0:00

So today we've got here, matthew Somerville, from Renuko and Matthew, we have a golden tradition here to start the right vibe.

0:07

Can you please touch my ball?

0:09

That feels better.

0:13

Yeah, thank you. Do you feel the? Do you feel the vibe?

0:16

I don't feel the vibe from stimulating your ball.

0:19

Okay, well, well, talk about that later.

0:22

Tell us all a bit about Renuko.

0:28

You're now a solar company, or more, on the northern part of Sydney.

0:32

How long you've been going? What's going on?

0:34

Yeah, so we're approaching three years now.

0:37

We've focused mainly on developing a boutique solar business to operate in the northern beaches, north shore, then expanded into the eastern suburbs and really focusing on delivering a very high quality solution in a market where typically the homeowner can afford to pay their electricity bills and haven't necessarily been focused on renewable energy before.

0:59

Okay, so how did you get?

1:00

into it. So, finally enough. It started probably about 2017, back in the days where it was profitable to be a door to door solar salesman selling 6.6 kilowatt systems for 12, 13, $14,000.

1:17

You had kind of no idea what you were selling.

1:20

You had no idea who was installing it.

1:22

Initially it was, like you know, you were selling a plasma screen TV.

1:26

There wasn't the understanding of look, it's an intricate 600 volt DC generator that you're installing on someone's roof.

1:33

And so as I kind of developed in the industry, developed my knowledge, I became more and more interested, because solar is a very interesting kind of business.

1:42

There's a heavy practical side that you can learn a lot about and there's a very large theoretical side that you can kind of learn a lot about.

1:50

So that developed this obsession, this one to learn more and more, and then that slowly led into then creating, you know, an independent consultancy focused on more boutique solutions, and that's how this kind of bred and started.

2:03

You told me something when we had the pre talk about your dad and you had a steep roof and somehow you got into solar or something like that.

2:10

How did all that start going back the whole first step?

2:13

Yeah. So I grew up in a 100 year old house in Warrawee and solar was starting to become more prevalent, obviously in like 2008, 2000 and 2010, with the prevalence of the New South Wales rebate plus the federal rebate, and so you were obviously at home hearing discussions of should we do solar panels on the roof was in the days of the 60 cent feed in tariff.

2:38

Now my father's concern was I've got a steep terracotta roof.

2:43

I don't want anyone to get up there and cause issues with my roof.

2:46

The industry sounds dodgy.

2:48

I'm worried about the product quality that's going to be installed, because I got no idea what any of this stuff is, and so the premise of this business was to basically negate every one of those concerns that someone would have when they live in a house on the North Shore, nolan Beach's eastern suburbs that's 70 to maybe 100 year olds and old in its foundation.

3:07

They've got a steep terracotta roof.

3:09

They're potentially in a conservation area or it's a heritage listed item, and we built it to solve all of those issues.

3:16

Right. So if I have a good old hair to show him and I want solar, you know how to solve it, 100 percent.

3:22

How.

3:24

So, number one, you have to know initially what are the caveats on the property, what are your restrictions.

3:31

Solar, obviously, is a DA exempt process.

3:34

Right. Yeah, if you're in a heritage conservation area, there's caveats on what you can do to remain there exempt, right.

3:42

So for the homeowner, if you can imagine, you have to be extremely knowledgeable when you're selling and quoting on all of those stipulations to ensure that they have confidence that you can deliver the project.

3:52

There's a couple of things you have to do. Stay away from primary road facing aspects is one big one.

3:58

You can't extend above 0.5 meters above the roof, above the roof line, which usually inhibits doing tilt frames on a system.

4:09

You can't do a 15 degree tilt with a 1.8 meter long panel.

4:12

It'll exceed that comfortably. So, knowing those stipulations and then understanding, ok, well, you know, if it's a steep roof, how do we install on a steep roof?

4:19

Explain to the client look, this is what we're going to do, reverse ab sale, or, you know, edge protection, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, depending on whether it's walkable or not, and then also working around, if you can't use certain aspects of the roof let's say the house is north facing how do we then design the system to suit the client's needs when they don't have an optimal aspect to use?

4:38

Got it, I mean?

4:40

doing the eastern suburbs and north sheds, you would see a lot of nice houses.

4:44

So if you don't do a decent job, you're going to get smacked Correct.

4:48

So you have to balance a number of different factors for these homeowners.

4:53

So quality in every facet is extremely important Quality of the installation, visibility of cabling, product quality all extremely important as well as after sale services, because it's an expectation that when some of these people give you their hard earned money to install on a very nice house, that you're going to be there to support the system in full and there really can be no exceptions in terms of the service that you deliver from beginning to end, and that's how we approach it, but we approach it like that with every single client, which is how we've managed to grow rapidly to the point of doing between eight to 12 installations per week in house.

5:32

As a relatively new business in the industry, probably the best thing that you can do and something I've spent hours and hours doing is perusing the crap solar page, working out within the industry and, from a client's perspective, what don't you do.

5:48

That's, by the way, a Facebook page where people put samples of how they got done by Dodgy Solar Correct, and so you studied the Dodgy Solar guys 100 percent To work out how not to do it Exactly, and there's actually a very interesting document posted there, once called Crap Solar Bingo, which covers all of the markers to look for.

6:10

To understand if you've had a crap solar install stuff, like when you used to do DC isolators on the roof, you'd have an isolated cover, leaving the blue plastic on top of the cover, letting it melt into the cover.

6:24

Right, because you wouldn't spend the five seconds it takes to take it off, Right?

6:28

Well, I've seen worse than that. Actually, I've seen those isolators just been attached to the isolators just been attached, not screwed on, but just been attached with cable ties.

6:40

Wow, there's interesting stuff like that.

6:42

There's a. If you look at that page long enough, you'll find situations where things have been siliconed and stuck on with silicon to a system you have you know.

6:53

I've seen solar panels only siliconed on the roof.

6:56

That's terrible. That's very efficient.

6:59

Yeah, you save all the rail, you can cut the cost and you'll also have a lot of heat exchange to your roof and now you're 70 degrees solar panel on the hot days warming up your roof.

7:09

From the inside. We see a lot of aluminium rail that is an anodised it's just exposed aluminium, so it's been you know how to zinc treatment for anti-corrosion.

7:19

That's the galvanisation process.

7:21

But when you put that next to a coastal area, you're looking at 20 year service life and for me, when I put a system on a client's roof, my goal is 25 years minimum.

7:32

That's what I want out of that system. Wow, and it doesn't fit into that parameter at all.

7:37

No, no, you're basically getting start getting them powdery.

7:40

You can't open the screws after a few years, and so any maintenance work is really kind of in some way very difficult.

7:47

You got to grind off stuff sometimes.

7:49

Exactly. And it can result then in the client just saying oh look, I'm going to put this in the too hard basket, rip it off, put a new system on.

