One of the first customers to join the scheme described her decision as a "no brainer".

Deb Robinson, a sustainability manager for a building facilities management company, recognised the opportunities the scheme presented around a year ago when it was first mooted and jumped on board when expressions of interest were called.

The scheme allows Canberra householders who own their properties to borrow between $2000 and up to $15,000 interest free over 10 years to finance a range of clean energy products include rooftop solar, induction cooktops, heat pumps and household batteries.

There have been 797 applications approved, with just under $1 million worth of installations rolling out in the past few weeks. The majority of the demand so far was for solar and battery systems.

The Robinson family elected to borrow around $12,000 to fund a huge 11.1kW rooftop solar system for their Kambah home which was installed, as good fortune would have it, just before the August COVID lockdown period started. Installations were halted shortly after as under public health orders, only maintenance and warranty work were permitted.

"Our house was built in the 1970s. We've got the perfect roof for it [the solar system], north-facing, no shading, the house was wanting it," she said.

She had access to quality advice through her own networks and saw it as important to choose a local installer rather than one based elsewhere and which marketed its services into the ACT.

"We deliberately future-proofed; we went for an oversize installation because our longer term plan is to get a household battery and also move to an electric car so we wanted a system which would serve that purpose: charge a battery and recharge a car," she said.

"We're still waiting for our first power bill so we don't know yet what we're saving but we've also structured our power usage so we can better take advantage of what we're generating during the day.

"We decided that now was not the best time to buy a battery. That technology is improving all the time and hopefully the prices will come down in the next few years, too."

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It's a strategy which Benn Masters, whose Canberra installation company SolarHub has been a beneficiary of the new ACT scheme, said makes good sense.

He said that the inverter and household battery market prices and, to a lesser extent, rooftop solar was being distorted by the combined effects of a global shortage of semi-conductors, COVID-induced shipping delays, and rising prices for the rare metals common to these products.

His business, which started in Canberra 10 years ago, had a sharp surge in customer inquiry immediately after the scheme was announced.

"There's quite a bit of pent-up demand being played out now; we saw quite a flood [of interest] early on, we had about 300 inquiries when it [the scheme] was first announced," he said.

"All our [installation] teams are flat-strap now; it's good timing because the lockdown hurt our business like it hurt a lot of companies."

He said tailoring the right system to how each household uses its power, and how much, was important, with technology always improving and higher battery storage capability coming. Alternatively, new inverter systems can dump an energy into a car, rather than export it to the grid, via a plug-in cable.

"The key think about this program and the way it's designed, is the length of time offered to repay the loan; a 10-year period means that the repayments people are making each month are less than the savings they are achieving from putting the system in; it's cash-flow positive," he said.

"People can see immediately see their ongoing expenses in their household budget coming down."

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