Custom calculators › Air conditioning and space heating
Air conditioning scheme calculators
A customer enters a postcode and the size of the home. The tool sizes the unit, shortlists the registered models that fit and qualify, and shows what each earns under the Victorian Energy Upgrades and the NSW Energy Savings Scheme, with every regulated lookup table that produced the answer. A specifier who already knows the model can assess it by brand and model number instead. Below is a working example running on the real GEMS Registry, the federal energy rating register.
Question 1 of 6
What is your postcode?
VIC, a mild temperate climate. VEU Part 6 applies.
How this differs from a rebate estimator
Most rebate calculators ask for a system type and a capacity band, then return a dollar range with no working behind it. This one reads the GEMS Registry record for the actual model and shows every regulated table behind the number.
It reads the seasonal efficiency figures, not the capacity band
Eligibility turns on four numbers in the GEMS record: heating and cooling seasonal performance (HSPF and TCSPF), each published for the cold zone and the mixed zone. VEU Part 6 reads the pair matching your postcode, Table 6.10. ESS D16 tests against the minimums in Table D16.4. Capacity alone decides nothing: of the rated cooling sizes carrying more than one product, 58 % hold both a unit that qualifies and one that does not. At 10.0 kW, the products that do qualify range from 5 to 11 VEECs.
It shows every table it read, with the matched row highlighted
Victoria: Table 6.3 for minimum efficiency, 6.10 for the climate zone, 6.11 for the baseline the old system is deemed to have, 6.14 for the deemed building load. New South Wales: D16.1 for equivalent heating and cooling hours, D16.4 for the minimums, A24 for the network factor, A27 for the climate zone. Each shows the row your product and postcode landed on, with the arithmetic line by line.
It runs Victoria and New South Wales side by side
VEU Part 6 works in greenhouse abatement: the gap between your product and a deemed baseline, times a deemed building load and a lifetime, converted from tonnes to VEECs. ESS D16 works in energy: your annual use against a reference machine over equivalent hours, converted from megawatt-hours to ESCs with a conversion factor and a regional network factor. They read different columns off the same record and can disagree.
It names what the register cannot tell it
Three things decide real applications and none is in the GEMS record, so the tool raises each as a note. A residential install under VEU categories 6A, 6B, 6D, 6E or 6F needs a five year manufacturer warranty with Australian contact details; without it the product is commercial premises only. VEECs need the product on the ESC register, a separate listing from GEMS registration. And NSW needs the customer to pay at least $200 excluding GST per item, unreimbursed.
What a build for your brand adds
The example above is scoped to certificate eligibility and value, on a public register, for two states.
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 heating and cooling load and pass the scheme rules, ranked by what they are worth after certificates. A model that fails on its cold zone heating efficiency (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 thermal modelling, the same work we do for National Construction Code (NCC) performance solutions.
Running cost against the system it replaces
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.
The four rules the calculator applies
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 failed the product.
Victoria assesses every product on the cold climate zone, whatever the postcode
The Victorian rules (VEU Part 6) test the heating and cooling seasonal efficiency figures on the GEMS registration, HSPF and TCSPF, for the cold climate zone, for every product category and every Victorian postcode. The NSW rules (ESS Activity D16) use the mixed zone figures for their 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 seasonal figure that is on the register and below the minimum is a fail
Both schemes allow a fallback test on the rated figures (AEER for cooling, ACOP for heating), and both allow it only where the register carries no seasonal figure at all. A TCSPF that is recorded and below the minimum is a fail; it does not open the fallback. The VEU version narrows further: it closed on 1 August 2024 for new registrations.
Below 15 kW, the refrigerant alone can rule a product out
A VEU product under 15 kW rated cooling needs a refrigerant with a global warming potential (GWP) under 700. R32 sits at 675 and passes. R410A sits at 2088 and does not, whatever the unit does on efficiency.
Minimum customer co-payments change on 30 September 2026
The co-payment is the minimum a customer must pay towards the job themselves before certificates can be created. In Victoria it changes 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.
The multi-split certificate cap
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.
We handle every gap of that kind the same way, which is why the calculation is shown on the page.
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.