7:57

It's costing me two grand or three grand to get this all fixed anyway.

8:00

And then you deal with a sustainability issue that's prevalent in market.

8:04

There's a complete lack of reuse, complete lack of recycling and a very quick mentality to simply dispose of an old system.

8:13

So, ironically, the solar industry is really here to save the world.

8:17

Should we be going for more quality to make the stuff last longer?

8:21

100%.

8:22

The. When I see these cheap solar brands coming into marketing, coming out of market, I mean how many Chinese manufacturers, and German manufacturers as well, have popped up in market only to leave within two to three years often all their systems, void all warranties and then potentially come back again and try to do it again.

8:42

I tie this all back to why I should do quality when we look at LG solar.

8:46

Lg pulled out of market, but what have they done with their warranties?

8:50

They said we will continue to honor our warranty.

8:53

So this is why I align with REC for my partner, manufacturer Number one, they've been around for 27 years.

8:59

They have test sites running since 1996.

9:01

Financially they're viable, they're a well run business and for that factor I say, okay, look, this is most likely, if I was to assess everything on market, going to be something I trust to last on market for 25 years.

9:15

Look, I actually had REC panels on my own house.

9:18

Pulled them off just for efficiency reasons about two, three years ago, cleaned them up, sold them to somebody who wanted an off grid system, but they were still looking spinky spanky.

9:30

Yeah, and one thing I did when I analyzed that product choice was I spoke to a few key people in the industry who work in the insurance replacement portion, and one thing that an insurance company will do is they'll actually, if the manufacturer won't support it, they'll replace a system if they aren't meeting their performance warranties.

9:48

One brand is very notorious for not being caught up in any of that and that's REC, and you would have heard it before as well.

9:55

There's been issues with companies lying about their degradation statistics.

10:00

Right, I didn't know that.

10:01

Yes.

10:02

Now has solar changed over the last 10 years or so?

10:05

What's?

10:06

the difference. The biggest difference for me is looking at the consumer education level and their knowledge level that has grown massively to the point where the average consumer now can look at a system and they can analyze and interpret the value much better.

10:23

Well, that has created is a push away from cheap and nasty you know three and a half thousand dollars, 6.6 kilowatts into the more quality side of things, spending between seven to $10,000 to do a really high quality system that they know is going to last and they see value in it.

10:43

I mean, is that simply because of a cheap system and maybe it gives me $1,600 benefit?

10:48

I get that for three years and then I have a headache by quality system.

10:52

I get a 10 years plus.

10:54

Maybe I do an inverter replacement year 12, depending what I use for the inverter solution.

10:58

So logically, the little bit of money I spent first I'll get it back in spades later on, 100%.

11:05

See what I say to a client is one huge consideration you need to have when you're analyzing your return investment is potential system downtime.

11:14

Now, what are the contributing factors to potential system downtime?

11:18

One product quality issue, manufacturing issue manufacturing pulls out of market.

11:24

Two installation issue that results in a fault.

11:26

Three company long term viability.

11:29

Who installed the job? Are they going to be around to support it?

11:32

You can keep going and adding to all these variables that can affect a system's downtime and then, when you look at over a 25 year period, your cost analysis completely changes.

11:43

When you look at doing a quality system through a quality manufacturer versus doing a cheaper nasty system through a cheaper nasty installer.

11:51

Even I think some of the solar retailers are actually offering fairly cheap systems, and I know of a particular instance where somebody, every November their cheap inverter died and it took always till March to replace it, three years in a row, so they were just pulled their hair out.

12:09

That's shocking.

12:09

And they always had no stock because the same model kept on breaking down so they could never get enough from overseas back to replace it.

12:16

It was a nightmare that's terrible.

12:18

I've met people and they fit into a specific demographic within Sydney relative to maybe where they live or number of factors and their mentality is.

12:29

I should try and pay the cheapest amount possible because there's unlimited rebate claims.

12:35

So if my system breaks I'll just put another one on and another one on and I actually have a very good chance of one of those systems potentially working and at that point I'm up to the cost of doing a good quality one.

12:45

That's terrible for the environment it's terrible for the taxpayer.

12:50

You're funding people who are running this stupid mentality of putting in the cheapest system possible and running a revolution of just replacement.

12:59

Yeah, but I mean I've seen the people who install the cheap system.

13:02

In my team we used to call them the roof monkeys.

13:04

I haven't asked you that. Do you do in-house stuff or do you subbies?

13:08

How do you do it and why do you prefer it?

13:10

So full in-house, no subcontract, to work.

13:13

I'm poor. All of our electricians full time.

13:17

Reason is quality control.

13:19

That's probably the most important one.

13:21

You can get good subcontractors, fine.

13:24

If an issue pops up, there's no way that you can feasibly get that problem fixed as quickly as if they're your own in-house guys that you have full control over.

13:34

Because ultimately when you deal with a contractor, you know you have a partnership of the kind.

13:40

When you employ your electricians full time they're your staff.

13:43

So if there is an issue and you want them to go back to site, they need to go back to site if it's reasonable, obviously they get trained in the way you do things they deliver.

13:51

every site the same. If problems pop up, there's a consistency in what kind of problem it generally is.

13:55

If it's a manufacturer fault, oh we know what this is.

13:58

We know how to fix this. Go back, sort this out, bang bang bang.

14:01

Very easy, streamlined. The client can be kept updated in full, you can communicate clearly because you know exactly what's going on.

14:08

It's very important for me running an in-house model and I believe it's just 100% superior, and there is no way that subcontracting can be a better solution.

14:19

And it's amazing because in the industry you'll get a lot of companies though that will tell you we're full in-house.

14:25

You can speak to a subcontractor in the space of five minutes and say, look, you're happy to wear our uniforms?

14:28

Yep, no problem, you can give the illusion.

14:30

There's a way you can check.

14:33

If you're a viewer and you're a client and you want to find out what you do, is you cross reference On the fair trading license?

14:40

Check, look up the company, talk into electrical license, look who they're registered, nominated supervisors or electrician, and then cross reference it against who their CSE accredited installer is.

14:50

There should be a link between the two.

14:53

If there isn't, then it becomes a third party arrangement.

14:57

It's not a subcontractor arrangement.

14:59

So what are you really?

15:01

saying If I, down the track, have an issue and I have a company like Renuko where it's all in-house, then I know exactly who's the person that's going to have to help me now.

15:12

But if I have subbies, I have seen situations where the company's and then they're trying to shift the blame onto the subbie.

15:20

The legislation puts the blame.

15:23

Well, the legislation puts all liability on the electrical license that signs off on the job.

15:29

And there's actually a loophole in the legislation.

15:31

You see, if you've got an electrical license, you can't get a CSE accreditation under your electrical license.

15:38

Cse accreditation is under personal names.

