Mandatory Solar Is Now Code. Height Safety Needs to Be Part of the Conversation

The National Construction Code 2025 has just placed solar panels on virtually every new commercial rooftop in Australia. For building owners, developers, and facilities managers, that means something important has changed. Not just about energy. About who is going to be on your roof, and how often.

Section J9D5 of NCC 2025 requires commercial and mixed-use buildings to install on-site solar photovoltaic systems covering one hundred percent of available roof area. The exclusions are narrow: shaded areas, steeply pitched sections, roof gardens, terraces, skylights, and areas designated for height safety systems or plant maintenance access. That last exclusion is not incidental. It is the building code recognising that solar panels and height safety access must share the same roof, and that someone needs to make the two work together before construction begins.

That someone is not the solar installer. It is the building owner.

Solar panels degrade. They accumulate dust, bird matter, and debris that reduces output. Connections fail. Inverters need servicing. Panels eventually reach end of life and must be replaced. Each of those tasks puts a qualified trade on your rooftop, moving around near edges, over skylights, and between rows of racking at various points throughout the year. Under the WHS Act, the person in control of the premises holds a duty of care to ensure that work can be performed safely. That obligation does not sit with the tradesperson. It sits with you.

The wider rooftop picture makes this more complex, not less. Commercial buildings already carry HVAC equipment, evaporative coolers, exhaust fans, roof drainage, and communications infrastructure, all of which need regular maintenance. NCC 2025 adds solar panels to that list. A rooftop that was already busy is about to get busier, with more trades visiting more often for a broader range of tasks. Every one of those visits is a working-at-heights activity. And the question of whether the roof is set up to support that activity safely falls to the building owner.

The sequencing problem is where this gets serious. Solar panels are being designed, approved, and installed before anyone has asked the height safety question. A rooftop covered edge to edge in photovoltaic racking has very little room for walkways, static lines, or access routes. If the height safety system was not designed into the layout before the panels went down, the people maintaining those panels may have no safe way to reach them.

We have watched this pattern develop. Anchored Height Safety works with building owners and facilities managers who have found themselves with expensive rooftop assets and no compliant way to access them. The duty of care has not disappeared because the access is difficult. It has simply become a compliance problem waiting for the wrong moment to become a legal one. We understand the pressure building teams are under to hit compliance targets, and we have seen what happens when height safety is left until after every other decision has been made.

The right sequence is straightforward. We work directly with your solar installer to map out the static horizontal lifeline routes, anchor point locations, fixed ladder positions, and designated walkway paths alongside the panel layout. The goal is not just to meet the requirements of both the NCC and the relevant height safety standards. It is to optimise both systems so the roof works as a whole. NCC 2025 explicitly permits height safety access zones to be excluded from solar coverage under J9D5(2)(a)(viii). The code is not asking building owners to choose between solar compliance and safety compliance. It is requiring both.

We design, install, certify, and maintain the height safety infrastructure that allows qualified tradespeople to access every part of your roof safely. For solar-equipped buildings, that means a compliant static lifeline system running the length of the panel field, anchor points at key service zones, and a fixed access route from the roof hatch to where maintenance occurs most often. Our documentation tells every trade who steps onto your roof exactly what systems are installed, what each component is rated for, and when it was last inspected. They arrive prepared. They work safely. You have a record that demonstrates your obligations were met.

When the roof is set up properly, the building performs as intended. Solar output is maintained through regular, safe servicing. Tradespeople return home. The building owner has clear documentation showing the access system was compliant and being maintained. Insurance claims are straightforward.

When it is not done properly, the costs accumulate quietly. Solar output drops because nobody can safely reach the panels to clean them. A maintenance worker improvises access and is injured. WorkSafe investigators ask when the roof was last certified and what access systems were in place. The answers are not adequate. The solar investment that was supposed to reduce operating costs starts generating a different kind of bill.

NCC 2025 has reshaped the commercial rooftop. More panels, more equipment, more people working at height, more often. The height safety conversation needs to happen before the solar layout is finalised, not after.

If you are developing, designing, or managing a building subject to NCC 2025, reach out before the solar plan is locked in. Call us on 03 9555 3586, email sales@anchored.com.au or visit anchored.com.au to find out how we can design a height safety system that works with your solar layout from the start.