NSW CER Installer Portal
Owner: NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW)
Role: UX Lead for the NSW CER Installer Portal.
Disciplines: Product Design, UX Research, Service Design, Accessibility, Information Architecture
and Prototyping
Overview
The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) required a new digital platform to streamline the fragmented registration of solar and battery installations across New South Wales. The platform enables installers and retailers to register, commission and verify renewable energy systems in line with new legislation, bringing multiple processes into a single user experience.
By consolidating registration, compliance and reporting activities, the solution reduces administrative effort, improves data quality, strengthens safety assurance and enhances network visibility. The portal also supports flexible energy exports and grid reliability initiatives, helping drive NSW’s transition to a smarter and more sustainable energy future.
The Challenge
The Department required a brand-new digital service capable of supporting diverse installer groups, complex regulatory obligations and varying levels of digital literacy. The solution needed to balance strict compliance requirements with a simple user experience.
Research and Discovery
Through workshops, interviews and process reviews, key stakeholders and user groups identified numerous pain points in the existing solar installation landscape, including fragmented workflows, confusing terminology, reliance on support channels and significant manual effort in order to ensure information flowed freely across interested parties. These insights and available collateral informed the product vision and roadmap which was translated into vision boards with clear objectives and outcomes.
Defining the Experience
I created service blueprints, user journeys, navigation structures and guided task flows that helped visually simplify and consolidate complex mandatory user and compliance activities. This was critical given the array of perspectives from each of the stakeholders that represented their area of expertise across industry and government. The approach included collaborative design reviews helping establish a shared vision and maintain delivery momentum. This resulted in the reduction of process complexity, conflict and ambiguity.
Accessibility by Design
The NSW CER Installer Portal being a product of the NSW Government had strict guidelines to comply with the NSW Design System architecture across visual and non-visual components. Accessibility was incorporated throughout the design lifecycle, including WCAG-aligned principles, accessible forms, keyboard navigation, content hierarchy and plain-English communication.
Outcomes
The platform improved self-service capability, reduced administrative burden, supported regulatory compliance, delivered an accessible user experience and established a scalable foundation for future growth. This initiative demonstrated how product design can bridge policy, technology and customer needs by making the complexity of regulation largely invisible to users to ensure service is delivered through a simpler and more valuable customer experience.