15:41

An electrician will go to a course and become CSE accredited and then they can sign off on a job.

15:47

That means that if you have an electrical license you can invoice and sell a job and if you hire a contractor they're actually classified as a third party and they have to cover all of their own warranties.

15:58

So you can go as far as if you're a sales company putting it on the customer that their relationship now about the solar system has been installed has to purely be with that contractor who signed off on the job and you're not liable for it at all.

16:12

You're not pursuable in fair trading. You're not pursuable in any way.

16:15

If the client was to leave a battery for your company, you could say look, I didn't do the job, this contractor did the job.

16:20

That's defamation and slander. It goes that far with the way the regulatory body has completely lacked in fixing any of the legislation to make companies liable for the work that they sell and what.

16:32

That's a lot of the cheap companies who use subbies 100%.

16:35

And think about it right. Think about the business model.

16:38

What's your goal? Be devoid of liability. How do you be devoid of viability?

16:41

Subcontract the job out means you don't have to do warranties, means your margin can be lower.

16:45

They're very smart, the people who have set up these cheap and nasty sales companies.

16:49

Intelligent because they leverage the legislation the market is literally set up to.

16:54

If you don't have a soul and you have no moral compass, it's very easy to make money in this industry.

16:59

Set up a sales company, subcontract the jobs out you're not liable and just sell cheap stuff.

17:05

Make a small margin, run small overheads fantastic.

17:08

But then also at the end, when all these warranties come towards you, you go to liberally bust.

17:14

That's why 800 companies have done that.

17:17

Exactly what you do is you employ your wife or your partner.

17:21

You pay her a $500,000 a year salary.

17:24

You funnel all the money out. You put the house in her name.

17:27

She registered securities against all your vehicles that you buy under the business you fold, you open up a new one.

17:33

You declare bankruptcy. Whatever you need to do?

17:36

Maybe get banned from running a business for a few years.

17:38

Doesn't matter all your assets are secure, and then the wife goes away with a poor man.

17:42

Hopefully not.

17:44

We have a client. Unfortunately, that's happened too.

17:48

All right, all right, let's leave that one alone.

17:51

Exporting solar the feeding tariff has come down.

17:54

Used to be 60 cents, now it's only five cents.

17:57

How do you advise clients with that issue?

18:00

The way that I quoted job is to push the client to go as big as humanly possible.

18:05

Context Our average system size we install is 11.7 kilowatt.

18:09

Back in the day, what size system would you install on average when it was 60 cents?

18:13

1.5 kilowatt you make up for in the differential of doing a larger system and exporting more power.

18:19

It's really just pushing more and more towards doing a bigger and bigger system.

18:24

It's like advantage of the feeding tariffs on market. The other service that we do as well it's very important is energy bill rate analysis post installation.

18:30

I'm touching on this a little bit later.

18:32

What do you call?

18:32

that Energy bill rate analysis. All right, okay.

18:35

So what we'll do is do a basically understand what's the energy pricing market like at all times, then provide suggestions to our clients when it comes to the energy plan that they're on Power shop at the moment, offer a 12 cent uncapped feeding tariff.

18:50

Origin and AGL are offering, you know, 14 and 15 cent respectively for the first 14 kilowatt exported feeding tariffs with a reduction.

19:00

So understanding what's on market is super important.

19:04

You know a lot of people think that feeding tariffs right now are five cents capped or seven cents capped simply because their retailer has given them those rates.

19:12

They don't understand that you've got to negotiate and you've got to leverage and you got to look at what's on market.

19:16

Every time the client gets a bill, we encourage them to send us through a copy Let us analyze the rates, let us do an estimation on what would be a better plan for them, and we take into account number of factors when we do.

19:27

That is proprietary in the way we do it. We don't just analyze the last bill, because what's last quarter's energy usage, reflective of the next quarters?

19:36

You have to build into it predictions. Understand the loads that are present at the property.

19:40

It's really a whole year's worth of electricity bill. Minimum you need to look at isn't it.

19:44

Look, when we get a full year's worth of data, then it becomes easy because we know hey look, from January to June you need to be on this plan.

19:53

Based on the last 12 months worth of data, we found that, on average, you were exporting twice as much as you were importing.

20:00

Feeding. Tariff becomes the important thing there.

20:05

Power shop with a 12% fit in the 36 and usage rate in a dollar a day supply chart is gonna be the best thing for you on market.

20:10

Now in June, we're noticing that, hey, your production is dropping, your consumption is bumping up because you're using your aircon, your heating, whatever it is, more prevalently, and now you're actually importing more than you're exporting.

20:22

Well then we look at a low usage rate plan like a globe bird.

20:24

I mean to put it in perspective. When all those big electricity price increases happened in July, there was shock to the market.

20:33

What's about to happen? We sent 550 clients a message to say, hey, look, globe bird's doing a new plan 34.5% peak, 22.5% short, 22.5% off peak, guaranteed until 2024.

20:48

Get on this plan straight away.

20:50

That would have been one of the best plans around.

20:52

It was the best plan on the market when it came to usage rates.

20:55

Well, that's good. After sale service it's massive.

20:58

It saves them literally. Their electricity price is increasing by almost 100% if they're with Energy Australia, agile Origin, which all jumped to over 60 cent peak rates.

21:06

The irony now is that the wholesale rate has gone down and the buggers are still charging the big prices they must have, making profits like hell.

21:13

Well, 100%, they'd be making an enormous amount of profit, and it's due to the way that the legislation changed in how a retailer could oncharge the average Australian.

21:21

So what happens is, if you're in a home or in a business and you're buying power, the retailer charges you based on what they're charged bios, grid or energy or essential energy by the generators.

21:37

Yeah, the wholesale price Correct.

21:40

But then they're allowed to charge a markup. Now the markup they now charge is 30%, where previously it sat between five and 10%, averaging at about 6%.

21:49

So there's been a massive 24.5% increase in the actual oncharge from the network to the client by the retailer.

21:58

And this issue with having a privatised energy network and when you've got almost collusion in your face when the snowy hydro, which is owned by Minister of Energy and Minister of Finance it's where the money goes owns red energy.

22:12

So you've got legislation written by an energy minister with a vested interest in an energy company Red Energy and I think that's caused a number of problems.

22:23

Realistically, what would be best is if you somewhat nationalised the energy sector a bit more or pushed the regulator harder to work in alignment with the average Australian, because the moment is just a massive transfer of wealth.

22:40

So who's looking after the interest in a cost of living crisis of the actual normal end?

22:46

customer? No one. It's fallen on the end customer, which is why the industry saw a 75% growth in the last 12 months, is what I would say that's all industry, right right Now.

22:56

What certifications does your company have?

22:58

So we're CSE accredited installers.

23:01

Right.

