Energy is one of the few lines a board can still move. Care minutes are legislated, wages are set and food spend is scrutinised. Energy is set by infrastructure rather than by care.
The numbers from StewartBrown's most recent Residential Aged Care Financial Performance Survey are the ones every provider board in the country is currently being measured against.
For the nine months to 31 March 2026, the average home recorded an operating deficit of $9.16 per bed day, against a $0.91 per bed day surplus in the same period a year earlier. Sixty-two per cent of homes were operating at a loss, up from 49 per cent. Operating EBITDA fell to around $4,835 per bed per annum, down from $8,067, and StewartBrown puts the figure needed to support new development at $20,000 to $22,000 per bed per annum. The survey covers 1,173 homes, roughly 45 per cent of the sector.
Occupancy is not the problem. Occupancy has been strong. The problem is that costs have moved faster than funding, and most of the largest cost lines are not available to a board that wants to act.
Care minutes are legislated. Award wages are set. Food and nutrition spend is scrutinised, and cutting it is both reputationally and clinically indefensible. Compliance costs are rising, not falling.
Energy is different. Energy is a large, recurring operating cost that is set by infrastructure decisions rather than by care decisions, which makes it one of the very few lines a board can genuinely change without touching the resident experience.
Aged care boards think in dollars per bed day. Most energy proposals arrive in kilowatts and payback years, which is one reason they sit in the too-hard pile.
Translate before you present. Take the site's annual electricity spend, divide by beds, divide by 365. That gives you the energy cost per bed day, in the same unit as the deficit figure the board has been staring at.
Do it and the conversation changes immediately, because energy stops being a facilities matter and becomes a visible fraction of the number the board is accountable for. A movement of a dollar or two per bed day is not a rounding error in a sector averaging a $9.16 deficit. It is a material share of the gap.
The related operational measure is kilowatt hours per bed per day. It is worth tracking because it is how energy performance is normalised in this sector: NABERS Energy and Water for Residential Aged Care and Retirement Living rates a home against its occupied bed days, alongside laundry processed on site, meals cooked and shared facilities such as heated pools. Compare your own sites on that basis rather than on total spend, which mostly tells you which home is biggest.
We covered this in more detail in our earlier piece on the energy cost problem in aged care, so briefly.
A residential aged care home runs a genuine 24-hour base load. Clinical equipment, climate control, hot water, commercial kitchens, laundry and lighting do not switch off. Unlike a school or an office, there is no overnight trough where the building goes quiet.
Critically, the peak of that load sits in daylight hours. Morning showers and laundry, the kitchen through lunch service, and air conditioning through the hottest part of the afternoon all land inside the solar generation window, which is the ideal case for self-consumption. Very little is exported at a low rate, because the building uses what the roof makes.
The buildings help too. Aged care homes are usually low-rise with large, simple, unshaded roof areas, often across several separate buildings on one title. Roof space is rarely the limiting factor.
One more thing worth watching if you are planning a portfolio. The federal small-scale scheme is expected to cover solar up to 1 MW from 1 October 2026, up from 100 kW, subject to the regulations being made. That would bring most aged care roofs inside it, and we cover what it changes in the 1 MW change to the commercial solar rebate.
Two things that solar alone will not fix, and that any honest proposal should say out loud:
A 15-site residential aged care group. The brief was portfolio-wide rather than site by site: reduce grid energy cost across the group without disrupting care delivery at any home, and without a separate negotiation, contractor and design process for every facility.
What we delivered:
Zool Energy publishes the outcome of that program as a reduction in grid energy costs of up to 58 per cent. That figure describes those specific sites, on their tariffs and consumption profiles at the time of assessment. It is not a forecast for any other provider.
Three things about that project are worth more than the headline number.
One counterparty across 15 sites. A provider running a facilities team stretched across multiple homes does not have the capacity to manage fifteen separate solar projects, fifteen sets of network approvals and fifteen maintenance relationships. The single-counterparty structure is not a sales line here, it is the only reason a program of that size is deliverable at all.
Care delivery came first. Every home stayed fully operational. Roof works, switchboard works and connection outages in a building full of clinically vulnerable residents are a planning problem before they are an electrical one, and they are scheduled around the home, not around the crew.
Ownership was the provider's choice, not ours. This group had capital and wanted the assets on its balance sheet, so it funded the program. Another provider, with the same buildings and the same bills, would be better served by Total Care, where we fund, build, operate and maintain the system and the home pays a fixed price for the power it uses with no capital outlay. Fees apply under the agreement. The engineering is identical. Only the funding structure changes.
That second path is the one most providers need right now, for the obvious reason: when 62 per cent of homes are in deficit, capital is not available for anything that does not directly touch care.
If you run more than a handful of homes, do not start with all of them.
Aged care boards are being asked to close a deficit with almost every major cost line fixed by legislation or clinical obligation. Energy is one of the few that is genuinely open, and it is open at portfolio scale, not just at one home.
The place to start is not a proposal or a site visit. It is your bills.
It varies with the age of the building, the climate zone and the plant, which is why any credible answer starts with your actual bills rather than a sector average. The useful step is converting your annual electricity spend into a cost per bed day, so it can be compared directly against the operating result your board reports.
The load profile suits it unusually well. Aged care homes run a 24-hour base load with the daily peak falling in daylight hours, when a rooftop system is generating, so most of the energy produced is consumed on site rather than exported at a low rate.
Yes. Under the Total Care model, Zool Energy designs, funds, builds, operates and maintains the system, and the provider pays a fixed price for the power it uses over a 10 to 25 year term, with no capital outlay. Fees apply under the agreement and terms are subject to credit assessment. Providers who prefer to own the assets can instead engage us on a capital basis.
Yes. We have delivered a 15-facility program totalling approximately 1.8 MW under one design standard and one delivery contract, with every home remaining fully operational throughout.
Not on its own, in most cases. Demand charges are driven by the single highest half-hour of draw, which often occurs after generation has finished. Battery storage is what addresses that, and commercial battery incentives improved materially in 2026.
Sector financial figures are from the StewartBrown Aged Care Financial Performance Survey analysis report for the nine months to 31 March 2026 and describe the sector, not any individual provider. Project figures are indicative only and reflect the specific sites, tariffs and consumption profiles at the time of assessment. Actual results vary. Incentive references are subject to change with market and policy, and eligibility depends on site, network area and system configuration. Total Care agreements are subject to credit assessment and contract terms.
Send us 12 months of energy bills for your sites and we will come back with the cost per bed day for each one, and what solar and storage would do to it. At no cost and no obligation.
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