Registration

How to register

If you have assessed that you are a controlling corporation or responsible emitter that has an obligation to apply for registration, you will need to complete the relevant form via the Clean Energy Regulator Client Portal.

What information is required to register

Generally, you need to provide the following information to apply for NGER registration:

Australian Business Number (ABN) or other identifying details, head office street address and head office postal address of the applicant
full name, email address, contact phone number and postal address of an executive officer (as applicable) and a contact person for the applicant
for controlling corporations; the name and ABN (or identifying details) of each affected group member, if any (i.e. subsidiaries that is a member of the controlling corporation's group
the financial year in which the requirement to register was first triggered (i.e. the first year that a controlling corporation met a reporting threshold or the first year that a responsible emitter had operational control over a safeguard facility).

When to register

Controlling corporations need to apply for registration by 31 August following the reporting (financial) year in which they first meet an NGER threshold. As the registration process is the way in which a corporation gets access to the Emissions and Energy Reporting System, you are encouraged to apply for registration well in advance of this deadline to ensure your corporation has plenty of time to complete its NGER report by the 31 October reporting deadline.

If you discover your corporation triggered a threshold in a past reporting period you are still obliged to register and report for that year, as well as any other years up to and including the current reporting year. Corporations only need to register once, and must report each year they remain registered.

Responsible emitters are required to apply for registration by 31 August following the year in which they are first covered by the safeguard mechanism. The safeguard mechanism applies to facilities with scope 1 covered emissions of more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalence per year. See coverage for more information. For example, a responsible emitter that is first covered by the safeguard mechanism in 2016-17, must have applied for registration by 31 August 2017.

Who needs to apply to register

All controlling corporations that meet a threshold under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) scheme, must apply to be registered under section 12 of the NGER Act.

Under the safeguard mechanism, all responsible emitters that are not also controlling corporations, are required to apply for registration under section 15B of the NGER Act, if they are not already registered. This requirement to register includes members of a registered controlling corporation's group.

A new (unregistered) controlling corporation that is also a responsible emitter, should apply for registration under section 12, not section 15B.

Once either type of application is approved by the Clean Energy Regulator (the agency), the registered entitiy’s name, and other information, will be entered on the National Greenhouse and Energy Register.

You do not need to apply for registration each year. Once registered you will remain on the National Greenhouse and Energy Register until an application for deregistration has been received.

If you are issued with a Reporting Transfer Certificate and you were not already registered under the NGER Act, the agency will register the holder of the Reporting Transfer Certificate and will enter its name on the National Greenhouse and Energy Register when the Reporting Transfer Certificate is issued. The Reporting Transfer Certificate holder does not have to separately apply for registration under the NGER Act.

A group member that has agreed to take on its controlling corporation's reporting obligations under a section 22X agreement does not need to apply for registration, unless it is also a responsible emitter under the safeguard mechanism.

Registration process

Once the completed registration application form is received by the agency, the application will be verified to ensure that all the necessary information is provided. Registration is complete when the applicant's name is added to the National Greenhouse and Energy Register.

For controlling corporations, once registration is complete, the executive officer and contact person nominated in the application for registration will be notified directly with instructions on how to access the Emissions and Energy Reporting System (EERS) and manage users in the organisation’s Client Portal account.

For responsible emitters, the executive officer and contact person nominated in the application for registration will only be given EERS logon details if the facility that the responsible emitter has operational control over is not already included in a section 19, 22G or 22X report. Where the safeguard facilities are already reported on, the responsible emitter will have no additional safeguard reporting obligations.

What next?

Registered controlling corporations must submit an annual report on the greenhouse gas emissions and energy production and consumption for facilities that are under its operational control, and under the operational control of members of its corporate group regardless of whether or not a threshold under the NGER Scheme has been met for that reporting year. See How to Report for more information

See our Disclaimer, data disclosure, and privacy page to find out what NGER data is published. This page also explains our obligations in terms of protection of information.

Need to deregister?

A controlling corporation or a responsible emitter may apply to be deregistered providing it meets certain conditions.

The agency will deregister an applicant and remove the applicant’s name from the National Greenhouse and Energy Register if satisfied that:

where the applicant is a controlling corporation, its corporate group is not likely to meet any of the thresholds under section 13 of the NGER Act for:

the financial year in which the application is made, and
the next two financial years, and

for all applicants, the applicant can demonstrate that they:
- do not hold a reporting transfer certificate (RTC), and
- have complied with their obligations under the NGER Act.

More information is provided in the documentasset:CER-DER-001 Application for deregistration.