23:02

Okay, we're electrically licensed and we've chosen to deliberately stay away from all of the industry what I would call, you know, money-grabbing bodies that have set up these private certifications that mean absolutely nothing based on the companies they give them to, but they have a good fee structure.

23:24

They have a great fee structure, you know, I think recently we looked at the one of the new ones that are popped into market and it was like $6,600 a year for a membership at the size of the business that we have and we were like what's the point?

23:39

We speak to other good quality installers in market.

23:42

They don't touch them. The way to analyse a business isn't on what badge they've bought.

23:47

They're very pretty, very pretty barges.

23:49

They sound fantastic, their bodies that do absolutely nothing positive for the industry other than make it more difficult to operate as a good operator.

23:59

So what we leverage is and our real badge, our reviews, our testimonials, the quality of our work, showcasing all of our work, being transparent.

24:07

That's how we kind of have merit upon ourselves.

24:12

You know there's industry awards, things that you can win.

24:14

We were REC's media representative, the year award winner at the REC Awards recently.

24:20

Those little extra things working with council, working with, you know, federal MPs, et cetera.

24:26

That gives you, or gives us, the real merit that we're looking for, not spending $1,000 to $10,000 on fancy barges because my business isn't good and I need to pay for recognition.

24:39

Now any stories that you go on existing roofs where you find what's called.

24:44

Crap Solar. The worst one that I ever came across was a 10 kilowatt solar system.

24:51

If you can recall, it was when SunPower were doing the 96 cell 327 watts, and they paired it with a solar edge six kilowatt inverter and then you had LG Chem.

25:03

All really good gear. So are you telling me the story?

25:06

You can still stuff it up, even if you have good gear, 100% Initially.

25:10

He has the 10 kilowatt system installed and his build started to increase.

25:13

Then he spoke to the company that sold him the system.

25:16

They said you're using too much. You're underfloor heating.

25:18

The client didn't have underfloor heating and then said what you need to do is install another battery.

25:23

So he's then doubled up his battery capacity and his bills have then gone up another $1,000.

25:28

The client ended up, after getting legal letters from the company that installed it, to cease and desist contact because there's no problem.

25:35

Goes to the GSES. Gses do an initial report.

25:39

48 major faults reported in the system.

25:42

Please clarify.

25:43

GSES is basically a very reputable company that knows a lot about solar and they can help you analyze if there's an issue.

25:50

And they do extensive reports, they're phenomenal.

25:53

Anyway, they report 48 major faults in the system.

25:56

Non-compliance is on system faults. Client takes the report, sends it to the company.

26:00

They then come back and say no, we don't believe it, we don't, there's any issues.

26:06

So the client pays for another report, a GSES reports $2,200-ish.

26:12

It's been about four and a half thousand dollars.

26:14

Sends two reports across the company.

26:16

Sends the reports to the Clean Energy Council. Sends the reports to Fair Trading.

26:20

Clean Energy Council say we are not willing to pursue this company over this system.

26:27

The company that did the job was actually one of the founding companies part of the approved solar retailer scheme, if you can recall that.

26:33

So you had a regulatory body not willing to pursue a business and not be transparent with the customer as to why Fair Trading ended up finding the company $3,000 because the system wasn't meeting the estimated savings that the company had promised.

26:48

That money was not passed on to the client and that was the end process.

26:53

He then called us. We jump in the system, do a quick diagnosis.

26:56

Okay, the system's been set up whereby the LG battery is only wired into the fridge and the freezer and not set for self-consumption, so it's not discharging into the home.

27:09

What it's doing is it's on a timer where it's set to when it goes below 40% battery capacity, charge up off the grid and at every night at 7pm, discharge fully into the fridge and the freezer.

27:22

So what the client system had been doing was basically producing power during the day, filling up the battery.

27:27

Batteries were then forcing themselves to discharge.

27:30

The power was getting basically lost, and then it was charging up off the grid Every night.

27:36

This was a continuous thing. So his average daily usage had gone from 30 kilowatt hour a day to 60 kilowatt hour a day.

27:41

So basically, his battery became an energy vampire, correct?

27:47

We had to replace a couple of components.

27:50

In the space of a day we had the system working correctly.

27:54

And then his next bill.

27:56

After receiving bills of around $3,000 a quarter at this point were down to a $300 bill.

28:04

I was just expecting you to tell me a system where the water was in the panels.

28:09

This was a horror story end to end, exposing the issues within the industry with installation quality, how it can affect good quality product.

28:17

Issues with the regulatory body, issues with the legislation on the way that you know, fair trading can operate and the regulator operates.

28:25

Incredibly disappointing experience if someone to go through.

28:27

So the lesson is don't just kind of make it look good because you're buying good gear, because the install quality has a lot to do with the final result.

28:36

Is that the message?

28:37

Yeah, 100%. And you have to understand as well that you need the people installing the job to be technically proficient when it comes to doing a high end solar battery system.

28:48

You want to understand that they are proven in their ability to deliver things as technically difficult as a solar battery system is, because they can be.

28:58

Technical Problems can pop up. You need to understand how do I solve this issue if it does present, and you need to be, you know, honest enough to tell the client and recognize.

29:08

And the client says there's a problem and realize, okay, there might be a problem and then put time and attention into fixing it.

29:14

Well, let's say it's a Friday afternoon. You sit there with the boys in the warehouse having a beer and you get a phone call of some kind of unexpected issue.

29:22

What could be the issue and how would you handle it?

29:26

Finish your beer On Tuesday so Monday afternoon I had a call from a client hey, my wife was dropped out.

29:32

I said, look, I'm coming.

29:34

I ended up driving two and a half hours down the South Coast to fix the system for it.

29:39

The issue was that plugged their repeater back in connected in the space of 10 minutes left gone.

29:44

But going to that extra level is what makes us different, and I would say that there are zero company owners that are running a business of our scale where we're 20 full time staff that will personally go back to site to fix those little things.

29:58

Number one save my team from having the stuff around.

30:02

Number two I respect the client in full.

30:05

If they've given me, I might need to put a system on their roof.

30:09

I'm supporting that to my fullest extent.

30:12

Well, two things. I think you would have possibly got a cup of tea.

30:15

And secondly, he's most likely to recommend you to his mates 100%.

30:20

He was actually a referral from another client.

30:23

So it's really important to maintain those little, those referral funnels that develop are important to us.

30:29

If we get an initial business from a client, we look after every person they send us to the fullest extent to ensure that we develop, you know, a community in and around that client, because one person recommending us is fantastic, but if they've got two of their friends that have gone with us and they recommend us, that's even better.

30:50

And then three, four, five, six.

30:53

Look, your chance to get the job because I know they're gonna get a good result is much increased, Exactly Now.

30:59

Somebody said to me look, nowadays it's not just about buying a solar system.

31:02

There's actually a whole 10 year journey of transforming the house from an energy perspective.

