How to register for an electricity licensing exemption

Anyone supplying, selling or generating electricity in Victoria must hold an electricity licence granted by us, or be exempt from that requirement. 

Follow the steps on this page before you start the registration process.

Check you're eligible to register with us

Before you start registering, make sure you read our overview on electricity licensing exemptions and use it to:

• check if you fall into an eligible exemption category
• assess whether or not you need to register with us.

In some cases, exempt people or groups don't need to register.

If you don't fall into any of our exemption categories, you need to apply to us for an electricity licence.  

Gather key information before you register for an exemption

Before you begin the registration process please make sure you have the following information ready:

• the legal name of the organisation supplying or selling electricity (the exempt person)
• Australian Business Number (ABN)
• trading name (or if you have a third-party service provider or agent as the contact for your customers, their trading name)
• telephone number and email address that customers can use to contact you or your third-party service provider or agent
• site address where you are selling or supplying electricity
• the name of the site (for example, the name of the apartment building, caravan park or shopping centre)
• the number of customers you sell or supply electricity to (based on the number of individual meters)
• an estimate of the total yearly electricity used at the site in megawatt hours. This can be found by reviewing the last 12 months of bills issued by your licensed electricity retailer.

Use the registration portal to create a 'group' for your organisation

Our registration portal allows you to create one group that covers exemption applications for all of your organisation. It is free to register.

By creating a group, you can new applications, and view and delete any existing registered activities. You can also invite other people from your organisation to join the group and start registering exemptions. When you invite people to your group, all members in the group have the ability to create, view and delete your organisation’s registrations.

Before you register a group, check to see if your organisation already has one. You can do this by viewing the public register and looking up companies within your organisation. If you want to join an existing group, contact the person who registered a relevant activity in the public register.

If you are a solar power purchase agreement provider, you just need to register with us as an entity. 

Register your selling and supplying activities appropriately

You need to register your selling and supplying activities for each site separately. The portal will allow you to indicate that you supply and sell electricity. 

Ensure that you count the number of individual meters at your site when you list the number of customers you sell or supply electricity to.

Trustees or companies must register for an electricity licensing exemption, not beneficiaries or shareholders.  

If you represent a shopping centre, register for your small retail customers, then register again for your large customers. 

Make it easy for your customers to find the right contact information 

One of the objectives of the register is to make it easier for customers to find and contact their electricity provider. We publish some of your contact details so that customers can contact you for any queries or complaints about their electricity. If you use a third-party service provider or agent and they are the most appropriate point of contact for customers, provide their contact details instead.

We publish information on all registered exemptions

We publish registration exemptions on our public register. View the register to see how we publish the information you give us. Certain information (such as the number of customers) will not be published on the register. Instead, we de-identify this information so it can be used in our reports on the energy market and to inform policy development.

Access additional information about registering for an exemption

Read our Registration Guideline for Exempt Persons if you'd like an in-depth guide on registering for an electricity licensing exemption.

If you have additional queries about registering for an exemption, email us at exemptionregister@esc.vic.gov.au.