0:00

We do have an old rule in

0:02

here Anybody who comes for the podcast

0:04

has to , at the beginning , touch my

0:07

ball , please .

0:07

So I've been

0:10

having a think about this . You

0:13

haven't bought me a drink yet . You made me

0:15

a lovely coffee and a sparkling

0:17

mineral water , but I'm more than happy to touch your ball

0:19

, thank you .

0:20

It's just for the vibe and

0:22

you see how it's just all . It's

0:25

very yeah , can you feel it ? Yes , yeah

0:27

, so Not around too . Yeah , so it kind of

0:29

sparkles up the brain power and we're possibly

0:32

get some better answers .

0:37

You have been a solar nerd for nearly

0:40

how long Be getting close

0:43

to 15 years now . So I started

0:45

in the industry in 2009 . Just

0:47

as a well , I was an A

0:49

grade electrician working for myself and

0:51

, yeah , I just decided to get

0:53

into solar . Kind of happened a

0:56

little bit accidentally , like I just I was

0:58

just working for someone I think I might have been

1:00

putting power points in for water tanks or

1:02

something like that and they sort of wanted they knew

1:04

someone who was looking for electricians

1:06

to get into solar and I thought I

1:08

really liked the idea . I didn't , you know , back then

1:11

no one knew anything about it . So

1:13

all I knew is , yes , solar panels

1:16

produce power . That's sort of all I knew . So

1:18

I went and got my CEC accreditation and

1:21

it just kind of grew from there , from my course

1:23

. So I did my course yeah

1:25

, I think it was September 2009 , something

1:27

like that . And at the end

1:29

of the course , the teacher sort of said , well

1:31

, if there's anyone looking to do some jobs

1:33

and get into it straight away

1:35

, you know , let me know at the end of the , at

1:38

the end of the course , and you

1:40

know , we can get some jobs for you if you want . And

1:43

I put my hand up and said , yeah , I'm ready

1:45

to go . I want to get straight into

1:47

it . So I did and , yeah , that

1:49

was sort of from there , never really looked back

1:51

, started doing those Started . Actually

1:53

, funnily enough , the first systems I did was Sunpower

1:55

. Did you do them for your own company or you were subcontracting

1:58

? No , I was subcontracting , yeah , subcontracting . There's

2:00

a lot of regional work at that time . I

2:03

look back at sort of some of the stuff we did back then

2:05

and , oh , it's , it's come . We've

2:07

come a long way with the standards and guidelines

2:09

and all those sort of things .

2:11

It was really an industry ready to take off because

2:13

there was the 44 cent feed-in tariff as

2:15

well as the $8000 rebate

2:18

, Yep . So I mean the industry had no chance to

2:20

fail .

2:20

No , that's right . Well , it's , it was . And

2:23

then there were companies that were doing systems for

2:25

free . All they had to do was pay for their media and costs

2:27

. So , yeah , $8000 rebate

2:29

. In Victoria we had the 66 cent feed-in

2:31

tariff as well . So

2:33

that was , yeah , you're right , it was never going to fail

2:35

.

2:36

But about those three systems . I

2:38

started when we the systems were about 3,950

2:41

because there were proper Sunpower panels

2:43

and SHARP panels . And then somehow somebody

2:46

worked out you could get out of India or China

2:49

Really cheap gear and

2:51

suddenly the $8000 rebate was

2:54

buying you all the gear and

2:56

giving you a profit . And that's when they

2:58

gave the stuff away for free . That's right , but

3:00

you tell me what was the quality of that kind of gear

3:02

?

3:02

Well , the gear in particular

3:05

. Yeah , it was pretty average . To be honest

3:07

, it was pretty average , and not just

3:09

the inverters and panels

3:12

. Yeah , the balance system stuff

3:14

we had as well . Yeah , it was

3:16

pretty bad compared to what they're using today . It's

3:19

just , yeah , poles apart .

3:20

I mean I remember AeroSharp came

3:23

on a pallet of if you'd

3:25

order 100 , they give you 110 because

3:27

they already expect the 10 of them to be dead

3:29

at arrival . I mean that was the quality

3:31

.

3:31

Yeah , you're right . They used to fail

3:33

a lot . We used to get a lot of dead on arrivals

3:35

, so you'd install them and it just would

3:38

never energize . So

3:40

sometimes you'd have one for tomorrow's job

3:42

in the back and you'd throw that one on instead and

3:44

go get another one the next day .

3:45

Used to happen a lot , yeah , yeah . If

3:48

in the early days you were installing Sunpower Yep

3:50

and then you moved from Sunpower into the free

3:52

gear which was crappy stuff from ever

3:55

around the world . How did you find your way

3:57

back into quality ?

3:59

I suppose I've always wanted to be

4:01

about quality , but

4:03

there's been some tough times in the industry too , like around

4:05

2014 . Margin

4:07

seemed to be really screwed and

4:09

it was just a little bit harder to make money .

4:11

Feed-in tariff had stopped . Yeah fit .

4:12

That's right , those sort of things . Feed-in tariff stopped STCs

4:15

. Well , they got rid of

4:17

the Phantom STCs around

4:20

. It was probably a little bit before that , but

4:22

you could tell everything was the screws

4:24

were starting to be tightened a fair bit . Install

4:27

rates as well . That was probably a big one , install

4:29

rates . So we were doing one kilowatt

4:31

systems for $1,200 , $1,300

4:34

, something like that and you could really

4:36

you could smash them out pretty quick . Especially

4:38

the installation standards were not what they

4:40

are today , so you could get it done pretty fast and

4:42

we'd go through that . And

4:45

then all of a sudden , install rates got

4:47

tightened up . I think a

4:49

lot of these sales companies we worked for saw that we were making

4:51

pretty good money and decided

4:53

to really turn the screws and

4:55

they wanted to drop their prices , sell

4:58

more and yeah , it just got a lot harder for installers

5:00

.

5:01

So they actually offered you less money , did they ? Yeah , absolutely .

5:04

There's been a lot of rate cuts and

5:06

yeah , I'm probably guilty of that too . I suppose There'd

5:09

be some people when I was working at other companies

5:11

where I've been the one that had to deliver

5:13

the news that , oh look , market's getting harder , We've

5:15

got to cut the rates . Oh , there's not going to be any work

5:17

, Like . I've had that conversation a fair bit . So

5:20

that's been . It's been difficult , but yeah

5:22

, that's just what you got to do , I suppose . Okay . So

5:25

you've worked at least for three companies

5:28

that are not around anymore the Mark Group Mark Group

5:30

yep , true Value , yep , necro , I think

5:32

Neco , neco , neco

5:34

, solar , yeah , yeah , okay , they

5:37

were ahead of that time , neco , they really were . I

5:39

was doing some work for Neco , some subcontract work , and

5:41

I really enjoyed the work I was doing for them . There seemed to

5:44

be more quality gear , they'd treat us better , everything was

5:46

organized , so they were quite positive

5:48

.

5:50

So why would a company like that not be around anymore ?

5:51

Look , I think what happened with them

5:54

is the insulation , the insulation

5:56

debacle which happened in

5:58

Australia . So they

6:00

sort of loaded up on insulation .

6:02

Ah , right , right , pink bats . They

6:04

got eaten up by that , didn't they ? Yeah , yeah .

6:06

So that's something they always did . The

6:08

warehouse that we were at in Mulgrave

6:10

in Victoria was

6:13

full to the brim . Well , it was a

6:15

10-meter high warehouse . I'm not

6:17

sure how many square meters , it was probably 1,000

6:19

square meters , something like that , half

6:22

of the warehouse . There's a big net

6:24

in the center to hold

6:26

all the insulation because it

6:28

was stacked up one on top of the other to the roof . But

6:31

then you know what happened they ended up pulling the program . It

6:34

was thousands and thousands and thousands

6:36

of bags and no one wanted it because

6:38

Now you had to pay proper price

6:41

again .

6:41

That's right , that's right .

6:42

And that's I think that's the main thing why

6:44

Niko ended up going bust . They were doing

6:46

pretty well . It was disappointing . It was a great company

6:48

to work for Very interesting .

6:50

One of the companies you've worked for was True Value

6:52

Solar . Yes , and at one stage

6:54

True Value Solar was offering the cheapest solar

6:56

in Australia . It was the largest

6:59

company in Australia and told

7:01

everybody how large they are . Did they ever

7:03

? Yes , how

7:06

was that ?

7:07

It was insane , to be honest , the amount of work that was

7:09

going in and out of that place at that time . I'm

7:11

guessing 150 installs per

7:13

day , maybe even a little bit more .

7:15

And it's all done on cheap price . How

7:17

much care can you really give a system like ?

7:19

that the short answer is not that

7:22

much you do . We

7:24

did have a little bit of a mixed bag and then trying

7:26

to do quality control on that

7:28

, yeah , you actually

7:30

can't . Yeah , actually can't , because

7:32

also there weren't many electricians working

7:34

in the office too . So there's a lot of sales people

7:37

, there's schedulers and

7:39

people in the warehouse , but the amount

7:41

of skilled trades people in

7:43

the office , yeah , a lot of the time it was just

7:45

me , sometimes it was someone else as well , so

7:48

we would just get bombarded by questions . Our

7:50

phones would just be ringing constantly . My

7:52

phone would ring and they'd be like oh Pat , what's going on

7:54

this place ? I've got 26

7:57

panels loaded onto my trailer and

7:59

I've been up on the roof . I can only fit eight . What's

8:02

going on ? I'm like it's eight , yeah

8:04

, eight , this used to happen eight . And

8:06

I'm like are you sure You're at the right house

8:08

? What's going on ? And you find out the sales person

8:10

has sold them 26 panels . So

8:13

there's a lot of installs , a lot

8:15

of sales been done , side unseen , right . That

8:17

happens today . Still , you know , still

8:20

happens . That was pretty much the normal

8:22

back then . You go onto the sales floor and

8:24

sometimes it was like the Wolf of Wall Street . You

8:26

know , they're all really

8:28

happy with each other and they're ringing bells

8:30

and all this , yeah , all that sort of stuff . It was

8:32

playing their music and all

8:35

high-fiving each other and the

8:38

people in the operations are just absolutely ripping

8:40

their hair out going what is going on here ? Like we're just

8:42

left with all this stuff and you

8:45

would think that if you keep continually

8:47

doing that , there'd be some sort of penalty because you're costing

8:49

the company money . But you sort of speak

8:51

to some of the senior managers about

8:54

it and they'd be like , yeah , yeah , we'll speak to them , we'll speak

8:56

to them . And they never did because their

8:58

thinking was , well , these are salespeople and if we

9:01

don't want to ruin their confidence because then they can't sell , so

9:04

it's just this , it's , you're just having this circular

9:07

conversation . They were happy

9:09

to sell rubbish and

9:11

things that weren't going

9:13

to fit on roofs and , yeah , like

9:15

I say , the operations people were there to pick up the pieces

9:18

. So a lot of the time that was really really

9:20

frustrating job and I learned a lot

9:22

. I learned a lot in that role and

9:25

probably , you know , got a few extra

9:27

layers of skin I would have thought .

9:29

I'm surprised you still got here . You're

9:33

sitting in the middle of a reasonable

9:35

chaotic office where sales is everything

9:37

, and then you try to make and stick

9:39

it all together later in the installation

9:42

. So when you sold him 26

9:44

panels on an eight panel roof , how

9:47

do you solve a situation like ?

9:49

that More often than not

9:51

there would be a fallover , so the

9:53

installation wouldn't happen and

9:56

the installer would have to come back , drop

9:58

the gear off . And they're annoyed A lot

10:00

of the time they don't get paid like 150

10:02

bucks , something like that . So that's no good if

10:04

it's two hours away as well . So

10:07

, yeah , they would just come back and they

10:09

don't have work for the day . Warehouse has got to repack

10:11

all the stuff , allocate it for the next day

10:13

. What about the customer ? Yeah , good

10:15

question . A lot of the time they would get

10:17

a refund . They would try and negotiate with

10:19

them and try and resell them a smaller

10:22

system . That would happen sometimes . So try

10:24

and change the contract on the day . There was

10:26

no real sort of protocol , it was sort

10:28

of let's work out , let's work each one out

10:30

one by one . It was a big chunk of our day .

10:33

Why did you decide to leave True Value

10:35

Seller ?