31:09

Can you explain that?

31:10

Yeah. So you're really starting to look at a situation where the climate is moving towards number one, full home electrification and then full home automation.

31:20

So we're seeing it in your builds, where you're now having no gas on the property, everything is electric.

31:27

How that manifests is you go from your solar system to your panels and your inverter to then your battery, adding in your EV charge and your EV, so your car's now running off.

31:39

Generated power from your roof or stored battery power, let's say, if you need to charge in an emergency.

31:45

That's then moving towards your electric hot water systems, heat pump water systems, electrically heating your pool, and then from there you move into the more technical part of adding in a load management device to the property that syncs with your inverter.

32:02

So it starts to say hey look, you know X amount of export of solar production.

32:06

Instead of it going to the grid, that's going to go to the car.

32:10

Or it's going to the hot water system Correct, or into the pool.

32:13

Exactly.

32:14

So, every time you have it a spare solar, you can then actually send it out to the other areas that can capture it, be it the EV, be it the battery, be it the heat pump, be it the pool pump, and so you actually never really need to export at a low price, but you're using it internally to the maximum efficiency 100% and it'll move towards a point where, if you've got a big enough roof, your whole home will just basically run off.

32:37

Isn't that then also? quite important to pick the right company to start off with.

32:41

Yeah, exactly. So what you don't want to be doing is being caught up in a situation where you've done your solar with one company, your battery with another company, then you've added in your hot water and you've done this, that the other, and then all those companies are folded and now you go into another business to say, okay, I've got a Frankenstein system on my house.

32:58

Can you please come fix this and automate everything?

33:00

It's like, because if you built your home, who do you engage when you've built your house with a builder to make any changes to your home?

33:07

Your builder.

33:09

No, no, no, I'm getting an electrician myself.

33:11

I get a plumber myself I get the bricklayer myself, and then where the things have to link in between, I have no idea.

33:17

Yeah, I wouldn't want to see your house.

33:20

I sell it usually very quickly. Yeah, Kidding.

33:24

So now I got an electricity bill 1200 bucks.

33:27

I want to go solar. Should I go solar or solar and battery?

33:31

My opinion is solar and battery. Why.

33:33

I put value on the fact that you're installing not only a battery for self-consumption but it's also acting as a generator.

33:40

How much does it cost to put in a five kilowatt petrol or diesel generator into your home and wire it in with a changeover switch?

33:48

Four grand, five grand six grand $7,000?

33:52

. You take that out of the cost of the battery and you look at then the feasibility on the self-consumption.

33:58

So if. I'm consuming the power and I've taken that value out.

34:02

What's my return on investment? It's a three to four year return on investment on the battery component.

34:07

When you look at it that way, solar and battery clients when it's a good quality system are the happiest by far Because you've got to fail safe for your consumption, you're not exporting all your power and you've got a guaranteed ability to use some at night.

34:22

Will AVs mean we will have more batteries?

34:25

Yeah. So that's going to be a very, very, very cool thing that happens in the future, if your EV manufacturer allows it I know Tesla already have probably said no chance you're going to be able to leverage the car battery as a home battery.

34:36

But there's one specific product on market that's going to be really cool and that's Solar Edge.

34:41

Because Solar Edge controls system voltage.

34:44

It acts almost like a charge controller. Charge controllers are used in large scale systems to basically manipulate and control the voltage before power's going to its end destination.

34:53

Now, that's an important factor if you want to leverage the car battery for your home, because a bi-directional charger is basically built with an AC inverter and a 12 watt battery to do a live conversion out and manipulate the power before it goes to loads, and then you'll wire it to select loads.

35:12

Let's say, what Solar Edge will be able to do is basically just put a DC of each charger in, but all it's going to do is move the DC from panels into the car and from the car into the inverter, which will be wired to supply your whole house.

35:25

That will be a game changer.

35:27

If your EV manufacturer will allow it, all you do is you install a Solar Edge system.

35:32

Now you put in that product.

35:34

When the EV charger comes out in the future, the DC to EV charger comes out, you install that and you'll be able to leverage a 70 kilowatt car battery and it supply all of your loads and that'll be incredible.

35:45

For somebody who's maybe not so technically minded, what you're really saying is the Solar Edge technology has an advantage because it creates less conversions and it can kind of enter the house more in a way that, through the current technology and rules, allows it to do something that some of the other ways can't let it do.

36:02

Yeah, 100% you do.

36:05

On the North Shore do have quite a lot of trees and stuff like that.

36:08

So how do you deal with shade?

36:11

Solar Edge DC optimizers are the only solution that I consider when there's shade present on the property paired with REC panels, because REC, specifically in their warranty stipulations, allow for shade on the panels in installation.

36:27

I look at one primary data metric as being the most important to me when there's shade in that startup voltage.

36:33

That refers to how much voltage the inverter needs from a panel in order to actually start up.

36:39

Enphase microinverters, for example, need 22 to 33 volt in order to start up.

36:44

A string inverter would generally need between 18 to 24 volt to start up.

36:49

When you look at startup voltages, solar Edge DC optimizer needs only eight volt to start up.

36:55

So under low light on the data metrics, it's the best solution.

37:01

So theoretically you could have a solar system. Turn on what half an hour earlier is it In summer it's generally 6.30 am, 6.10, 6.15.

37:10

And then also in the evening. They should later into the afternoon turn off later.

37:14

In a storage market. My focus is total generation.

37:18

So, given that it produces earlier in the day, later into the afternoon, creates more production.

37:25

Then, paired with highest conversion efficiency on market, creates total highest generation, just on the data metrics of anything else on market.

37:36

So do you? I mean, obviously you like Solar Edge because you had good experience with it.

37:40

Do you sometimes do string inverters as well?

37:42

Yeah, so string inverter that has a 10 year comprehensive warranty covering full replacement.

37:47

That's what I like, Cause you got a lot of the manufacturers on market offering a five plus five, so five year comprehensive warranty with a five year parts warranty following, where the client pays for freight and labor to fix the system after five years, and I think that that's stupid.

38:02

So you look at the Chinese manufacturers when it comes to inverter manufacturing fantastic.

38:08

You look at Sungrow as an example.

38:11

They've got a partnership with Samsung, big manufacturer, helping them with their battery battery rollout.

38:16

But Sungrow has second highest to highest to conversion efficiency of the string inverters on market.

38:22

They're flexible in the design and you've got a 10 year comprehensive warranty covering full replacement from businesses that's been around since what?

38:31

1996 or something like that. So that's what we look for.

38:35

For string. I tend to avoid the European manufacturers over a couple of things lower conversion efficiency, the five plus five warranty is a factor and generally, from what I see, terrible support.

38:47

Support we get from Sungrove Goodwill, as examples, is fantastic and for Sungrove 24-7, I get support direct from the technical team.

