Custom calculators › Air conditioning and space heating
Air conditioning scheme calculators
A customer or a specifier enters a postcode, a brand and a model. The tool returns whether that product is eligible under the Victorian Energy Upgrades and the NSW Energy Savings Scheme, how many certificates it earns, and every regulated lookup table that produced the answer. Below is a working example on the real GEMS Registry.
111 brands on the GEMS Registry under the 2019 determination.
Part 6 has eleven scenarios and they do not pay the same. Replacing a gas heater and replacing a reverse cycle unit are different baselines.
EnergyAE reference VEEC price, reviewed 2026-07-07 (live market feed unavailable). Edit to model a different price.
EnergyAE reference ESC price, reviewed 2026-07-07 (live market feed unavailable). Edit to model a different price.
Running on a GEMS Registry export of 5,922 registrations under the GEMS (Air Conditioners up to 65kW) Determination 2019, as at 2026-09-01. Estimates only, not a certificate entitlement: certificates are created by an accredited provider against the installation as built, and both schemes carry documentary requirements the register cannot evidence.
What separates this from a rebate estimator
There are a dozen air conditioning rebate calculators on Australian installer websites. Almost all of them ask for a system type and a size band and return a dollar range you are asked to take on trust. This one does something different, and the difference is what a manufacturer can put their name to.
It reads the model, not a size band
The usual tool asks for a capacity band and returns a range. This one takes a brand and a model number, finds every GEMS registration under it, and assesses each one on its own seasonal figures. Two units of the same nominal size routinely land on opposite sides of an eligibility threshold.
It shows the tables it read
Every answer comes with the lookup tables behind it and the row that was matched. A specifier who wants to check the working can check it, and an installer arguing about a number has something to argue with.
It runs both schemes at once
VEU Part 6 and ESS Activity D16 read different columns off the same GEMS record and reach different verdicts. Running them side by side is the only way to see that a product cleared in one state and failed in the other, and why.
It reports what it cannot know
A five year warranty, an EESS listing, a GEMS registration date, an ESC Register listing: none of these are in the registry, and all of them decide real applications. The tool names them rather than quietly assuming them.
What a build for your brand adds
The example above is scoped to certificate eligibility and value, on a public register, for two states. Four things separate it from a tool built around your own range.
Your range, filtered to what qualifies
A customer picks a room or a house and the tool returns the models in your range that both suit the duty and clear the scheme, ranked by what they are worth after certificates. A model that fails on cold zone HSPF never reaches the shortlist, so nobody quotes a rebate that will not be paid.
Capacity sizing on the building
Room by room or whole house heat loss and heat gain on the site's own climate, rather than a square metre rule of thumb. That is a thermal modelling job, and it is the same work we do for NCC performance solutions.
Running cost against the incumbent
Annual energy and running cost for your unit beside the ducted gas heater or the old split system it replaces, at the customer's own tariff. Certificates answer what the purchase costs. Running cost answers what the decision is worth over ten years, and it is usually the larger number.
Embed, branding and leads
One line of embed code on your own site in your typography and colours, or a hosted page under your own domain. Optional lead capture on the result, delivered to whichever inbox or CRM you use.
Four rules that decide most answers
These are the ones we see people get wrong, in scheme submissions as well as in marketing copy. The calculator applies all four and says which one bit.
VEU assesses on the cold zone, whatever the postcode
Part 6 tests HSPF and TCSPF on the GEMS cold zone for every category and every Victorian postcode. The ESS tests the mixed zone in its hot and average zones. Carrying a mixed zone figure across to a Victorian assessment makes a product look comfortably eligible when it is not, and that mistake has cost real submissions.
A recorded value below the minimum is a fail
Both schemes offer a rated AEER and ACOP alternative, and both open it only where the register carries no seasonal figure at all. A TCSPF that is recorded and low closes the door rather than opening the alternative. The VEU version narrows further: it closed on 1 August 2024 for new registrations.
Refrigerant decides eligibility below 15 kW
A VEU product under 15 kW rated cooling needs a refrigerant with a GWP under 700. R32 sits at 675 and clears it. R410A sits at 2088 and does not, whatever the unit does on efficiency. That single rule removes a large slice of the register.
The 30 September 2026 co-payment step is large
Victorian minimum consumer co-payments move that day: $3,000 including GST for any ducted product and for a multi-split at or above 10 kW. New South Wales requires $200 excluding GST per item. For a ducted range, the two states now ask very different things of the customer.
Where the tables come from
The Victorian side runs Part 6 of the Victorian Energy Upgrades Specifications 2018, version 25.0, checked against the Essential Services Commission's product application guide, whose Table 3 agrees with Specifications Table 6.3 cell for cell. The New South Wales side runs Activity Definition D16 of the Energy Savings Scheme Rule of 2009 as it stood on 12 September 2025, with Schedule A Tables A24 and A27.
Scheme methods change, and both of these have changed twice in the last two years. We track them because we lodge under them, and a build for your brand is maintained against them rather than frozen at handover.
One caveat we will not paper over
The multi-split certificate cap that took effect on 1 July 2026 is stated in the HEER Method Guide and footnoted to clause 9.8.7 of the ESS Rule. That clause is not in the version of the Rule this calculator is transcribed from, so the cap reaches us through a summary rather than through the law. The tool applies it and says on screen that it has, along with the figure before the cap.
That is how we would rather handle every gap of that kind, and it is why the working is on the page. A number you cannot audit is a number you cannot defend when a customer asks.
Want one for your air conditioning range?
Send us your model list and tell us which states the tool needs to cover. We will scope a build against your range and come back with a fixed quote.
Request a quoteThe calculator above is a demonstration. Figures are estimates from the published scheme methods applied to public GEMS Registry data, and are not a certificate entitlement, a quote or a specification. Certificates are created by an accredited provider against the installation as built, and both schemes carry documentary and implementation requirements that a product register cannot evidence.