NSW Apartment Solar Gets Real As SoAR Deadline Looms

The first shared rooftop solar installations under NSW’s Solar for Apartment Residents (SoAR) program are now complete, with projects in Newtown and Camperdown already delivering savings for residents. With the grant closing on March 30, 2026, apartment owners and strata committees have just days left to secure funding under the program.

Can Apartment Solar Finally Crack The ‘Too Hard’ Basket?

For years, rooftop solar has largely bypassed apartment dwellers. Split ownership, billing complexity, and limited roof space have made it far harder than for standalone homes. But two recent inner-west Sydney installations suggest that may be starting to change.

Completed under the NSW–Federal SoAR grant program, the projects in Newtown and Camperdown use shared solar systems to distribute rooftop generation across multiple units — without requiring embedded networks or changes to residents’ existing electricity meters.

At a 22-unit building in Newtown, reported as the first rooftop solar system switched on under the SoAR grant program, Solahart installed a 52 kW system with around half the upfront cost covered by the grant. Apartment owner Veronica Tseng-Donald said the project only became feasible once the grant was available:

“The cost and strata complexities proved too much of a challenge,” she said.

The Newtown system uses 104 Solahart premium panels paired with a GoodWe inverter and is fully battery-ready, allowing storage to be added later.

“Residents are now saving approximately $440 – $800 annually on energy bills, with the system reducing 38.2 tonnes of CO₂ each year,” said Stephen Cranch, General Manager of Solahart Industries.

A second system at a heritage-listed Camperdown complex — covering six strata plans and 13 residents — was also installed by Solahart, using 54 panels generating 25.9 kW. Like Newtown, it is battery-ready for future storage. Cranch added:

“Residents at The Gantry are expected to reduce their annual energy costs by an average of 35 per cent and cut 20.3 tonnes of CO₂ emissions each year.”

What’s Making This Possible

Allume’s SolShare system allows apartment complexes to share the benefits of their building’s solar.

A key enabler in both projects, including the Newtown and Camperdown installs, is Allume Energy’s SolShare system. It allows rooftop generation to be fairly allocated across individually metered apartments without requiring changes to residents’ existing electricity meters.

In simple terms, the system distributes solar in real time to units that are actively using electricity. When multiple apartments are drawing power, the available solar is shared between them, helping to spread the benefit across the building — although households with higher daytime usage tend to gain the most.

The SoAR program has also helped shift the economics. With grants covering up to 50% of installation costs (capped at $150,000), the upfront financial barrier — often the biggest hurdle in getting strata approval — is significantly reduced. In the Newtown case, the building was able to use existing capital works funds to cover its share of the system, so residents didn’t have to pay any additional one-off levies.

A Working Model — But Still Early Days

These Newtown and Camperdown installs are among the first completed projects under the SoAR program, which has now approved funding for 138 recipients, with a total of $6.1 million allocated.

Apartment solar still depends on several favourable conditions:

• Enough shared roof space
• A cooperative owners corporation
• Daytime electricity usage that captures the solar

Even with improved technology, these factors won’t stack up in every building.

What Happens Next?

There’s a timing factor: the SoAR program — which was previously extended to give applicants more time — now closes on March 30, 2026, just as these early projects show what’s possible for apartment solar. With only weeks left to apply for funding, apartment owners and strata committees need to act fast.

These projects demonstrate that rooftop solar can work in multi-unit dwellings, but rolling it out across the millions of Australians living in apartments is still a work in progress. Whether shared solar becomes mainstream may depend on what follows the SoAR program after it ends.

Keen to understand how shared solar works in apartments? Check out our guide to solar for units and strata buildings.