38:58

We have a privatised WhatsApp chat that we communicate in.

39:01

There's an issue at 9.30pm with the system.

39:04

They're on it. We don't have to deal with that six hour on hold to a receptionist in Melbourne.

39:09

He's waiting to put us through to one of the four technical staff they have working to support the tens of thousands of inverters that have got out on market.

39:17

That never fail.

39:20

Now talking back to SolarEdge, they are coming up with a holistic solution, isn't it?

39:23

So it's not just an inverter solution, it's a whole.

39:27

What do you get out of SolarEdge Fully?

39:28

integrated whole home is what they're going for. So what they want to be able to do and what they currently offer they have.

39:34

Obviously, they have panels, smart panels, which we're about to start offering shortly.

39:39

So they'll do a panel with a built-in optimiser that pairs to their inverter, which then pairs to their EV charger, which pairs to their load management device, which will all appear in the one app.

39:50

So you're able to see, you're a pretty solid production battery, your EV charger, your load management device.

39:58

You're able to set all your parameters for all your circuits.

40:01

Home automation they have a solar hot water divider, everything, so you'll be able to do your full home automation using one brand, which is something that no one's going to be able to offer.

40:12

How do you determine the correct size for the battery in the solar system?

40:16

What we want to do is do it once and do it right.

40:19

My first question to the client becomes are there any plans for future electrification, ev, hot water pool heating the main ones.

40:29

I'm planning to get a pool.

40:31

So pool, go in again electrically heat it.

40:33

How many litres is the pool? Jesus Christ, I don't know the wife's picking that it might be 50,000.

40:40

Okay, so do a 50% and let's budget for a 24 kilowatt, 25 kilowatt heat pump going in the pool To give you about eight months of heating per year.

40:48

It's probably going to run at a 300% efficiency.

40:50

So it might run at, you know, five, six kilowatt hour when it's heating up for four hours a day.

40:55

Let's call it on average for the course of the year. So you're going to budget about, you know, 20 kilowatt hour a day for heating the pool in summer, year round.

41:03

So maybe 10 a day is what I'll do, my averages.

41:05

So you're just adding up all of those sinks, average out everything.

41:11

So their current bill or current average daily usage was 10 kilowatt hour a day, I'd assume.

41:16

Okay, with everything, it's going to go up to about 40.

41:19

If they're going to want to add battery in the future, we need the system to average out production.

41:23

40 kilowatt hour a day, then, and we design the system on that basis.

41:26

So that'd be a 10 to 12 kilowatt system we want to install there.

41:30

And if they want to add battery, my methodology is 50% of their average daily usage, because I see that, on average, clients are using 50% of their power during the day and 50% at night.

41:41

Now you do a bit of off grid too. Yes, how do you make sure the size is correct there?

41:47

Off grid is interesting. I size our system to produce enough to cover the client's needs on the very worst day of winter.

41:55

So if they're saying, look, I'm going to build a little tiny home, I'm going to use 15 kilowatt hour a day on average I designed the system to produce that on a bad day in the middle of June and battery capacity to suit as well, to last at least four to five days, that means for that client with a small usage that would equal in a house in Sydney a $500 quarterly bill that I'm proposing that they install, you know, 15 to 20 kilowatt worth of solar with 30 to 40 kilowatt worth of battery to back them up, so you'll never hear back from the customer saying my system wasn't big enough, I need more.

42:31

Never, ever. That's the trick, because when you install an off grid system for a client, you become their Osgrid.

42:39

They're endeavor energy, they're essential energy.

42:42

You are their electricity provider in full.

42:45

You don't want to get a call at 2am from your client 2000 to the National Park Alex St Clair, say, hey, I've drained my batteries and there's never no power in the house.

42:56

It's on you to go back there and to get that system running again.

43:01

So with off grid really high quality products using, you know, phronius electronic, a good panel, a good battery, gen Z I like the South Australian manufacturer that will generally give you zero headaches if you size the system correctly and ensure the client never drains those batteries or that system.

43:18

Solar sharks, all the cowboys I hear that term sometimes.

43:20

What's that?

43:22

So cowboys is probably the most commonly used phrase when referring to the solar industry.

43:30

If you Google solar cowboys now or YouTube it, you'll probably find about five current affairs stories about some poor bloke in Dubbo that's been conned into a $15,000 two kilowatt system, these paying off on finance.

43:44

So cowboys really refers to the installers, guys who are cutting corners, not sticking to compliances.

43:53

It's companies as well that are selling cheap systems on finance, not explaining interest rates properly.

43:59

I mean, it used to be a situation three years ago where if you had a client's driver's license and their BS band account number, you could sign them up to a $15,000 loan.

44:07

It's ridiculous and that creates a cowboy industry.

44:11

I had somebody argue with me quite vehemently that if they do buy a $3,000 system because it's so cheap, they've such a low risk.

44:20

That is the best way to go.

44:23

Let's say you go find the worst one star review on Sun Boosts page.

44:27

What has happened to that client? Broken roof, $75,000 fix.

44:31

I've seen that one Fire burns the house down.

44:34

It's another one. Do you want to run that risk over $3,000?

44:39

That to me seems like a bad gamble.

44:41

Pre-installation it's about value, value, value, value, value, value, price, price, price, price, price.

44:46

Where's the sweet spot?

44:49

Where am I happy with in terms of product quality, price, value, etc.

44:51

For some people they go I want to pay the cheapest price possible and then post installation, the psychology shifts completely because you start getting energy bills and you start getting a reminder I shouldn't get an energy bill anymore.

45:01

I bought a solar. You get a reminder every month to three months which is like a punch in the face for some people as to whether they've installed the right system on their roof and what they paid for.

45:11

It goes completely out the window because we're in there at the barbecue and your neighbor comes over and they say oh, you know, oh, so you got the solar installed, has been going well, and your inverter caught fire a week ago and the system, the company hadn't set up your feeding tariff and you've had.

45:29

The bills are going out a hundred bucks a quarter since it's installed and you spent three and a half grand.

45:34

What do you do? You know?

45:35

and then your neighbor you lie to your neighbor.

45:37

Oh, it's going really well.

45:39

And he goes.

45:39

Gee, your inverter just looks like the barbecue.

45:43

And he goes. Yeah, he goes well. Yeah, I've been having a great experience too, and I put an RAC solar system on eight kilowatts.

45:51

I spent 12,000, but my bills are down 600 a quarter, 700 a quarter, you know.

45:58

Oh, the prices have gone up again on market. I'm going to save probably two and a half to $3,000 a year.

46:03

My return investment on the system is going to be five years.

46:06

The company installed it's been keeping in regular touch with me.

46:09

That's a way better experience, that guy's having a way better time.

46:13

You can see people rather aggressive against solar and they say, oh, it's not working.