10:35

The Powerzabee decided

10:38

that they're still not making enough money , still need

10:40

to lean up a bit . So they ended up going

10:42

back to contractors

10:44

running the operation , which is what it was

10:46

before I was there . They ended up going

10:48

back to that model . So , and then once they decided to

10:50

bring those , that crew back , yeah , as

10:52

soon as I suppose they got the chance , they

10:55

gave me the old heave-ho . So where are you

10:57

?

10:57

the kind of guy who says , hang on , let's at least

10:59

keep a minimum quality standard .

11:01

And that was really in the way , or the

11:03

quality was one thing , but I

11:06

felt like I just wanted people to be

11:08

accountable . That was probably my thing , really

11:10

, really keen on people being accountable , especially

11:13

for their mistakes , and

11:15

I just don't think that voted too

11:17

well .

11:17

So you moved from one of the more

11:20

Solar Cowboy kind of companies

11:22

to then end up at the Clean Energy

11:25

Council to help with the regulatory

11:27

framework .

11:29

How did you get across that ? Yeah , so

11:31

when I ended up going back to True Value Seller in

11:33

2016 , I

11:36

could see things declining a fair bit . Hang

11:38

on .

11:38

Yeah , why did you ? Go back .

11:43

Step back a little bit . Then let's go back to

11:46

2014

11:48

, when I'd sort of got a

11:50

little bit annoyed after True Value

11:52

Seller being in management positions and

11:55

I had some surgery on my shoulder in 2013

11:58

, fixed it up and I was starting to feel

12:00

good again . So by 2014

12:02

, I thought I'm just gonna . I'm a bit sick of this management thing

12:04

. I was probably a bit stressed out with it all so

12:08

I thought let's go , you

12:10

know , fall back on my trade a bit . I'm gonna try

12:12

and get a job in service and warranties and just

12:14

get out there and see people again . And

12:16

I was lucky enough to get a job with Solagain . So

12:19

I worked at Solagain for 10 months , I think

12:21

it was and yeah , it was

12:23

a really good company to work for . They

12:26

had their issues as well , but

12:28

it was a better environment

12:30

.

12:31

They're a solid operator .

12:33

Yeah , they are . They were good . They were good . Probably

12:35

slightly different business model , I think , to what they've

12:37

got now , but I felt like it was

12:39

a good company . It was a lot

12:41

smaller than what True Value

12:43

Seller was at the time . I felt

12:46

a bit more cared for as an

12:48

employee and , yeah

12:50

, I got out there again and I was changing inverters

12:53

and I was cleaning panels and I was

12:55

seeing people's faces being happy . It

12:57

was good , it was quite good . So

13:00

, no more ripped off solar customers , no

13:02

, no , no , it was good . It was good . It was sort

13:04

of , yeah , brought my life up again

13:06

. So that was nice . But I sort of

13:09

got started

13:11

to get a bit I don't know a bit

13:13

unsettled again just

13:15

with the way some

13:17

of the operations were happening as

13:19

well and I thought I could just do this better

13:22

. And a lot of people probably think that , but I thought

13:24

I could just do this better . And

13:26

an opportunity from Mark Group came up . So

13:29

they sort of I don't know how they found

13:31

me , but yeah , they sort of

13:33

headhunted a little bit by Mark Group and

13:35

they needed someone to run their office down

13:37

in the Melbourne office because there

13:40

was Head Office was in Sydney

13:42

at North Ride I think it was North

13:45

Ride back then and they had to set a lot

13:47

of office for Melbourne in Tullamareen . So

13:49

, yeah , they needed someone to look after

13:51

the operations there . And yeah

13:54

, I ended up caving in . I wasn't going to do

13:56

it and I thought I'll do it , let's see . Let's

13:58

see how this goes and I'll have another go at it . And

14:01

it was funny because probably that was

14:03

in January . I

14:06

started there January December

14:08

was it December 2015 or January 2016

14:10

? And by

14:12

I think it was the first of April

14:15

they had been

14:17

bought out by private

14:19

equity Anchorage

14:22

.

14:22

Capital .

14:22

Anchorage Capital Partners . That's right , yep , so

14:25

that happened two months after I

14:27

was there and , yeah

14:29

, that they really shook things up in

14:31

Mark Group . They shook things up big time

14:34

. So they were obviously bleeding a lot of cash with

14:36

the way they were running the business , which I didn't know about

14:38

when I got there . They painted a pretty nice picture

14:40

for me to get the job

14:42

and then , yeah , I sort of saw

14:44

a bit of a few things and we cleaned a lot

14:46

of stuff up . But then by the time Anchorage

14:48

sort of got there , they really sort of tied things up

14:51

and they helped me with my professional

14:53

development as well . I was worried they

14:55

were going to see me as like the old crew

14:57

who were bleeding money because they didn't know

14:59

anything . They sort of got there and they were like , who is this

15:01

guy down in Melbourne ? But I sort of I

15:04

learned a lot off those people about

15:07

how to run a lean business , cutting

15:10

the fat away , all those sort of things , and

15:16

yeah , I think they liked me

15:18

. So , yeah , I ended

15:20

up getting the job there as a National Operations Manager

15:22

. I was appointed there probably in May

15:25

I think , and yeah , I used

15:27

to spend probably maybe

15:30

three or four days every fortnight

15:32

up in Sydney coming

15:35

and helping with the operations . Yeah

15:40

, that was another interesting part of my journey

15:42

.

15:42

So I mean the Mark Group again

15:44

is a national company , not

15:46

a small local company that

15:49

tried to kind of put a bit of a cookie cutter approach

15:51

onto solar . How

15:54

do you find that those cookie

15:56

cutter large national companies

15:58

can serve as a customer versus

16:00

a local kind of guy that

16:03

goes out and does the proper inspection

16:05

and all that ? Where ?

16:07

do you stand with that now ? So I definitely

16:09

think , if you talk about

16:11

cookie cutters , I think a local cookie

16:13

cutter guy is like the ultimate , so

16:16

someone who's got really good process , that's

16:18

who you want to be with . They're the ones that have been

16:21

around and they're the ones have stood

16:23

the test of time and are

16:25

making their margins and able to service their

16:27

customers moving forward . I don't know the

16:29

larger ones . Who's done it ? I mean , who's

16:32

a success story being a national

16:34

company ? That's sort of still

16:36

around , yeah , still around . Who's doing it Is

16:38

?

16:38

there . Anyone Energy matters died . Today's

16:41

solar died . Solar shop died

16:43

. Beyond building died Mark Group

16:45

died .

16:46

Keep going , keep going , True values

16:48

. Did you say true values ?

16:49

No , I haven't said true value yet . Euro

16:51

solar Euro solar yep , and they always

16:53

advertise on a cheap price . Yeah , but

16:56

then when the warranty comes , what ? Four or five

16:58

years later , what ?

16:58

happens . Yeah well , this is the thing , isn't it

17:00

? There's no one around to help them

17:02

out . If they are still around , they

17:05

don't want to know about it .

17:07

No , they become very good . Yeah

17:10

, if you haven't had them warranted , checked

17:12

every year on the first by

17:14

us . Sorry , there's no warranty

17:16

. Sorry , you go to

17:18

the subcontractor , chase him

17:20

. Sorry , we're still the same name

17:23

, we're still in the same building , but we're different . Abn

17:25

it's a different company . We got nothing to do with

17:27

it . I mean , they play every trick of

17:29

the book to avoid to look after afterwards

17:31

because if they would have to look after it they would

17:33

have to go bankrupt . Yeah , yeah , is that

17:36

what you find too ?

17:37

Yeah it's , I've seen it , I've

17:39

seen it a lot , I've seen it a lot , and

17:41

it's really disappointing and disheartening for these

17:43

, these customers . I mean , you know , on one

17:45

hand , you sort of say , well , you probably should have done

17:48

your due diligence a bit better , you know , read

17:50

up on the forums and all that sort of stuff , because

17:52

there's that much information out there now .

17:55

Some of the worst companies in Australia have five

17:57

star reviews on some of those product

18:00

review sites . Well , that's right , and so the customer

18:02

can easily be misled .

18:04

Yeah , but I suppose what I'm saying is that there's

18:07

a lot of information out there about doing

18:09

your due diligence and there's a lot of horror

18:11

stories out there . So if

18:14

Fowler's going to buy so like I'd be I'd

18:16

be digging pretty deep and making sure this

18:18

company has been around for a while . They've

18:21

got good , good installers . Anyone

18:23

who sells on price alone , that's

18:26

red flags for me . Like , do

18:28

we buy anything else on price alone ? I

18:31

mean , do you buy ? Do you buy a car because it's the cheapest ? No

18:33

, you don't . Do you no ? No

18:36

, I mean I've even stopped buying milk because

18:38

it's the cheapest . Like you

18:40

know , you can buy milk for a dollar

18:42

a liter or whatever .

18:43

Like , that I don't want the farmers to be ripped off .

18:45

No , that's right . Well , either way , either way . So we've

18:47

started buying milk that's , you know , $3.20

18:50

or whatever it is . I don't want to buy it , Just purely

18:52

on price .

18:53

It's yeah bad move I mean same

18:55

thing , even with caged eggs and stuff

18:57

. Yeah , they're cheaper , but I

18:59

actually I like them to be able to move

19:01

their wing Exactly , exactly

19:04

, yeah , yeah , all right . So

19:06

solo on price , you say , is a red flag

19:08

. Yeah , what are the red ?

19:09

flags . This is just my personal opinion

19:11

. I hear a lot of people , especially

19:14

in sales companies and those sort of things

19:16

in the industry , always

19:18

talking about panels

19:20

and inverters . Right , when they're going to buy , they

19:23

have a look at the panel and they have a look at the inverter and that's

19:25

their sort of , and then I suppose the price and they

19:27

they weigh all those things up . We've

19:29

got CEC listed products now . Now

19:31

they've been around . The CEC

19:33

lists have been around for a while . I

19:36

believe they're in a better spot now than they were

19:38

10 years ago and getting better all

19:41

the time . It's probably harder to get on the list

19:43

than it used to be . The one

19:45

thing that is the variable is the

19:47

installation . So I see a lot of the products

19:49

, even though they are different and they have different functionalities

19:51

. I'm not going to say they're all the same

19:53

, because they're not , but they're all listed

19:56

products , they're all safe and

19:58

they're all going to be working . Now

20:01

you can have a debate about the

20:03

performance and all that sort of stuff . That's that's

20:05

fine . But if

20:07

you have a look at a poor installation

20:09

compared to a good installation

20:12

, that's , I

20:14

believe , where you get your value and

20:16

that's where you can really fall down . So

20:19

a lot of these sales companies we find

20:21

use subcontract installation

20:24

, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing , because there's some subbies

20:26

out there that do a really good job . But

20:29

what you don't know is if you've got a subbie

20:31

doing your installation , it could be their

20:33

first installation , but what are the chances

20:35

that you're going to get a good install ? So if

20:37

you have someone working for a company

20:40

that's been working for a company for a while and

20:42

they understand the products , they understand

20:45

the team they're working with and they

20:47

care , I think you're probably going to get a better

20:49

result compared to a subcontracter

20:51

. They're trying to get in and out as quick as they can

20:54

because if they're being

20:56

, if they're working for a company who's sold on price , they're

20:59

likely to be screwed by that company

21:01

when it gets time

21:03

to be paid . So and that's just

21:05

the reality of what happens these , these

21:07

sales companies that are

21:09

selling on price , they're trying

21:11

to make money , right . That's one

21:13

area where they can sort of try and get

21:17

their margins up a little bit by screwing the installer

21:19

. So then the installer is going to be screwing

21:21

things down too . They're going to try and get in and out as quick as they can

21:23

and if the balance of system parts

21:26

that they're installing sorry

21:28

that they're supplying themselves are

21:30

going to be poor quality , because

21:33

it doesn't matter to them

21:35

if the

21:37

labels will start , you know peeling off after

21:39

you know a few months , or

21:42

if , you know

21:44

, the cable that they use starts deteriorating

21:46

or the conduits aren't UV rated .

21:48

Well , it just uses a few less clamps

21:50

. Just have a few less clamps

21:52

. It's under the panel . Who'd let me know the difference ? Till

21:55

you have the big store .

21:56

That's right , that's it , that's and that's . That's the

21:58

thing . So for me that's the , that's

22:01

the main thing . A lot of people sort of say

22:03

inverters number one and panels number

22:05

two . I would say installation number

22:07

one and then probably

22:09

panel . You could you probably debate panels and

22:11

invert it after that . For

22:13

me that's not nowhere near as important , because

22:16

the variable is the installation .

