the above example for monthly repayments, the end cycle value for 48 months would be 47.
• Leaving all the other fields at their default values, you can now press the  button. 

Once the component for the loan repayments has been created, it can be added to the project by going back into the studio zone.

In the studio zone:

• Go to Other components.
• Click on  to add an other component.
• Press Select and choose the VIC loan component from the list of other components.
• Once the component has been added, you can move to MyEnergy after clicking on Save & Continue to save the progress.

Once all the Rebates, Loans and the repayment components have been applied to the system, the Final quotation in the proposal would contain all the information about the incentives and also have the additional component for the loan repayments, as shown in the screenshot below.