46:16

But that's usually the people who bought the cheap crap.

46:20

It wasn't installed properly. Half the time it doesn't even work properly and they don't know.

46:24

And then it's the whole solar that's getting blamed for it.

46:29

Exactly Back in the day, you had a very uneducated consumer, so they thought that the company that installed their $3,000 6.6 was great.

46:37

The products were fantastic. You know, oh my, my panels were made by a Chinese rocket manufacturer.

46:43

They're amazing.

46:44

They work on the moonlight Exactly.

46:49

And my bills didn't change at all, though the solar.

46:51

Solar doesn't work and it's just stupid mentality.

46:55

Whereas you speak to anyone who's got a system that's functioning properly and they are the biggest advocate of solar that you'll ever meet you always get that 75 year old from country New South Wales.

47:11

That's just talking about how solar doesn't work because 10 years ago, a door knocking squadron went through the area and sold everyone three to five kilowatt systems on finance that were installed by, likely, an electrician, whereby the STC's ended up being refuted over, you know, non-compliant installation, non-accredited installer, whatever it was that used to be able to you know, used to be able to kind of get through, and they've had a shocking experience as a result.

47:43

Nobody ever came back to fix it. Because when those I call them the grasshoppers of solar installer come into those country towns, install those 20 systems that the door knockers sold afterwards.

47:54

You'd ever want to anybody of those people back. You would never find them back in the same town.

47:58

So those people with that poor experience they're now anti-solar.

48:03

But really they should look in the mirror, because they made bad decisions.

48:06

Don't buy solar from a door knocker.

48:09

Never buy solar from a door knocker. Never get pressured into a sale On the spot.

48:14

Always buy based off your gut feeling.

48:19

Don't believe the industry kind of claim and in some way, I think, you also.

48:25

You want to make an informed decision, which means do get multiple quotes but don't go with the cheapest quote.

48:32

Good quotes from a good quote comparison site would be my biggest recommendation.

48:37

I'll refer them always to solar quotes.

48:40

Go get three quotes. They're vetted installers.

48:42

You'll likely have a good experience.

48:44

There are still some bad guys on there. Fine, but use a good, reputable site that has testimonials that are vetted, because this is another issue that you could look at in the industry and that's like the way people abuse product review and hire a Filipino VA agency to leave them 500 reviews and get them to like a 4.8 rating so it looks like it makes sense, and then they link back to their product review or some third party review site that doesn't vet.

49:14

Google reviews are key, although they can be faked.

49:18

Business popped up recently on the northern beaches which suddenly got 43 Google five-star Google reviews in the space of three weeks, within two weeks of opening.

49:29

That's not likely Very strange.

49:32

We've been operating for almost three years and have 65 star Google reviews.

49:36

You look at the other big guys on the beaches. They sit in between 60 to 100 that have been around for 10 to 15.

49:42

So you can't fake Google reviews. Where you can't fake 100 percent is those solid quotes reviews.

49:48

No, but also you can't fake a poor Google reviews.

49:51

So I always go and check the Google reviews, but I'm also go specifically to the low ones.

49:56

You have to check low rate because those ones are the real ones 100 percent.

50:00

Those low rated reviews are key.

50:03

You see your exposure.

50:05

What could potentially happen to me as a client?

50:09

What's your opinion about those people who claim that they give you an interest tree loan?

50:15

How does that work?

50:16

Well, funnily enough, finally, after many, many, many years, we actually do have an interest free product on market.

50:23

So, excluding Nectar, which is a new finance program that's come through, you get locked into their electricity prices.

50:32

The electricity rates they offer are larger than what's available on market, so that's not really.

50:39

You're paying interest free technically on the loan.

50:42

But my argument is it's not actually interest free.

50:45

What do you call that extra money they're paying because they're fixed on an electricity price.

50:49

But anyway, excluding that, when we look at then you know, the traditional guys, bright, plenty, hum.

50:56

They charge the solar retailer a percentage cost of the installation.

51:03

So say you charge $10,000 for a system.

51:06

Those providers will then charge you, say $2,600 to $3,500 as a fee for setting up that loan and you'll receive, you know, $8,500 to $7,500, whatever it is back out of it.

51:24

Now that means that whatever they're taking out of it, you've got ultimately recoup on charging to the client.

51:29

So instead of the client, you know, paying $10,000 for a $10,000 system, you've got to charge them $13,500 to $14,000.

51:37

And they actually then train you to say, hey, look, tell the client that's the cash price and that it's interest free, right, that's the mentality, and that's the way it's ran.

51:49

So in a short, curly one, if somebody says, claim your interest, free rebate, basically you're not claiming it.

51:57

It's not like you're winning the lotto.

51:59

What you're really doing is pay two grand more for your system to start up with to make up for the all the interest that later on you're going to get.

52:05

So it's kind of not really that honest.

52:07

What you're doing is an Islamic loan.

52:10

You can't pay interest, so what you're doing is you finance the entire amount, including the interest, right, so you pay that off over a period of time.

52:21

Is that in the Islamic campaign interest?

52:24

You're not allowed Right. It's against the religion.

52:27

Have you ever visited a system for a system checkup after sale where actually the system battery or solar were outright dangerous?

52:35

Yeah. So we've been to site multiple times to inspect an existing system and literally seen a connection point that is loose or melted and starting to arc where basically it's Sparking, right Voltage is jumping.

52:51

And is that what the cheap plugs, or what was the reason?

52:54

Cheap plug or water ingress into a top fed DC isolator.

52:58

Look, if anyone's got an existing system out there, go check that you're isolator, which is that little box with the red or the black switch on it.

53:09

If it's fed from the top and it's been siliconed up and it's older than five years old creates massive issues because silicon only last five years and, let's say, in direct sun Water gets into that unit and you get, you know, proper arcing.

53:22

I did an inspection two weeks ago where we pulled open an isolator and it was like the heavens had opened flooded water out of it, oh my God, and that's electricity in there Full high voltage, 600 volt.

53:40

I'm going to be having a complaint, mate. Your installer left his picnic wrapper in my gutter and now it's blocked my gutter.

53:49

I think it was your installer the fact that my kids sometimes go on my roof.

53:54

I'm going to keep that quiet. Let's say somebody comes through some really air baked excuses crap and makes a complaint.

54:01

How do you handle it? I'll give you a recent situation.

54:03

Hey guys, rain last night.

54:06

A lot of water has gone into the property.

54:09

We think there's a leak on the roof caused by the solar installation and we're talking pictures of a flood back there straight next day.

54:16

Check no broken tiles, nothing.

54:19

Notice along the valley that the valley sunken a little bit with debris and it's sitting below the sarking.

54:27

We think that it's to do with this. Okay, no problem, we go back Next time it rains.

54:31

Hey guys, it's leaking again. So we go back, clean out the valley, pull the valley back up.