22:18

Just going back to True Value , which was one

22:20

of the largest companies on cheap solo in

22:22

Australia , and you decided to work for them

22:24

.

22:24

twice I did . I went back . How bad is that ? I went back

22:26

. I didn't get back a third time . I went back , though .

22:29

How was it second time around ? Was it still

22:31

chaotic ? Was there still just about

22:34

the price and not so much about the install ?

22:36

Contractors that I'd spoken about earlier . They'd

22:39

then left again called me up , said I

22:41

sort of need your help , you know , would you come back ? And I'm

22:43

like , oh you keep me , kick me to the curb

22:46

. You're asking me to come back , are you

22:48

serious ? Anyway

22:50

, so I decided , all right , I'll do it , I'll do it

22:53

, I'll come back . And it was on when

22:55

I came back there in 26 , the start of 2016,

22:57

. There was certainly less fun in

22:59

the office . It wasn't , wasn't like

23:01

I mentioned the Wolf of Wall Street earlier . There

23:04

was less of that sort of stuff . You could tell

23:06

they were sort of they kind of knew they were in a

23:08

bit of a dead end job and it was just sort of

23:10

going through the motions a bit more

23:12

. They were always having this battle with

23:15

you know Euro solar to be , I suppose

23:17

, the cheapest , and they're always looking at how much to you

23:21

know , how many megawatts are they if they install , if they sold

23:23

this month , and then they , you know , try and work out how much Euro

23:25

solar would have done . And it was just this . So

23:27

this two for our listeners

23:30

and viewers .

23:31

these were the two big mass , cheap

23:33

solar companies in a battle to

23:36

the bottom with each other , and

23:38

there was nothing left to cut out of the

23:40

chain .

23:41

I reckon they were doing maybe

23:43

15 a day . Wow , maybe

23:45

20 . From 105 going down

23:48

to that , yeah , so larger

23:50

jobs , but

23:52

no , any of the volume .

23:54

So the cheap solar guy got beaten by somebody

23:56

who decided to do it even cheaper .

23:58

Yep , and then they're both gone now .

24:00

What's happened to all the customers ?

24:02

of those systems . So last time

24:04

I heard they got an email address for warranties

24:06

. I think I have heard there's one

24:08

person who is managing

24:10

that inbox and

24:12

I think you know trying to do their best with

24:15

the warranties where they can . I'm

24:17

not sure exactly what that means , but

24:20

I can guarantee you if you've got

24:22

a system that

24:24

is now not working

24:26

, you're going to have to pay something out of your own

24:28

pocket to get that back up and running again . So

24:31

warranty support is not there .

24:32

But look , I hear that a lot of the one and a half

24:34

kilowatts , at least from the early days , the

24:38

gear and the quality of what's on the roof now

24:40

for 10 years , even if you have a 25

24:42

year warranty on performance , nobody's

24:45

going to touch it .

24:46

No , not now , that's as funny

24:49

actually story about that . So they used to . I remember

24:51

back in the day they used to sell the upgradeable system

24:53

. Do you remember that ? Yes , upgradable system . So

24:55

they would install a five kilo on inverter with

24:57

eight panels of like 190s

25:00

. I think what they failed to see

25:02

was that the strain stand has changed so much

25:04

that it was never upgradeable because

25:06

you were never able to add panels onto that

25:08

, because those new inverters

25:10

never met the standard a year

25:12

or two down the track because the product standards kept

25:15

changing Plus the wattage panels changed

25:17

. Well , that's the other thing , that's right , that's right

25:19

. The wattage of the panels changed so they were never

25:21

upgradeable . So I'm sure there's

25:23

a whole heap of them still out there not

25:25

working . Eight panels on a five kilo one inverter

25:28

Not very efficient ? No , definitely

25:30

not . No . Well , they see , that was the thing it was . They

25:32

didn't think about that . They were just thinking oh , you know , let's

25:34

, we can sell this upgradeable . Yeah , just buy

25:36

the bigger inverter now . You know I will make more margin

25:39

on it , but you know we'll only give you eight panels and you can think

25:41

about it later on the track . And I know

25:43

a lot of the installers fell bad in the stomach doing it , but

25:45

they just did it because that's what the work was there .

25:47

Five , six years of working for some of the

25:49

cheapest price focused companies

25:52

. What's your advice

25:54

to end customers when buying a

25:56

solar ?

25:59

system . Just don't buy it on price . I've

26:01

seen it so many times . It can't

26:04

be the main factor . When you're going to buy , You've

26:07

got to look at the installation quality of the installers

26:09

who are

26:11

actually going to be there doing the system

26:15

. You don't want the installer to be there

26:17

and you know , putting their feet through

26:20

the , through the plaster and all that

26:22

sort of stuff and , um yeah

26:25

, chomping , chomping on your roses

26:27

and all that sort of stuff . You want

26:29

someone . I mean I'd prefer

26:32

to get someone with an in-house crew . I

26:34

think that's the way to go . Yeah

26:38

, someone with an in-house crew who's going to have

26:40

a company that's going to be having healthy margins

26:43

, that can be there to support you

26:45

when or if

26:47

things go wrong ?

26:48

What about a company who's 300 kilometers away

26:50

but a thousand dollars cheaper ? I mean , why

26:53

would I not use them ? Yeah , is that affecting

26:55

the after sales .

26:56

Well you've got to wonder who's going to be there

26:58

. Who's going to be there when things go wrong . Are

27:01

they just going to get someone

27:03

? They can just type

27:06

in solar installer in that area in Google

27:08

and they're going to call them up and say can you do a

27:10

service call for me ? And they're not

27:12

going to know these people Local . I

27:15

would always say go local . You need to have a local presence . Without

27:17

a local presence , if they don't have a local presence

27:20

, you want to stay away from them . Now

27:22

.

27:22

I would argue that the local presence is becoming

27:25

even more important as to where we're going now

27:27

, because in the olden days you bought

27:29

a solar system , you get a bit of a cheap electricity

27:31

bill , that's it . But now , with the whole climate

27:33

debate , we're now talking about electrifying

27:36

the house , yep . So whoever you start

27:38

your solar with , you're likely to

27:40

go into many other products with them , yep

27:43

. Have you seen a change in the whole industry

27:45

and the perspective ?

27:46

Oh , definitely there's been a huge change

27:48

now , even a shift in

27:50

my thinking as well . I

27:53

never realized until probably 12 months ago how

27:55

important things like heat

27:58

pumps were for hot water and

28:00

getting rid of gas Stupidly

28:03

. I always thought , oh , your gas isn't too bad , it's

28:05

a bit cheaper and it's not as bad as the environment

28:07

and all that sort of stuff , and at least it's you know , we're not burning

28:10

coal and all this . I didn't

28:12

realize how bad it was , to be honest . So that's bad on me

28:14

. But now I'm totally converted and

28:16

I can see the people that I

28:18

do inspections for always

28:20

. They're always talking about heat pumps

28:22

and they're talking about how

28:24

to harvest as much solar as they can

28:26

to , you know , heat up their heat pumps

28:29

and reverse cycle air conditioning

28:31

rather than gas heaters . Yeah , yeah

28:33

, there's so many , so many people I

28:35

mean I'm only seeing it really in Melbourne so many

28:38

people electrifying the whole house . Now

28:40

I'm getting rid of their gas . It's

28:42

great to see , really great . So I think there's

28:44

a bit of an education piece , that sort of happened

28:47

from the industry and it's starting to really get

28:49

through .

28:50

What about the philosophy nowadays that by the

28:52

time you throw the EV in your heat

28:54

pump , your reverse air conditioning

28:56

and your normal consumption , you

28:59

actually possibly haven't got a big enough roof ? Is

29:02

that starting to ?

29:02

become a problem . I'm about to go through this now myself

29:05

, actually , because I'm about to

29:07

build a house myself and , yeah , we're

29:09

not getting a gas connection . 20 , 25

29:11

kilowatt system may not be enough , I don't know

29:13

. I don't want to power bill . So

29:16

, yeah , I think roof space

29:18

could potentially be an issue

29:20

moving forward . I think , just

29:22

to get , as you obviously want , to get as much on

29:25

as you can .

29:26

But wouldn't it go even one step further backwards

29:29

, where the architects who design the houses

29:31

of the future have to a solar

29:33

in mind when they develop the roof and

29:35

not those hickly pickle the 50 gables

29:38

and 22 antenna roofs

29:40

? I mean , wouldn't it really be starting with

29:42

that ?

29:42

Yeah , you'd think so . I feel

29:44

like builders are a little bit behind still with

29:47

where solar is

29:49

and where it needs to be . I feel like it's still

29:51

a little bit of an afterthought for them and they don't see the benefits

29:53

in it and they just sort of get . Maybe

29:56

they're looking just at a cheap 6.6 system

29:58

for a new house . I mean that's , we've

30:00

designed our house to maximize

30:02

sort of as much as we can . We're trying to make the

30:04

roof so we can get as many panels on it .

30:06

Now , after you've worked for some

30:08

of the cheaper solar companies , you

30:11

somehow transitioned to work for the Clean Energy

30:13

Council . The Clean Energy Council

30:15

is a bit like from an installer perspective

30:17

a bit like a big bunker . We

30:20

never really get an idea what's going on there

30:22

, and we actually sometimes feel

30:24

that maybe the small installer is really

30:26

not the key audience there

30:28

. It's the big energy companies that

30:30

really are on the board and play

30:33

the tune , and all that For sure . I don't

30:35

want to get you into trouble , but what can you

30:37

tell us out of your CC days For

30:39

?

30:39

sure that's a good question . I think it's

30:41

probably not really spoken about all that much . So

30:43

I think what a lot of people don't realize

30:45

about the Clean Energy Council , all they don't listen , because I

30:47

think I've said this before a

30:49

lot of people just don't . They only listen to what they want to . But

30:52

the Clean Energy Council is effectively

30:55

sort of split up into different departments

30:57

. So you've got your sort of policy and advocacy

30:59

staff who are mainly looking

31:01

at the larger companies large scale

31:03

, solar wind , all those

31:06

type of things . Then you've got your accreditation

31:10

and compliance and they're looking after the small

31:12

scale . So this is the stuff we're sort of talking about

31:14

Smaller companies , installers

31:16

, and they run the accreditation

31:19

program at the moment . Then , on top of that

31:21

, off to the side as well is

31:23

well , when I was there it was the approved solar

31:25

retailer program and now that's transitioned

31:28

into the net CC , which CC

31:30

are the administers of that

31:33

too . So you've got

31:35

three different parts of this organization and

31:38

I think what a lot of people don't realize is sometimes

31:40

they're all sort of fighting for the same space

31:42

. So there's a lot of

31:44

things that happen internally at the CC where

31:48

everyone tries to be on the same page with the

31:51

way they do things , but they're sort of butting heads a little

31:53

bit too .

31:54

I mean the installers and the regulation

31:57

of solar systems . I would

31:59

argue to you that after 10

32:01

years and 12 years of still

32:03

installing , at least 20% of what's getting installed

32:06

today in Australia is going to be

32:08

crap . And you've got an organization

32:10

controlling that and they've been doing

32:12

it for a decade plus and

32:15

we've heard over and over poor

32:17

results company furnishing some

32:19

gear being brought in that's crap . They're

32:22

in charge and they're

32:24

trying to control it , but

32:26

the smart asses who know how to make money

32:28

are always outwitting them at the end .

32:30

Yeah , it does seem , that's for sure , that that

32:32

does seem to happen , and I think also you do

32:35

hear a lot about those type of stories

32:37

, like they're probably the ones that do

32:39

control the narrative a little bit .

32:42

So you're saying it's not as often as what you hear about

32:44

?

32:46

I'm not sure if it's not as often as what you hear about , but

32:48

I think you also , you don't hear the good stories too

32:50

, because there are a lot of them , a

32:53

lot of installers in the country

32:55

, and a lot of them are doing the right thing . There's a

32:57

lot of companies that are selling

32:59

ethically as well , and

33:02

, yeah , I think it's just . I think it's the main ones

33:04

you know that

33:06

are doing the wrong thing , which sort of make all the

33:08

noise . So that's that's what

33:10

I think . So there's certainly room

33:12

for improvement . But I think what a lot of people

33:15

don't realise about the

33:17

Clean Energy Council is that they're funded by the

33:19

industry . So

33:21

a lot of people think they're a government department and they're funded by

33:23

the government , but they're not .

