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The STC Clearing House

Small-scale technology certificates (STCs) created in an online system called the REC Registry by solar hot water, heat pump, solar panel, wind or hydro systems can be sold through the STC Clearing House at the fixed price of $40 (excel. GST).

STCs are only sold when there is a buyer and there is no guarantee on how long STCs will take to sell. If you require rapid financial recompense for your STCs, or a simpler process, please contact a registered agent who can organise the creation and sale of your STCs.

The STC Clearing House is located in the REC Registry.

Large-scale generation certificates (LGCs) are not included in the STC Clearing House.

This page contains the following information:

Access to the STC Clearing House

The STC Clearing House is accessed via the REC Registry.

To create a new REC Registry account or upgrade an existing REC Registry account to be able to sell or buy STCs through the STC Clearing House, visit the Create a new REC Registry Account page.

Selling through the STC Clearing House: For householders and registered agents

You have the option to sell your small-scale technology certificates through the STC Clearing House for a fixed price of $40 (excl.GST).

When deciding to sell STCs through the STC Clearing House take note that:

  • STCs must first be created and validated in the REC Registry. This means that all compliance and process requirements are fulfilled. Once validated, they can be listed for sale in the STC Clearing House. They will remain there until a buyer makes a purchase request.
  • The Clean Energy Regulator cannot provide an estimate of how long it will take for your STCs to sell in the STC Clearing House. STCs will only sell when a buyer is available and you should plan your system purchase with this in mind. If you require rapid financial recompense for your certificates, please contact an agent who can organise the creation and sale of your certificates.

If there are more sellers than buyers, your STCs will join the STC Clearing House Transfer List, which works on a first-in-first-served basis. This means that the latest offers are added to the bottom of the Transfer List. The status of the STC Clearing House Transfer List is publicly available and updated on an hourly basis.

If there are more buyers than sellers, your sale offer should process immediately, unless it requires manual approval from the Clean Energy Regulator. When your STCs are purchased, you will receive notification of your transaction by an emailed invoice. Payment should be forwarded to the bank account you nominated within 3 business days of your sale going through.

If a buyer chooses to buy from the STC Clearing House, STCs will be sold for a fixed price of $40 (excl. GST), from the Transfer List on a first-in-first-served basis.

While the Clean Energy Regulator makes the Clearing House available for use, the actual money paid to the seller comes from the buyer at the time of purchase.

RET liable entities (typically electricity retailers) are the major buyers in the STC Clearing House. RET liable entities purchase STCs to meet their quarterly surrender obligations under the Act.

For more information visit:

Buying from the STC Clearing House: For liable entities and other buyers

Anyone that is GST registered can choose to buy small-scale technology certificates (STCs) from the STC Clearing House.

RET liable entities (usually electricity retailers) are the major buyers in the STC Clearing House. However, RET liable entities can and do purchase STCs from the broader STC market (outside the STC Clearing House, from STC traders). In this case, they will directly deal with a seller and negotiate a price outside of the STC Clearing House. RET liable entities are required to surrender STCs quarterly to meet their obligations under the Act.

If there are no STCs available for sale in the STC Clearing House the Regulator will create STCs for liable entities to purchase to meet surrender obligations. Regulator Created STCs are equivalent to STCs. They can be traded and surrendered exactly like ordinary STCs.

RET liable entities should place their buy orders in the STC Clearing House five business days prior to the surrender dates. As such, it may be the case that the bulk of buyers enter the STC Clearing House immediately prior to these dates and a substantial number of sell offers are transacted at that time.

Once STCs have been purchased they will be available in the buyers REC Registry STC Account Holdings page. These STCs will have the status of “Registered”.  The purchase of STCs does not automatically meet an entity’s liability. A separate surrender must still be made by creating an STC surrender offer in your REC Registry account.

For more information visit:

Withdrawing STCs from the STC Clearing House

A seller may remove their sale offer from the STC Clearing House Transfer List at any time. This may occur in the event that the seller has decided to sell their small-scale technology certificates (STCs) to a buyer (such as an agent) outside of the STC Clearing House, at a negotiated price.

A seller can only withdraw STCs for sale from the STC Clearing House if an offer to buy the STCs has not been received.

When withdrawing STCs, a seller with the correct permissions will use the “Withdraw STCs” function from the STC Clearing House menu where they will be able to see their STCs on the list. Where a seller has multiple offers of STCs for sale on the list, the withdrawal function works by removing the lowest ranked order (or part thereof).

To withdraw STCs that the user has offered for sale:

  1. Log into your REC Registry account at https://www.rec-registry.gov.au/.
  2. Click on “STC Clearing House” from the REC Registry menu.
  3. Click on “Withdraw STCs” from the drop down list. The “Withdraw STCs” screen is displayed. This screen will display the number of STCs available to withdraw in the “Quantity pending” column.
  4. To withdraw pending STCs, type the number of STCs to withdraw and click “Withdraw STCs”.   A warning screen appears.
  5. Click “Confirm” to confirm sale or “Back” to return to the previous screen.
  6. If “Confirm” is clicked, the nominated number of STCs are withdrawn from sale and will return to the 'Registered' status.

Transferring STCs

Sellers may still transfer their STCs for a privately negotiated price to a new owner even if those STCs are listed on the STC Clearing House Transfer List.

While the transfer of STCs is a private contract negotiated between the parties, the STCs that are transferred to a new owner in this way will maintain their position on the STC Clearing House Transfer List, but would be owned by the buyer.

To Transfer STCs and their position on the STC Clearing House Transfer List to another REC Registry account:

  1. Log into your REC Registry account at https://www.rec-registry.gov.au/.
  2. Click on “Clearing House” from the REC Registry menu.
  3. Select “Transfer STCs”.
  4. Select “Offer STCs for Transfer”. The Offer STCs for Transfer screen identifies the number of STCs available for transfer.
  5. Complete the mandatory fields (*).
  6. Click on “Initiate Transfer”.  The “Confirm Offer STCs For Transfer” screen appears.
  7. Click on “Confirm” to confirm the transfer.
  8. Confirmation of the transfer appears.

View details of STCs awaiting transfer

  1. Log into the REC Registry with your user account credentials.
  2. Click on “STC Clearing House” from the REC Registry menu.
  3. Select “Transfer”.
  4. Select “My Outgoing STC Transfers”.  The “My Outgoing STC Transfer” screen appears

Cancelling the transfer of STCs

  1. Log into the REC Registry with your user account credentials.
  2. Click on “Clearing House” from the REC Registry menu.
  3. Select “Transfer”.
  4. Select “My Outgoing STC Transfers”.  The “My Outgoing STC Transfers” screen appears.
  5. To select the transfer to cancel, click on the checkbox located to the left of the Transfer ID (this will only be available on the transfers which have not been accepted by the recipient account holder as you cannot cancel a transfer once it has been accepted). 
  6. Click on “Cancel Selected Transfer(s)”. A confirmation screen appears.
  7. Click on “Confirm” to confirm the cancellation of the transfer.
  8. A confirmation message appears.

STC Clearing House purchases

The below numbers reflect purchases where payment has been received and processed by the Clean Energy Regulator through the STC Clearing House.  Last updated 17 May 2012.

Buy orders processed: 19
Total certificates purchased: 138,482

Please view the STC Clearing House Transfer List on the REC Registry for more detailed information on the number of STCs currently offered for sale in the STC Clearing House.

Date last updated: 12 Apr 2012