54:36

This is not to do with a solar install. This is to do with their roof.

54:39

Start their sarking over. Make sure, okay, there should be no water ingress from here.

54:43

It's all good, go back. Hey guys, you know I've got photos of inside the roof.

54:48

Now it's rained again. There's some water dripping down one of your conduits.

54:51

Think the water's coming in through the penetration you've done in the roof.

54:53

Can you come back? We go back again.

54:55

We check everything. Reseal we pull it, pull out the tile, change conduit.

55:02

We core hole a tile on the ground, dectite conduit in waterproof.

55:08

Okay, should be perfect. It rains again. Guys, there's a problem, jesus Christ, at this point it's like call a independent roofing inspection company, book a roof inspection.

55:19

They go to a roof inspection. Their skylight would have been leaking for the last six or seven years.

55:24

This is to do with the skylight. Whole thing was to do with improper flashing on the skylight.

55:28

Skylight installed in the wrong direction, dranged point was letting water come straight in the roof.

55:32

It was meeting our conduit somewhere. We say they would have known about this issue.

55:35

Who would have known it?

55:37

Oh, what a bugger. We get a quote for the roof to be fixed, for the client present it to them, get another quote for them to compare, then get his roof and fix it.

55:48

We see throughout that entire process, when none of it was our fault, we don't build the client, we don't do anything.

55:53

That's how we approach it.

55:55

So really, if I have bad roof, I should get you to put my soul on, because you fix a roof for free on top.

56:00

You mentioned before you wouldn't want to make me angry and I think that's happening.

56:04

The client says a very different side of Matthew.

56:09

Okay, I see nowadays, solar panels come up in full black.

56:14

Is that a good idea?

56:17

Yes, our clients are very, very big on aesthetics.

56:20

When you look at the aesthetics of a solar system, an all black panel creates a much, much better appearance of the system, especially on the dark roof which there is a propensity of in Australia.

56:32

The efficiency losses for me wouldn't negate the aesthetic gains that you get and that's the argument against them.

56:43

It's an all black panel. It's hotter, heat causes efficiency loss.

56:47

That affects me negatively If you use a really good panel manufacturer I mean REC.

56:52

Alpha puras are, on their data metrics, the best panel on market ever bought, ever bought to the ever bought to market in terms of wattage per square meter.

57:01

They crush everything temperature coefficient lowest on market, degradation lowest on market and it's a full black panel.

57:07

So it also you got to look at the technology involved in the all black panel.

57:10

We use an all black racking system.

57:12

Where you've got black racking, black mid clamps, black end clamps, black screws, everything's black.

57:21

Panels are black and, as a result, everything looks phenomenal, smake and make solar sexy.

57:29

Okay, so if somebody wants to have sexy solar ring, we're in your solar 100%.

57:34

Okay, so you really like the REC panels, do you?

57:39

Have you had any problems with them?

57:42

Never had an issue with them. I've never had a single panel fail.

57:45

I've never had a problem with support.

57:47

I've never had a problem with them in general.

57:49

Where they're difficult is integration into a string system due to the voltage.

57:55

Alpha puras a 59 volt.

57:58

So in Australia obviously you have a 600 volt limit on a string on a residential roof.

58:06

So you're talking about being limited to nine to 10 panels on one string.

58:13

So, getting your voltages to match was very difficult.

58:16

But then you add solar edge.

58:18

All that goes out the window because it controls voltage and current.

58:21

You can have panels anywhere over the roof, facing any direction.

58:25

Every panel is operating independently, so it makes them viable, and then you get the full benefit out of what is the best panel manufacturer on market.

58:34

Right as a kind of a little summary. Why should I choose Renuko if I'm on the north or eastern part of Sydney?

58:41

No one will deliver as good of a combination of quality of install, quality of products, quality of service.

58:48

We're simply, when you look at those three factors together, we would be the best out of any company could choose from in the area and Australia.

58:58

The way we model our after sales is really the key, because you've got a lot of guys that are going to be very good quality installers.

59:05

You've got a lot of guys who can sell high quality product.

59:08

What you don't have, though, is organizations that can support their clients as well as we can support them, and I have a saying I would rather lose money than lose face.

59:19

So find me a business operator that's not in this to make money, because I'm not.

59:24

I'm in this for client experience. I'm in this to see how far can we push this company when we base our entire value on delivering the best client experience on market Having been a pushy solar sales guy at one point in my career and sitting in front of a client and presenting the system, presenting the repayments, and then having the audacity, in their own home, to say to them you know what's stopping you from doing this right now when they say that I have to think about it and pushing them through the sales process.

1:00:02

I hate it. It creates a horrible feel you put much larger expectations on yourself to deliver.

1:00:10

When you push them into it, we run a pure self selection process or we give away free information, free quote, and we do not push for the sale at all.

1:00:21

We do not ask for the business, we do nothing.

1:00:24

We let the client select to go with us and it creates a proper experience where you're both in it together.

1:00:31

They want you to deliver their solar system, you want to deliver the solar system, but there's no grand expectations that have been set for everything.

1:00:39

They've picked you. They're in this as much as you are.

1:00:42

When it comes to the responsibility. They're much happier to work with you on things and it's something you don't get when you push a client into the sale.

1:00:50

If you push them into it, the expectation is you deliver and you don't stuff up, because if you stuff up, you create a situation where that client can very readily explode on you for pushing them into something that they maybe didn't want to do but you promised them was all going to be perfect.

1:01:07

When you walk into a house, can you kind of get a feel if you should maybe emphasize more the aesthetics or more the technical solution or more the savings benefits, because you won't have time to explain 100% and you know how you do that how, through transparent communication, you ask the client what's important for you.

1:01:29

Our aesthetics of consideration is one of my favorite lines, because I'm asking for that client to give me permission to have free use of their roof and design for maximum efficiency, or I'm asking them to regulate what I want to do for efficiency based on the aesthetics of the system.

1:01:50

Do you know what I mean? So it basically gives you the kind of direction, which outcome is the most important for them, and that allows you the freedom to really design the best solution.

1:02:00

So I'm going to ask them, you know, qualifying questions, you could call them and what I'm actually doing is basically setting my restrictions for how, to how I can design the system.

1:02:09

And then from there, I give the client zero insight and I present to them what I believe to be the right solution, what I know will get them the result.

1:02:20

Look, it was very, very insightful to learn a lot about Renuko.

1:02:23

I love your passion. If I had a roof that needs solar because I already have solar I would definitely consider you.

1:02:32

Thank you very much. Thank you, Marcus, for your time.

1:02:35

I appreciate it Well until next time, maybe in two or three years, when technology has developed further and we can find out more things when we are the biggest residential solar company in Australia.

1:02:45

100%.

1:02:46

Okay, I like your aim and your gain.