33:24

No , they got . They got financial necessities

33:28

to make their money . That's right . Yeah

33:31

, and some people say that's why they invented

33:33

the energy retailer program

33:35

, because it's just a good way to make extra money

33:37

out of installers . Yeah , well , what

33:40

are the benefits of it when some

33:42

companies who are the crook

33:44

of crook have gotten , being able to be now

33:46

getting the recommendation ? Yeah so the Clean

33:49

Energy badge actually

33:51

helps the crooks to look good .

33:52

I know it does Look . I have seen that and that's

33:54

you're right . That's them sort of getting around

33:57

, getting around the system . Look

34:00

, it's not a perfect system . I think that's probably the

34:02

answer . It's not a perfect system . You

34:06

know , from working now I know myself they

34:08

are doing what they can with what they've

34:10

got and with what powers they've got

34:12

. So because they're not a government department

34:15

or they're not a regulator or anything like that , what

34:17

they can't send people to jail for not

34:19

following their rules or anything like that . But

34:21

we've heard recently there's been some action

34:23

where some installers

34:26

have been pulled up for fraudulent

34:28

activity . I think there was some . I think

34:30

someone's recently just got

34:32

in some trouble for being in another

34:34

country and signing off installs , something like that .

34:36

And you know what they got . Slap

34:39

on the wrist , a good behavior bond for stealing

34:41

$60,000 out of the rebate

34:43

scheme . Yeah , that's what they got .

34:45

I don't . Yeah , that's right . Look , yeah

34:47

, and that's look , and that's a cleanser regulator

34:49

. So I suppose it's easy to

34:51

do even less than that . They don't have the power to

34:54

do that . So , yeah

34:56

, look it's . It's because

34:58

it's funded and run by the industry .

35:01

There's only certain amount they can do and

35:04

look , they have the financial necessities

35:06

to make income streams . So I get it . Yeah

35:08

, and quite frankly , I wouldn't want Cain

35:11

John Thornton's job , because

35:13

the people who always will know better

35:15

will be 50 more than the ones who

35:17

be actually giving him good advice . So

35:19

that is the problem there . Nevertheless

35:22

, I just look at the end result and the end result

35:24

is that we're supposed to save the world

35:26

, yeah , and we've brought millions

35:29

of panels into Australia and

35:31

we still haven't actually had the CEC

35:33

drive very hard . A recycling

35:35

program yeah , things like

35:37

that I see as a failure . If

35:39

you're the leader of the industry , if you're representing

35:41

the industry , if you're taking money out of the industry , if

35:44

you're doing a clean energy product and

35:47

then your stuff goes in the majority in the landfill

35:49

because you have actively encouraged

35:51

the recycling industry after 10

35:54

, 15 years , yeah , that's a failure

35:56

.

35:56

Yeah , I can see why . Look , I must say I didn't

35:58

. I never really got into that , advocating

36:00

for the product stewardship

36:03

and recycling and all that sort of stuff . I

36:05

know there was some work happening but

36:07

yeah , I'm not really sure how much

36:09

it was pushed or what

36:11

sort of results they got . I know there's been

36:14

some stuff happening in the industry sort of recently . I

36:16

don't know if that's pushed by the CEC , though I

36:18

think maybe the Smart Energy Council had , and

36:21

I think the scandal of these

36:23

panels in 10 years time , millions

36:26

of them have to be found at home .

36:28

Yeah , and all the aluminium or

36:30

the glass ? That's actually very good material

36:32

. Yeah , for it to not be clear

36:35

? I think that's

36:37

really what I call it an

36:39

oversight and oversight is a nice

36:41

word of this industry . I mean , when I was working

36:43

for a manufacturer , if you guys would have come to me

36:46

and asked for an escrow scheme where

36:48

I have to pay $2 per panel to

36:50

later on guarantee that those panels would be

36:52

recycled , we would have loved

36:54

that because it would have been a perfect

36:57

marketing opportunity of how clean and clean

36:59

we are .

36:59

Yeah , I think that's that's the answer , isn't it , Alevi ? Is

37:02

that ? Is that what you're ?

37:03

saying I think it needs to be coming in . The federal government

37:05

should be taking it along .

37:06

I think the federal government are the ones that probably would need to step

37:09

in with that . Like I try not to get into politics

37:11

too much with that stuff , but that does seem

37:13

to be the obvious thing Because , yeah , there's

37:15

been like we've had a few pretty big

37:17

booms in this industry and

37:19

you know , you've got to think of when

37:22

. The first

37:24

main sort of commercial boom that I can remember was about

37:26

in 2017 , 2018

37:29

, a whole heap of like 100 kilowatts systems are going

37:31

on commercial roofs . You know , just heaps

37:33

and heaps . They were just going everywhere . A

37:36

lot of them were done by cheap , cheap

37:40

sales companies . They're going to like

37:42

I don't know , some of them are probably already at their end

37:44

of life right now already . So that's

37:46

, that's a worry and

37:48

the problems unless it gets sorted out , it's going to get

37:50

much worse . I agree . But what was

37:52

actually your role at the CC ? So

37:55

I started there as a technical and compliant specialist

37:57

. When I started there , it was pretty much answering the phone

37:59

when the installs would call up and wanting

38:02

some help , go through standards

38:04

and guidelines and just , yeah , general assistance .

38:07

So what ? Somebody wouldn't know the rules and they

38:09

would double check .

38:11

Or maybe single check . Maybe they just didn't know the rules

38:14

at all . Just happened a lot . It

38:16

used to be the same people ringing all day . I like

38:18

used to get people that would call every

38:20

day . We would do other things like install

38:23

the nights your webinars . I just love

38:25

doing webinars . Oh , great fun . A lot

38:27

of people who've heard me on webinars probably

38:29

sick of hearing my voice because we used

38:31

to do a lot of them . We used to do them every six

38:34

to eight weeks about the standards and guidelines

38:36

and yeah so they were like a training

38:39

form really . Yeah , yeah , well , they do for continuous

38:41

professional development as well . I think they were worth

38:43

maybe 50 points . So

38:46

, yeah , it was probably a one hour webinar

38:49

where people would log in and we

38:51

would go through a technical presentation , have

38:54

a bit of ban test , usually between the presenters

38:56

. We try to . We try to make it , you know , engaging

38:59

and funny , where we could have

39:01

some poor jokes as well . And then

39:03

, yeah , we'd do , we'd open it up for questions and people used to type

39:06

their questions in and we'd read them out and answer

39:08

them . It was really good really good way of doing it and

39:10

, yeah , they sort of stopped . They

39:12

stopped that in about 2019 , 2020 . Sort

39:15

of got to the stage in 2018 . I'd

39:18

been there just over a year and

39:20

my boss at the time he decided to move on . So

39:23

all of a sudden there's this big hole left in the technical team . So

39:26

I ended up with the technical team leader job . What did that

39:28

role for ? I don't know ? 18 months to

39:30

use something .

39:31

So also 2018 , 19 , when

39:33

you're leading the CCC technical team . What

39:36

are the key challenges ?

39:37

Look . A lot of the challenges we found were to

39:39

do with Australian standards . They

39:42

kept changing . So if we look at your

39:44

general electrical stuff like AS3000 , we

39:46

normally have a rule

39:49

change , you know , every 10 years

39:51

or so , so in the solar

39:53

industry it's usually every year , every year

39:55

, sometimes multiple per year . That

39:58

makes it really hard for the installers

40:00

and it also made it hard

40:02

for us to get the message out about doing

40:04

the right thing , because there's

40:07

so much to be over in the solar industry as

40:09

an installer to get it right . A lot of

40:11

people you know might think it's solar installer

40:13

. You know they just sort of rock up on a Monday

40:15

morning with their chocolate , milk and sausage roll

40:17

you know whatever , and they just throw panels on the

40:19

roof and then they're at the you know in the

40:22

beer garden by 3pm on a Friday

40:24

. You know knocking down schooners , but it's it's

40:26

. There's more to it . You've got to actually

40:28

be pretty switched on to be a solar installer . You need to know

40:30

your stuff , you need to know your standards , you need to know how

40:32

to run a good team . And , yeah

40:35

, getting that across to people

40:37

who've come across from just being normal general

40:40

sort of light and power sparkies , it's a big

40:42

step up . It's a really big step up

40:44

. So we were trying to make

40:47

that transition , I suppose , for them a bit easier

40:49

, trying to educate them as much as we can and

40:52

then keep reeducating because they yeah , again , they kept changing

40:54

. Doing that in a smooth manner was

40:57

a bit of a challenge , I would

40:59

say .

41:00

So why the hell in Australia ? Do

41:02

the Australian stand have changed all the time ? When

41:04

he comes to solar ?

41:05

Each time they have changed , there's been improvements

41:08

. You know

41:10

you could debate whether the rooftop isolator

41:12

, when that came in in 2010 , it was an improvement

41:15

or not .

41:15

It's the highest source of fires on the .

41:18

Well , yeah , I mean that's true

41:20

. But so we looked into this

41:22

a lot because we used to actually get the blame for

41:24

the rooftop isolators . At the CEC People

41:26

would call us up going why we still got rooftop isolators . No

41:28

other country in the world's got them . As

41:30

far as the fires in isolators

41:32

went , it was 51%

41:35

to 49% . I'm pretty sure it was

41:37

close . So the rooftop

41:39

compared to the inverter adjacent

41:41

isolator , the fires

41:44

were don't quote me 100% , but it

41:46

doesn't really matter because it's so close , it doesn't matter

41:48

. There was 51%

41:50

of fires were from the inverter isolator

41:52

and 49% were on the roof

41:54

. I suppose the thinking is that if

41:56

there's a fire on your roof it's less

41:58

likely to cause more destruction

42:01

because there's not as much

42:03

fuel on a roof . You know you might burn

42:05

the side of a panel , the , you know the isolator might

42:07

turn into a big , you know blob of

42:09

plastic , but there's not . Generally

42:11

speaking , there's not many things that can catch

42:14

fire , but you're talking about

42:16

an inverter isolator on the wall . Especially

42:18

if it's on a weatherboard wall , that

42:20

can have catastrophic consequences

42:25

. Yeah , so that's . They're

42:27

the ones that were sort of . It

42:29

seems like the standards committee were the ones that they

42:31

were the ones that they wanted to get rid of . As

42:34

far as the rooftop , we would sort of see the issues

42:36

we would see with rooftop isolators

42:38

. We're , generally speaking , were product

42:41

issues , workmanship

42:43

issues . You know , sometimes you

42:46

see , like a rattle gun on a isolator , you

42:48

know you should be really doing them up with a screwdriver so

42:50

you just make sure they're hand tight . That

42:52

, generally speaking , I think was the reason why

42:54

we were getting those issues with

42:56

the rooftop isolators . So the idea , I think , is not as bad

42:59

as what everyone says . A

43:02

lot of people say you know you put DC on a roof out in the weather

43:04

, of course it's going to catch fire . But

43:06

if you do it in , if you do it the right way , you do it safely , you

43:10

use a good product . I think you can still have a safe outcome . But

43:13

I think the advent of disconnection points has been a really good thing too

43:15

. Getting rid of getting rid of the

43:18

isolator on the roof . It's been good .

43:20

So you work for the CC , you kind

43:23

of try to help install this to increase their skill level , yep

43:25

. And

43:28

now you've moved into the

43:31

inspection of solar systems . Yeah , that's right . So

43:34

really you will see

43:36

the sins of the fathers

43:39

, meaning the good and bad stuff from

43:42

10 years ago is staring you right

43:44

in the face .

43:45

Yeah , so not as much of that is staring

43:47

me in the face . So

43:49

I'm , generally speaking , seeing

43:52

newer installs Right . So

43:54

when I do like , I do CER audits

43:56

and Solovik audits as well . So CER audits can

43:59

be done up to 24 months

44:01

after the installation . So

44:05

that's probably about as old as I'll see in that program

44:07

. But

44:09

there's been other programs I've worked in . Where there's been , we've

44:11

looked at old systems and done like condition reports

44:14

on them and seen some

44:16

things . Yeah

44:19

, I worked on a program where they were

44:21

looking at old

44:24

systems from the solar schools back in I

44:27

think it started in 2008 , maybe something like that and

44:29

we were doing sort of condition reports on them , making sure

44:31

that they were still

44:33

up to standard , products were

44:36

OK , yeah , they were

44:38

safe and running and that sort of stuff . And , yeah , some of that

44:40

was a bit of an eye opener .

44:43

What are the things that , when cheap systems

44:45

were built , people could stuff up ? Just rattle

44:48

it down . What

44:50

can you do wrong with the solar system ? Solar system .

44:54

Yeah , there was like a lot of things

44:56

like top entry into isolators

44:59

was a big thing .

45:00

So the water can run straight into the fuse

45:02

and the switch type .

45:04

Yeah , into your DC isolator , Correct , you can

45:06

go straight in . Yeah

45:08

, cables not ran through ceilings , correctly

45:11

, so they were just , you know , not in conduit

45:13

. And yeah , poor balance of system . Things

45:15

like labeling is some of the

45:17

labels from back then you can't even tell . We can read

45:19

them now been out in the sun or in the weather

45:22

and yeah , for me labeling

45:24

is a pretty big thing .

45:25

So if I don't install the panel correctly

45:27

and screw it in the right spots and

45:30

I get a really big windstorm ? Yep , what

45:33

can happen ?

45:34

Worst case . You can end up with a panel flying off the roof . That's

45:36

your worst case scenario and that can be . That can

45:39

obviously end up in disaster . But

45:41

yeah , you can damage the product and

45:45

I suppose if you're going to go and get a warranty on that product

45:47

, I doubt your manufacturer is going to pay

45:49

it on a warranty when it's been

45:52

installed like that . Is that

45:54

right ? No , you wouldn't get it .

45:56

No way you would get it , would you ? You wouldn't get your money back

45:58

. No , if the installation is done

46:00

poorly , even if I give you a 25

46:02

year warranty , your warranty just walked

46:04

out the door . Yeah , and it's the installer

46:06

that's responsible for it and the customer who

46:08

pays the price . Yeah , is it a good

46:10

idea to inspect every solar system that's

46:12

been installed ?

46:14

Well , I think it is , especially with what I

46:16

see , other things you hear about in

46:18

other states that don't have mandatory inspections

46:20

. I think it's . Yeah

46:22

, I actually can't believe that other states don't

46:24

have it . To be honest , like New South

46:26

Wales I would have thought would have taken

46:28

the lead of Victoria . They seem to do that a lot

46:31

with things like this . Maybe

46:33

they see what Victoria do first and

46:36

jump on afterwards . You can see it with the

46:38

, with the safety working at heights and those

46:40

type of things . I suppose when

46:42

Solovit came out , they were really big on working

46:45

safely , working at heights , and they brought in things

46:47

like mandatory edge protection for installers . And

46:49

then you know , sort of New South Wales , worksafe

46:53

New South Wales sorry , worksafety New South Wales , I

46:57

think that's what they're called . Yeah , they

46:59

decided to interpret the rules the same

47:01

way as Victorians and then you

47:03

see a shift in the way installers

47:06

are working in New South Wales and it started

47:09

to filter into other states as well

47:11

. So I mean I

47:13

would like to see it happen in New South Wales . Some

47:15

of the stuff you see , some of the installations

47:18

in and around Sydney , I think , yeah

47:20

, it leaves a lot to be desired and I

47:22

see some of them . Sometimes you know just whether

47:24

it's people I've worked , you know I work with

47:26

, or send me photos you know from

47:29

around Sydney , or

47:31

even stuff you see online . I think that

47:33

the installation quality could

47:35

be improved a fair bit by mandatory inspections

47:37

in New South Wales .

47:39

So tell us you are on the roof , what

47:41

do you see ? What are the horror stories ? What's

47:43

one of the worst ?

47:43

you've ever seen the ones I've seen where a

47:46

panel on the roof no enclamps , so just

47:49

no enclamps . I got up

47:51

there , I'm like I'm looking at going , something's

47:53

not right here , what is it , I don't know . For a minute I couldn't pinpoint

47:56

. And then I'm like , oh , what am I doing ? There's no enclamps

47:58

. So , and you know , I just put my hand out of the panel and it

48:00

was just sort of flapping around . There's

48:02

been other ones where you've seen really poor connections . Look

48:06

, not just on the roof but at the switchboard or

48:08

in the AC isolator , and

48:11

there's been burning of the conductor

48:13

melting , and

48:16

yeah , things look really , you know , really

48:18

poor . In a way that it's

48:20

, I sort of felt happy

48:22

that I was there because I felt like I saved them

48:25

from saved from catching fire . You

48:27

know , like the conductors you isolate

48:29

it and the conductors still warm those type of

48:31

things . And you

48:33

know these people , they were elderly people and they , they didn't know

48:35

it . Yeah , they just like , oh , we think

48:37

it's working , we're not sure . And I've gone

48:39

to open up the isolator and I've gone , something's not right here . I

48:42

could just tell something was wrong . There's a big crack in the side

48:44

of the isolator and it wouldn't switch properly and

48:47

I'm going , what's going on here ? Open it up

48:49

. Yeah , there's , yeah , conductors

48:51

burnt and yeah , it

48:54

was a disaster waiting to happen . So that's that's

48:56

. That's another one . And I've

48:58

had other ones where the neutral conductor inside

49:00

the switchboard was not tight and

49:02

burnt out . So , yeah

49:06

, another almost disaster . So that's

49:08

. You don't see , like

49:10

if I hadn't been there to inspect these systems

49:12

, they would never have known until probably it was

49:15

too late , do you ?

49:15

sometimes go to places where people have a solar

49:18

system , but it hasn't been working for years

49:20

and they haven't even realized .

49:21

Yeah , we had that a little bit with the , with

49:23

the schools . Yeah , they show you where it was

49:26

and they're like oh , I

49:28

had this red light flashing for the last five years so

49:31

we know it's working or how long it can .

49:32

Okay , A red light

49:35

says it's not working . That's right .

49:37

That's right . So there's that . Definitely

49:39

get that . There was another one where I'm pretty

49:41

sure it was never turned on . So

49:45

, um , I mean , I can't be sure it had

49:48

never been turned on . Pretty

49:50

sure it was never turned on , yeah , cause

49:52

I knew the rooftop isolator was in

49:54

the off position and they said well

49:56

, we don't . We've never had any difference to a bill , we've

49:59

never had anything different , any different . It's just gone

50:01

up and up and up and up .

50:02

So Was it a house

50:04

or was ?

50:05

it a school ? No , that was a school .

50:06

I do have a question why do you think New South Wales doesn't have

50:09

same standard , except inspection

50:11

?

50:12

I've looked into this . Actually I've looked

50:14

into this , so

50:17

, um , I've been I'd looked softly

50:19

, been trying to sort of advocate for it , so I

50:21

think that it's something that needs to needs to happen . Um

50:25

, I've reached out to a few people at

50:27

work New South Wales government jobs I'm

50:30

not going to mention who they are Um , and

50:33

I've said you know , solovik

50:36

program has seen um

50:38

unsafe installations drop

50:41

. I'm not sure exactly what the numbers were . I

50:43

think it's something like 2.7%

50:45

of installations are unsafe and it's now

50:47

below 1% in Victoria . Um

50:51

, now New

50:53

South Wales . I'm not sure

50:55

what the numbers are . I don't know if you capture this data , because

50:57

that's , this is the thing . They don't capture the data because

50:59

they don't do the inspections . But

51:01

obviously there's a

51:03

lot of systems out there that are

51:06

getting through and they don't

51:08

have the resources like a . I mean there's

51:10

a whole government department . I

51:12

mean I know Solovik are part of uh

51:14

Delp in Victoria , but

51:16

there's a whole government department that's

51:18

um dedicated to solar

51:21

installations in Victoria . So yeah

51:24

, they're interested in it . It

51:26

doesn't seem to be that same appetite in

51:28

New South Wales for safety . Um

51:31

, and I've asked about it , saying you know , surely you'd

51:33

have a look at what's happening in Victoria , the good results that

51:35

we're seeing , and I can

51:37

understand why you don't have mandatory inspections . It's something you're looking

51:39

at . Is you know ? If you're

51:41

not doing it , why aren't you doing it ? Is it a funding

51:44

thing ? Is it a lack of appetite ? What is it

51:46

? And the answer I kind of got was

51:48

well , we've

51:50

been looking at other things . So we're we're interested

51:52

in um , trying to get unlicensed

51:55

people from um doing

51:58

installations . I don't know

52:00

I'm not sure if they mentioned solar installations

52:02

or not , but electricians

52:04

being unlicensed . So we're , rather

52:06

than doing inspections and audits post

52:09

install , we're trying to go out when

52:12

they're installing things and catch them without their

52:14

license . That's a great , I'm like

52:16

great .

52:16

Yeah , because you can whack good fees and and

52:19

fines on them and you make money , you make money

52:21

, yeah .

52:22

So I was like , well , yeah , okay , that's good

52:24

. Um , that's

52:26

, that's a good step forward , that's fine . But you

52:29

know , I sort of I asked you a question about look

52:31

at what's happening in Victoria and look at the results we're

52:33

getting and you know , let's

52:35

not wait until something bad happens to

52:38

do something Like . I

52:40

understand there's been something

52:42

I think I think they may have mentioned that it's

52:45

been a change in government in New South Wales in what

52:47

the last six , 12 months ? Yeah

52:49

, correct , something like that . Yeah , that

52:52

was mentioned that you know it's probably a time where that's not going to happen . There's not

52:54

really an appetite for it at the moment , but

52:58

, um , yeah , I just I

53:00

don't think the appetite is there . Now I

53:02

know you've got the

53:04

uh , there's inspections done by

53:06

Osgrid , I think . I

53:09

think Osgrid do a lot of inspections and then the other two

53:11

DNSPs maybe not so much was

53:13

the endeavor and essential I think

53:15

maybe they have some inspections

53:18

not really sure I think they're spot inspections

53:20

and also the CER is doing them afterwards

53:22

. That's right . So the CER are doing them . That's right , they're

53:25

doing them . The CER are doing them everywhere and like that's the same

53:27

in Victoria too . So

53:29

but you just don't . So in Victoria you've got every

53:32

installation gets inspected at least once . It

53:34

needs to be to be to be signed

53:36

off . Then you got Solovic on top of that that

53:38

are doing 5% . Then you got the CER

53:40

on top of that that are doing 5%

53:43

. Then you may also get an ESV

53:45

inspection , which may not be as extensive

53:47

because they may not looking , they may not have solar

53:49

people doing those , they may just be electricians

53:52

. But you can get caught

53:54

from so many different angles in Victoria but

53:57

seems like in New South Wales and a few

53:59

of the other states you can kind of do it your life

54:01

.

54:02

Look , I don't want to get into all the politics of New South

54:04

Wales et cetera , but you're right , there's a new government right

54:06

now . They just put in their training wheels

54:08

on . They're not going to go do anything

54:10

that's rocking the boat at the moment

54:12

. I think in most cases

54:14

, till we have a fire on somebody's

54:17

roof , it's not going to happen Suddenly

54:20

. Then we have knee-jerk reactions all the way the

54:22

other way . That's usually when politicians get

54:24

involved . When you worked

54:26

in what you described as the Wolf

54:28

of Wall Street sales environment

54:30

in that cheap solar company , what

54:33

were the kind of hooks that they got customers

54:36

to stick to ? Was it just the cheap

54:38

price or , come on , spill

54:40

the beans ?

54:43

I'm not really into sales that

54:45

much . What I

54:47

did know was

54:49

I used to work late there on

54:52

a Thursday , just because

54:54

it worked out . It was my working arrangement

54:56

. I'd come in late , drop my kids at

54:58

school , that sort of stuff . Then I'd work late on a Thursday

55:01

night , the

55:03

last Thursday of the month . I'd

55:05

always think I'm going to be in for it tonight

55:08

, because there's

55:10

always a lot of sales on that

55:12

last Thursday of the month . I

55:15

kept thinking what is it ? Why

55:17

are they so rowdy tonight ? There

55:20

was pizza , there was music , there

55:23

may have been a few beverages being thrown around

55:25

, all that sort of stuff . What's going on here . I

55:28

asked around and I'm like why are you guys

55:30

so rowdy tonight ? Because it's nights . At night

55:32

, this

55:35

is when we make hay . I'm like , okay , why

55:37

, what are you doing ? Pretty

55:40

much the answer was well , we've

55:43

basically been told to get our sales targets up , so

55:45

we drop our pants on the price . That

55:49

was pretty much what it was . They'd go be

55:51

speaking to this customer for two

55:53

to three weeks , whatever it was . Come the end of

55:55

the month crunch time , sales numbers need to begin

55:57

. All right , I

55:59

know we said we wouldn't do it for $600

56:02

cheaper or whatever . We're going to do it , we're

56:04

going to do it . So I

56:07

don't know if that's what you're looking for exactly . I

56:13

didn't really get too exposed to high pressure

56:16

tactics . I wasn't really too

56:18

exposed to that . I

56:21

was a little bit on the other end , though , so not necessarily with

56:23

the sales side of things , but on the operation side

56:25

. There was sort of a time

56:27

where , let's

56:30

say , an installation was

56:33

about to happen and then for some reason

56:35

, there was a problem on site and unforeseen issue

56:37

with the installer . So the installer gets out there

56:39

and goes well , you

56:42

know , I'm only going to get you know . Whatever it is $1,200

56:45

for this install , this 6.6 . I'm

56:47

only going to get $1,200 for this . So they'd

56:50

look at it and go , well , this isn't a

56:52

standard install , so I need more money

56:54

. So they'd call me up and they'd

56:56

go all right , well , we need an extra

56:58

$200 for a long cable run here . I'd

57:01

be like , all right , I'm like

57:03

I can't just authorize this . So

57:05

we need to work out what to do , so that actually

57:07

has someone employed as install support

57:10

and they would be that liaison

57:12

between the customer and

57:14

Truebase to work out what to do . And

57:17

what they basically would do is say look

57:20

, the installers come back and said there's

57:23

a , there's a cable run

57:25

that we didn't you know

57:27

, it was an unforeseen thing , and

57:29

you now need to pay another $300

57:32

. Now , bear in mind , the install is

57:34

only getting $200 . Okay , so it's not

57:36

at cost . And

57:38

the customer would then say , well , hang on

57:40

, this is not what you said , you know . And they'd go a bit of argy-bargy

57:43

, this and that , and then they'd end up saying , all right

57:45

, fine , we'll do it for $250

57:48

. Okay , so , they do it for $250 , and

57:50

they'd be like the customer's still like , well , this is

57:52

not what I agree to . I don't want to , I'm

57:54

going to cancel , I'm not happy with this . And

57:56

then there were things said like well , that's

57:58

okay , if you want to cancel , that's

58:01

fine , that's up to you , that's in your right , but

58:03

you'll lose an admin fee . And

58:06

you know the guys have been out on site so you know

58:08

you'll have to pay for their time too so and

58:12

we've got already your deposit . Got your deposit . You

58:15

can't , you know ? Fine , we'll give you a refund

58:17

, but you know we're just gonna we'll be deducting the admin fee

58:19

. I think the admin fee like

58:21

sort of before I left , I think it was around

58:24

500 bucks . Isn't

58:26

that , men , decent admin fee ? So they're covering

58:28

costs and obviously the stuff I mentioned before

58:30

about how the operations team were the ones

58:32

having to clean up this mess . Maybe

58:34

they'd learnt that lesson , thinking well

58:36

, we need to get more out of the customer

58:39

to recover that cost because

58:41

they'd lost so much money . So look

58:44

, not necessarily a sales tactic

58:46

to close the sale , but

58:48

it's backing the customer into

58:50

a corner to the point where you

58:53

know they'd probably most of the time they'd go well , all

58:55

right , just do it , I'll pay the extra money

58:57

. It's not worth it for me , just do

58:59

it .

59:00

Did you ever have anybody rock up at the office

59:02

really angry because crap happened

59:05

? And they actually turned up in the place

59:07

.

59:08

Yeah

59:10

, come on . Yeah

59:12

, there's a couple of times , this is gold . Yeah

59:15

, there's a couple of times that happened .

59:17

Yeah , come on .

59:18

Oh look , my memory on it is a little bit sketchy

59:20

, but I know that we were

59:22

told at the time like

59:25

not to go down to reception because this person

59:28

was very upset , very angry

59:30

, and

59:32

they would . You know , we had the fob key

59:34

with the security passes to get into the doors

59:36

and the office and all that sort of stuff and

59:39

they were sort of standing there waiting for someone

59:41

to open the door . They had no idea

59:43

where to go . You know , a lot of our officers are like rabbit

59:45

wounds and true base . I was like that . They

59:47

had no idea where to go but they knew they had to get behind

59:49

that first door . So

59:51

we were sort of told we almost went into

59:53

lockdown . This customer

59:55

is out there . This one in particular

59:58

was they wanted their deposit back and

1:00:01

, yeah , they weren't willing to give it . There

1:00:05

was another one I can remember where it was

1:00:07

yeah , they had an install from 12

1:00:09

months ago , something like that , and yeah

1:00:11

, it wasn't working and there was issues with warranties

1:00:14

. So they were like , yeah , beating

1:00:16

on the door and yeah

1:00:18

, just imagine . Just whatever you're imagining

1:00:20

is probably exactly what happened , probably

1:00:23

exactly what happened . I mean , those types of things used

1:00:25

to happen a little bit even at the CEC as well

1:00:27

, like installers being upset

1:00:29

, hearing it

1:00:31

downstairs being yeah

1:00:33

. I got threatened a few times at the

1:00:35

working at the CEC . I got physically

1:00:38

threatened once at an installer event by

1:00:40

an installer who yeah .

1:00:42

Wasn't happy with the determination

1:00:44

.

1:00:45

No , no , no , no , no , it wasn't that they just

1:00:47

weren't happy with the CEC in general

1:00:50

, no , very vocal . There was someone who'd been very

1:00:52

vocal online I'd

1:00:55

sort of , probably because I'd been on . I used

1:00:57

to be online a bit with the and try

1:00:59

and stick up to the CEC where I could , because that was

1:01:02

I used to see what , exactly what , was going on . So

1:01:04

I thought they needed a voice and

1:01:07

I'd sort of try and say what I thought is exactly

1:01:10

what happening or not , what people are thinking was happening

1:01:12

. And yeah , we this person and I used

1:01:14

to clash heads a fair bit and

1:01:16

yeah , running into them at an event once and

1:01:18

yeah , physically threatened me . It

1:01:21

wasn't a great experience .

1:01:23

No look . I mean it's not I

1:01:25

don't . I condemn that kind of thing because

1:01:28

, to be very honest , I think without

1:01:30

the CEC it would be solid cowboy

1:01:32

country even more . And

1:01:35

I have to admit that they have tried

1:01:37

over the years to make

1:01:39

installation safer . Unfortunately

1:01:43

, like with any big systems a

1:01:45

million systems installed in

1:01:47

a couple of years things can fall through the cracks

1:01:49

.

1:01:50

Yeah , I think that certainly is what happened , like there's

1:01:52

certainly some installers that were

1:01:54

, you

1:01:56

know , that had been given demerit

1:01:59

points and had compliance action taken against them and

1:02:01

still had their accreditation , and

1:02:05

I just wondered how they were still on the list . It

1:02:07

was . But you know , again , the CEC can only

1:02:09

do so much and they've also got to have a fair

1:02:11

and reasonable process as well , so

1:02:14

they can't be seen to be , you

1:02:18

know , favoring anyone or having it

1:02:20

in for anyone or anything like that . So

1:02:22

you've got to , they've got to be as reasonable as they

1:02:24

can , Cause all you know , these things can end

1:02:26

up in court .

1:02:28

Solar from 10 , 15 years ago

1:02:30

to now . What's ?

1:02:31

changed . Clearly

1:02:34

, the products have changed . The products are better

1:02:36

than they used to be . So

1:02:39

the lists I

1:02:41

think the CEC lists are

1:02:43

tighter and more stringent than they

1:02:45

used to be . Installation

1:02:47

quality on a general

1:02:50

scale is better , like I think now even

1:02:52

some of even some of the ones that

1:02:54

may have been

1:02:56

doing a really poor

1:02:59

job back then are doing a better job now

1:03:01

. Or I suppose what I'm trying to say is the lowest common

1:03:03

denominator is slightly higher , like

1:03:06

I even think . I even look at some of the installation

1:03:08

quality of some of the work I did back in 2009

1:03:11

. And I cringe a bit , to be honest . We didn't know

1:03:13

any better . I would say the installation

1:03:15

is a big part of the

1:03:18

changes and what's got better

1:03:20

. So , yeah , I think it's definitely got better and

1:03:22

yeah , it's the products and installation which have got better

1:03:24

.

1:03:26

Now how important is after sale service

1:03:28

.

1:03:28

Yeah , after sale service . So

1:03:33

I'll generally only want to work for the companies that

1:03:35

provide good after sales service

1:03:38

. If you don't have that , yeah

1:03:42

, you're gonna end up

1:03:44

with poor reviews , unhappy

1:03:47

customers . It's

1:03:50

sort of part of the package , isn't it ? I would have thought it's

1:03:52

part of being a quality company

1:03:54

. If you don't have that after sale service , you can't really

1:03:56

call yourself a good company .

1:03:58

But there's no moving part in solar . What can go

1:04:00

wrong ?

1:04:03

You hear that a fair bit , don't you ? Some of the stuff

1:04:05

you see for older systems build up

1:04:07

of whether it's build up of lichen

1:04:09

or moss or silicon starting to come away from

1:04:11

the panels yeah

1:04:13

, they definitely need to be maintained . They need to

1:04:15

be maintained .

1:04:17

What about the leaves under the panels and

1:04:19

things like that ?

1:04:20

Yeah and yeah . So it's floor

1:04:23

and fauna . That's a term we're using

1:04:26

as an electrician and electrical inspector

1:04:29

. It can

1:04:31

be pigeons . You see a lot of pigeons under panels . See

1:04:34

that a fair bit . Yeah

1:04:37

, leaves , build up .

1:04:40

What about ? Just do you have seen broken tiles

1:04:42

and people ignored them and it's gone all moldy

1:04:45

under the roof and stuff .

1:04:46

Yeah , yeah , that's see that a fair bit . Not

1:04:49

just broken tiles either , like so when tiles aren't

1:04:51

ground out properly and the water can end

1:04:54

up ingressing into

1:04:57

the roof cavity when the tiles

1:05:00

haven't been ground properly . Yeah

1:05:03

, certainly see cracked tiles as well . If

1:05:05

you stand under the panels , it's pretty hard

1:05:07

to diagnose too , unless you actually get up

1:05:09

in there and have a look Hard to see

1:05:12

from on top of the roof . You

1:05:15

can only really see it from underneath . So

1:05:17

yeah , it can definitely become an issue .

1:05:20

You being a solar panel and solar

1:05:22

system installer and inspector

1:05:25

, you get onto a job . Can

1:05:27

you smell pretty quickly what the quality is like ?

1:05:30

Yeah , yeah , you can , you can

1:05:32

, you can tell straight away . So usually

1:05:34

the first thing I'll do , once I've greeted the customer

1:05:36

or the home owner , whoever it is , usually

1:05:39

I'll go over to the switchboard and

1:05:43

I'll be looking for the PV side information label

1:05:45

and you can usually tell the

1:05:47

ones . The good installers do that

1:05:49

really , really well , and

1:05:53

the top notch installers seem

1:05:55

to not just have the PV side information

1:05:57

label laminated

1:06:00

and all nice and clear with all the information . They'll

1:06:03

also do things like have a QR code in the corner which

1:06:06

not just shows an electronic copy of that

1:06:09

document , but it also

1:06:11

directs a direction to a drive which

1:06:14

has got all of the installation documents . So

1:06:18

you know all the things that need to be handed over as part

1:06:20

of , as part of what's

1:06:22

in the standards for the customer . So

1:06:24

you're talking installation warranty manuals

1:06:28

, what to do in

1:06:30

the case of an earth fault , alarm maintenance

1:06:34

mentioned that . Yeah

1:06:36

, all of the product information , single

1:06:39

line diagrams , yeah , so all I think there's

1:06:41

about 15 items . So , yeah , they're all on there . So that's

1:06:43

when I see that and I see the QR code , that's

1:06:47

the gold standard . Yeah , yeah , usually I'm thinking , okay

1:06:49

, this is probably going to be a pretty , pretty good

1:06:51

install , pretty good install . So I usually see

1:06:54

the QR code . Pretty good install , so I usually see that

1:06:56

. But , yeah , a lot

1:06:58

of the time that the proofing is in the putting on

1:07:00

the roof . So you may I mean

1:07:02

, you can still have like installers

1:07:04

who run crews . They might just send

1:07:06

their TAs to do all the roof work

1:07:08

and then the what is the

1:07:10

TA ? Trade assistant ? Yeah , trade

1:07:12

assistants , so an unqualified person

1:07:14

to do all the roof work and

1:07:17

then the electrician does all the stuff on the ground

1:07:19

. So you can find all the stuff on the ground can look

1:07:21

pretty neat sometimes and have

1:07:24

good work and chip in it . And then you

1:07:27

get on the roof and , yeah , it's

1:07:30

like a bombs hit it . So you're

1:07:32

seeing other things like only one screw being

1:07:34

used to fix the

1:07:37

tile brackets into the roof . That's why

1:07:39

I always look at installers . I

1:07:41

don't know , it's like they try and get one over me sometimes

1:07:44

, but they only want to put one screw

1:07:46

in . You have to put two , but they only want to put one

1:07:48

screw in . So what sometimes they'll do is they'll

1:07:50

put two screws on

1:07:53

all of the outer brackets , cause

1:07:55

they know I'm going to check them . I always

1:07:57

try my hardest to get to

1:07:59

one that's sort of under the array , and

1:08:01

check that . Make sure there's two

1:08:03

screws on that too , cause usually if

1:08:06

they're going to only use one screw they're just going to be lazy

1:08:08

. That's a lazy installer and it's

1:08:10

going to be other stuff you're going to find .

1:08:13

But that's only half a minute difference .

1:08:15

Yeah , oh , hang on . What's a screw worth

1:08:18

? About 12 cents , is it so

1:08:20

saving ? I might be a little bit more than that . 80

1:08:22

cents , saving 80 cents for every bracket

1:08:24

, come on , that's got to be worth , it , isn't it ? That's

1:08:28

a new BO , and Frye Sure

1:08:30

is sure is . But yeah , like

1:08:33

you know , I understand they're

1:08:35

trying to save time and they're trying to save money

1:08:37

and all that sort of stuff . That

1:08:39

kind of stuff , it's just lazy . There's

1:08:43

no other way to explain it .

1:08:44

But hang on , I'm the installer now and

1:08:46

they go . This bloke paid $3,990

1:08:50

. And he expects $40,000

1:08:53

worth of savings out of this system

1:08:55

. Staff him .

1:08:57

Yeah , you know what ? There's

1:08:59

some installers that do have that mentality . They actually

1:09:01

do have that mentality , but

1:09:03

I can guarantee you installers

1:09:06

that work for the good companies are not going to be sort

1:09:09

of thinking like that . They're going to be the ones who

1:09:11

are going to be wanting to look after the customer , do

1:09:13

a quality job , use quality products and

1:09:16

look after the customer , because

1:09:18

that's what we all want to do . We want to look after them .

1:09:20

Now let's say Frone is it's a

1:09:22

good inverter , it's ungrow , it's a good inverter

1:09:25

. End phase good inverter solution

1:09:27

. Have you seen systems which actually

1:09:29

use really good gear in the first

1:09:31

place ? Yep , but the install

1:09:33

was still ball-stabbed .

1:09:35

Absolutely . I have seen that . So

1:09:37

this is sort of one of the things I mentioned before

1:09:39

. I feel like the main variable

1:09:41

is the installation quality . So I've

1:09:44

seen poor quality products . I

1:09:46

mean you're seeing less and less of them now , but I've

1:09:48

seen some maybe lower

1:09:50

end products with a

1:09:53

top notch installation . I've seen that

1:09:55

. It's pretty rare . It does happen

1:09:57

, though it does happen . For me that's the variable

1:09:59

that makes all the difference . But

1:10:01

, yeah , certainly , seeing some really good quality

1:10:04

, all the good brands that

1:10:06

you're going to pay the extra money for , with

1:10:09

some very poor working chip , you certainly

1:10:11

that's . Yeah , just because you're paying for

1:10:13

a top

1:10:15

notch inverter , you know you're paying top

1:10:17

dollar for the top notch inverter . Top notch panels

1:10:20

Doesn't mean you're going to get a good system

1:10:22

. You still could have a really poor installation

1:10:24

. Yeah , seen

1:10:26

that a lot . Definitely seen that a lot .

1:10:29

I'm now using only one screw on

1:10:31

the bracket , because there's a tile on top

1:10:33

, there's a panel on top and you're never going to get

1:10:35

to it . Is that okay

1:10:37

?

1:10:38

Certainly be listing a defect

1:10:40

for using one screw when two

1:10:42

is required . You must use two screws on

1:10:45

a tile roof .

1:10:45

Okay , so we'll just play this yes

1:10:47

or no , or defect or not defect . Okay

1:10:50

sure , let's go for the next one . Defect , then that

1:10:52

one's defect . Okay , I need

1:10:55

to tie off all the cables under the panels

1:10:57

and I left my stainless steel

1:10:59

ones behind and I've got some nice white

1:11:01

ones from the $2 shop and they'll

1:11:04

hold it up for a while . So is that okay

1:11:06

Defect ? Oh

1:11:08

geez , straight away , you're tough . Okay

1:11:11

, I've actually got two

1:11:14

end clamps . I'm a bit short and

1:11:17

I just used some mid clamps on the back

1:11:19

of the last panel , because the mid clamps

1:11:21

are still holding it down .

1:11:23

So how's that ? First I'd be asking

1:11:25

, is it a universal , is it a universal

1:11:27

mid clamp , end clamp ? No , no

1:11:30

, it's a defect .

1:11:31

Oh , Jesus Christ , you're a toughy . Wow

1:11:35

. I have

1:11:37

two rows of panels and I've

1:11:39

decided to not leave a gap between

1:11:42

them because that

1:11:44

way I can get them a bit tighter and it's a bit tighter

1:11:46

of a fit . So I haven't left an expansion

1:11:48

gap and I've butted them really tight . Top

1:11:50

row and bottom row Could be

1:11:53

a problem when they expand a bit , but are

1:11:55

you smart enough to pick that up ?

1:11:57

Yeah , so I'd be straight away asking manufacturer's

1:11:59

instructions on that , because I know that's . I

1:12:02

believe there are some , though that it's

1:12:05

recommended some panels that's

1:12:07

recommended to only have a gap .

1:12:09

So Meaning to have a gap

1:12:11

? Yes , because my logic is

1:12:14

I've seen panel glass crack in

1:12:16

a hot weather when the metal expanded

1:12:19

and there was no way to go anywhere .

1:12:20

Yeah .

1:12:21

I would have thought that's a defect .

1:12:23

Yeah , so I'd be asking for

1:12:25

the manufacturer's instructions on that product

1:12:28

and them showing me that

1:12:30

that's okay , otherwise

1:12:32

if they can't defect , Wow

1:12:34

, I need to get

1:12:36

into the roof .

1:12:37

I've got the cable . I just drilled through

1:12:39

the tile and I'll pull the

1:12:41

cable through and I've got this

1:12:43

four dollar packet of silicon and I stick

1:12:46

it through and it's under the panel

1:12:48

so there's never any going to water . It going on

1:12:50

to it Should be okay isn't it ?

1:12:52

Okay Again . So

1:12:54

I'm going to issue a defect , but

1:12:56

I will ask . I'll give him the benefit out here

1:12:58

. I'll need them to prove

1:13:00

to me that that silicon is

1:13:02

going to last a lifetime of the system . If they

1:13:04

can't provide that evidence , defect

1:13:07

.

1:13:08

Right , but I love silicon

1:13:10

.

1:13:13

Well , if they you know , then they send you a picture of a $2.00

1:13:15

of silicon from Bunnings . Of

1:13:18

course that's a defect . It's not going to last

1:13:20

long , damn it . Okay .

1:13:22

Now the most smarter one . I'm walking

1:13:24

around . I actually can't

1:13:26

find a good spot for the inverter other than the

1:13:28

Northern wall , so the thing is going to bake

1:13:31

away . But that's

1:13:33

not your problem . That's a manufacturer's problem

1:13:35

who might have to do your warranty for nothing

1:13:37

. But you're not going to defect me for

1:13:40

that Are you .

1:13:40

I'll be defecting on that , cause I know

1:13:42

most of them . On the installation instructions

1:13:45

Again , that's an installation manufacturer's

1:13:48

instructions , so , cause there's

1:13:50

actually no standard that says you , there's

1:13:53

nothing in Australian standards that says that you can't do

1:13:55

that , but there is something in Australian

1:13:57

standards that you must install your products as

1:13:59

per manufacturer's instructions . Now

1:14:02

, nearly all of them say you

1:14:04

must not install them in direct sunlight

1:14:06

or in a way like that . And

1:14:08

so again , I'll be asking the questions Please

1:14:10

show me in the manufacturer's instructions where it says

1:14:12

you can do that , cause if you can't , it's a defect

1:14:14

.

1:14:15

But have you seen that in cheap solar systems

1:14:17

?

1:14:18

Look , let's say there's a couple of

1:14:20

inverter brands

1:14:22

which have got pictures in their installation

1:14:24

instructions which , to

1:14:27

be honest , it's hard to defect based on the picture

1:14:29

. So yeah

1:14:32

, it does . Actually it sees one thing as an inspector

1:14:34

seeing a defect and calling it out . Sometimes

1:14:37

the hard thing could be proving it .

1:14:39

So so you're saying

1:14:41

you've seen some of the cheaper inverter manuals

1:14:43

actually using the wrong installation in the photos

1:14:45

where they show how to do it ?

1:14:47

Yeah , well

1:14:49

, look , I don't know if it's the wrong photo or not , or

1:14:52

maybe just the manual hasn't been thought out that

1:14:54

well and those ones are on the

1:14:56

market now . So I'm

1:14:58

certainly not gonna name names , but I

1:15:00

think that potentially

1:15:03

they need to have a look at their

1:15:06

installation manual because that

1:15:08

product ain't gonna last on a Northern

1:15:10

wall and especially , I mean

1:15:12

, you know , or anywhere in Australia , victoria , you're like you

1:15:14

know it can be . We

1:15:17

usually get at least a few days of , you know , 42

1:15:19

, 43 degrees , and there's multiple days

1:15:21

over 30 , 35 in

1:15:23

the harsh Western sun or

1:15:25

Northern sun , and ain't gonna last

1:15:27

, ain't gonna last .

1:15:29

But I didn't pay much for it . So two kids .

1:15:31

Doesn't matter , just replace it , that's it .

1:15:33

Now I'm coming to a wall out

1:15:36

of the roof and it's

1:15:39

a nice brick wall with a nice cavity

1:15:41

in the middle . I'll just run my cable

1:15:43

into the cavity . I mean you can't

1:15:45

, you haven't got a little camera looking into

1:15:47

it . I think , I need a conduit

1:15:50

, but that's $2.50 . I'm

1:15:52

not gonna spend that . I'll just throw the cable and

1:15:54

I pick it up down the bottom again . What's

1:15:57

that ?

1:15:57

That's certainly a defect . Most definitely

1:16:00

You're a toughie . Yeah , I am , I'm tough . What

1:16:02

?

1:16:02

about the corrugated conduits

1:16:06

that you can buy at Bunnings ? They're not that good for

1:16:08

the UV rated but they make it easier to get around

1:16:10

corners . And this and that , what about that

1:16:12

one ?

1:16:13

Well , corrugated conduit . So you're talking about on a

1:16:15

roof . You could use corrugated

1:16:17

conduit on a roof , but again

1:16:19

you have to . You need to install products

1:16:21

which are going to be fit for the environment

1:16:23

they're gonna be installed in Now

1:16:25

I'd be asking for the installed

1:16:28

approved that that's gonna last a lifetime of the system , cause

1:16:30

you can usually tell that

1:16:32

cheap Bunnings type conduit

1:16:34

you shouldn't be using it in solar . You

1:16:37

should be using proper solar UV

1:16:39

rated conduit .

1:16:40

But they're more expensive Mm yeah

1:16:42

, funny , that isn't it . Mm . Okay , jesus

1:16:46

, I mean so far I haven't gone being able to pull anyone

1:16:48

over you .

1:16:49

Yeah , I know it probably cost you about 50 bucks in

1:16:51

material as well , Maybe

1:16:54

five minutes . You're an evil bastard

1:16:56

. I am .

1:16:58

So what's the one that you love giving

1:17:01

a defect for ? Because you'll be too stupid

1:17:03

to do it that way ?

1:17:05

Oh , I wanna love giving it . I

1:17:07

don't love giving any defects . Oh

1:17:09

, you keep on smiling . Look

1:17:12

, there's one that I can't stand and it seems

1:17:15

to be quite minor . Maybe it's , I don't

1:17:17

know . It's just my bit of

1:17:19

OCD for me . But when the earth

1:17:21

connection to the array , like I was talking before

1:17:23

, there's an earth lug put on the

1:17:25

rail and then so

1:17:29

the panels and everything are all earth , the way

1:17:31

they should be , but then they don't put a cable

1:17:33

tie before the connection and they just

1:17:35

string it tight . They string the earth

1:17:37

cable tight between the connections , so

1:17:40

tight that you could like yeah

1:17:42

. I could just about play stairway to heaven on it . Like

1:17:46

you know , you could play a tune on it . So

1:17:48

I can't stand that . And

1:17:50

you're putting the . You're

1:17:53

compromising the integrity of the whole of the earthing

1:17:55

system by putting that connection

1:17:57

under strain and it takes

1:17:59

like two seconds to put a cable tie

1:18:01

to stop to relieve the strain

1:18:03

from that connection . Yeah

1:18:06

so , and a lot of the time it's only a minor defect

1:18:08

which gets issued

1:18:10

. But I just don't understand

1:18:13

why they do it .

1:18:15

From your experience , how important is it to have really

1:18:17

good monitoring of your system ?

1:18:19

Yeah . So we

1:18:22

see this a bit . If we go to sort of older systems

1:18:24

, all the systems and

1:18:27

you know , they sort of say oh well

1:18:29

, you know , we think it's working . We're not sure , but we've

1:18:32

got a really big bill . So

1:18:34

you know that's when they find out the system's

1:18:36

not working . Monitoring

1:18:39

just fixes all of that . There's some pretty good products

1:18:41

out there now which are pretty easy to install

1:18:43

and they're much cheaper than what they used to be

1:18:45

. They're much more cost effective

1:18:47

. So I can't

1:18:49

see why you wouldn't monitor a system now . I

1:18:52

just don't see why you invest

1:18:55

in that hardware . Yeah , that's right , but I'm

1:18:57

also seeing a lot of these . You know cheaper systems

1:18:59

. They actually sell monitoring and

1:19:02

it's not set up . So

1:19:05

like the customer bought it but never got it . Well

1:19:07

, yeah , a lot of the time they said I think I've got monitoring

1:19:09

. I'm not sure . And

1:19:12

I go out and have a look and I go , oh well , you've got the USB

1:19:14

dongle sitting underneath . Have

1:19:16

you set it up yet ? Have you gone on the QR code ? You've

1:19:18

gone on to their website , whichever

1:19:20

platform they might decide to do

1:19:23

it , like , oh no , no , yeah

1:19:26

, I'm not sure . The installer didn't have time

1:19:28

in the day so I think I thought they

1:19:30

were going to do it and they said they might be back . But yeah

1:19:32

, I haven't heard from see that a lot . That's

1:19:35

one thing . We see a lot not , either

1:19:37

not set up or

1:19:39

not set up properly . So , because

1:19:42

a lot of systems now do have monitoring on them , I

1:19:44

think they're sold with monitoring . It's very

1:19:46

rare we see a system that doesn't have some sort of monitoring

1:19:48

but we don't see the other

1:19:50

side of it . You know I don't jump

1:19:52

onto every single customer's app

1:19:54

and see that . You know you're getting the right

1:19:56

numbers that you should be .

1:19:57

True , but I think some of the monitoring basically

1:20:00

just tells you there's something coming out of it , but

1:20:02

not a lot of the monitoring actually compares

1:20:05

what should be coming out of the system , at

1:20:07

the size it is , to

1:20:09

what is coming out . So if you have underperforming

1:20:11

system , if you have one string broken down , or

1:20:13

so , even if you have monitoring , if you don't

1:20:16

know how to interpret it , you actually

1:20:18

still have useless data .

1:20:19

That's right . So there's a lot of little bit of a theory

1:20:22

as well . I don't know we might need to

1:20:24

cut this , I'm not sure , but I think it

1:20:26

feels some of the monitoring , let's say

1:20:28

, from an inverter manufacturer , the ones that

1:20:30

they set up on their own platform

1:20:32

I feel like sometimes they only

1:20:34

give the data that they want

1:20:36

to give to maybe makes

1:20:39

their product look a bit better or it may mean

1:20:41

they can shirk warranties a little bit easier . I

1:20:44

feel like that does happen a little bit Because

1:20:46

you have other type of monitoring

1:20:50

which is like brand agnostic , like solar analytics

1:20:52

type those type of ones . They

1:20:55

give you all . They give you everything , they show you everything

1:20:57

. So I

1:20:59

mean , I haven't done the comparison . Having

1:21:01

a look at what data you get out of

1:21:03

solar analytics and then comparing it to what you

1:21:05

might get out of the inverter manufacturer is monitoring

1:21:07

. I don't know . I just feel like sometimes

1:21:10

they're a little bit different , but that's only .

1:21:12

That's your theory .

1:21:13

Yeah , that's my theory . I can't prove that , Do

1:21:16

you ? What do you reckon about that ? What do you think ?

1:21:18

Well , I personally think that if you

1:21:21

only get what your inverter

1:21:24

produces , but you have no

1:21:26

reference to what it

1:21:28

should be producing , then you're only getting

1:21:30

half the picture . If you then

1:21:33

missing out on what your consumption

1:21:35

is within the house is , then

1:21:37

you also have flying blind , because

1:21:40

what you really should do is use

1:21:42

as much of your solar in the middle of the day

1:21:44

with timers

1:21:46

, we sending it into the hot water , et cetera

1:21:49

. So if you want to get the maximum benefit out of solar

1:21:51

, having the appropriate monitoring

1:21:53

that actually points you in the right direction of

1:21:55

what you should do is really

1:21:57

what's needed , and a lot of the material

1:21:59

that's sitting on the inverter doesn't give

1:22:01

you that full picture . It only says green

1:22:04

light I'm working , red light I'm

1:22:06

sleeping , and in between the

1:22:08

customer hasn't got a clue .

1:22:10

That's my position . So let's be controversial

1:22:12

, right ? Do they do that deliberately , do you think ? Do

1:22:15

you think inverter manufacturers maybe don't give the full

1:22:17

picture deliberately ?

1:22:20

No , I don't actually have that kind of perspective

1:22:22

but then again , I'm not an inspector . I

1:22:25

don't look at the life like that . I

1:22:27

personally think that a lot of inverter manufacturers

1:22:29

looking at what other products offer and

1:22:32

they try to match it so that they kind of

1:22:34

be on an equal

1:22:36

, not on an evil path . That

1:22:39

was a question . On

1:22:44

an equal path . The one thing I

1:22:46

do have a bug about is that

1:22:48

when very good inverters still

1:22:50

have monitoring systems that look like they were

1:22:52

designed in the 1950s , I think

1:22:54

you're letting yourself down and your product

1:22:57

if you don't really up to

1:22:59

scratch . I mean , Tesla has

1:23:01

really set the benchmark . It's a very nice app

1:23:03

, it's easy to recognize and I

1:23:05

think everybody in the game has to

1:23:07

lift their bar to give the end customer

1:23:09

really good monitoring .

1:23:11

Yeah , from what I see , that seems like it could be

1:23:13

a real easy win for inverter

1:23:15

manufacturers or whoever in monitoring , just

1:23:17

monitoring . have a really good interface

1:23:20

for your monitoring , make sure it's easy

1:23:22

to read , works well

1:23:25

as well , gives you the right data

1:23:27

. Yeah , I feel like that's an easy win in this day and age

1:23:29

. You know , gone are the days where

1:23:31

you know we install the system

1:23:34

and you know you're halfway out

1:23:36

of the driveway before you turn it on . You

1:23:38

don't even do the anti-irlending test or anything like

1:23:40

that , and you know you don't set up monitoring

1:23:42

or anything like that . Now there's a bit

1:23:44

to it setting up , making sure the monitoring's right

1:23:47

.

1:23:48

I mean customers have to insist If

1:23:50

it's five to six when they finally

1:23:52

finish the system . I still want to

1:23:54

be a proper onboarding . I still

1:23:57

want to explain how the monitoring is

1:23:59

done . I want all my warranty

1:24:01

documents , preferably if

1:24:03

they are warranties that go longer when

1:24:05

you log in . I want my installer

1:24:07

to help me do all of that , because a lot

1:24:09

of the customers are 50 , 60 . You

1:24:11

give them the Wi-Fi dongle and say , good luck , Nothing's

1:24:14

ever going to happen .

1:24:15

Yeah , and that's what we see . We do see

1:24:18

that like , yeah , installer hasn't

1:24:20

set it up . Yeah , that's probably the

1:24:22

other thing that's happened . The customer's

1:24:24

just been given the dongle and gone . Here you go . They sort this

1:24:26

out in the plastic bag with

1:24:29

the warranty instructions and that sort of stuff . Your

1:24:32

grandkids can help ? Yeah , we

1:24:36

see that a lot too , especially

1:24:38

with the population that aren't

1:24:40

quite as tech savvy . They're like oh

1:24:42

, I'm just waiting for my grandson to come over . He's

1:24:44

good with these computer things . He's got

1:24:46

an app on his phone , he'll work it out . Yeah

1:24:49

, but I feel like it's

1:24:51

an easy win . Monitoring .

1:24:52

An advice to customers is if your company

1:24:55

doesn't give you the proper monitoring

1:24:57

and sets it up for you , then

1:24:59

you've got a right to ask for it . Yeah . Absolutely

1:25:02

, yeah , all right , look

1:25:05

. Last chapter for today is really batteries and smart homes . What's

1:25:08

your perspective about buying a battery

1:25:10

nowadays ?

1:25:12

So we're seeing , you're seeing more batteries

1:25:14

coming out , more and more . I

1:25:16

don't know . I feel like we've been in this place for

1:25:18

a while , probably the last five years where everyone's

1:25:21

sort of been saying , oh yeah , batteries , yeah , two years , get

1:25:23

them in two years , two years . I feel like now

1:25:25

we're at a time where it's like , yeah , get them now , get

1:25:28

them now . That's what I feel like we're out with it

1:25:30

. Technology

1:25:32

now seems to be really safe if

1:25:34

it's been stored well . Installers

1:25:39

are knowing what the capabilities

1:25:41

of these batteries are . They're

1:25:44

well versed on how to install them safely

1:25:47

, putting them in the right locations

1:25:49

. We've had AS5139

1:25:51

standard out for a few years now , so

1:25:53

I think the stalls are getting used to it and

1:25:56

, yeah , certainly seeing more of them and I think

1:25:58

it's just going to continue to grow with

1:26:01

the way people's houses are

1:26:03

looking . Yeah

1:26:05

, you're kind of you know , if you're building a house

1:26:08

, you kind of really need a battery now , don't you , I think

1:26:10

.

1:26:10

Look . My theory is that EVs

1:26:13

will come . Most

1:26:15

people who have a petrol car today they buy

1:26:17

a new car in five years time At least

1:26:19

. Consider a hybrid , which

1:26:22

means that the soul on the battery

1:26:24

is really going to be the driver

1:26:26

of a free petrol

1:26:29

, so to speak , which means the hour

1:26:31

around the battery is going to be rather good . But

1:26:34

if everybody in four or five years wants to suddenly

1:26:37

have a battery , battery prices

1:26:39

will go up . Installation times will

1:26:41

take six months , nine months . They're going to have a backlog

1:26:43

. So if you're smart , you

1:26:46

buy it early in the curve because you're

1:26:48

not going to be standing in line . That's

1:26:50

my theory . Yeah , I don't know if you

1:26:52

share it or not , but that's why I agree with you . Now

1:26:54

is the right time to start looking at batteries .

1:26:56

Yeah , for sure , like that's . I think we've seen that , haven't

1:26:58

we ? Like there's been times in

1:27:00

the past where there's been shortages

1:27:02

of stock , I think . Like there's been times

1:27:05

where there's been huge weights on Tesla

1:27:07

power walls and that sort of stuff . Six months plus

1:27:09

, yeah , that's right . Like I don't sell

1:27:11

the stuff or install it or anything

1:27:13

like that . I just hear from what a lot of

1:27:15

the installers I speak to . Yeah

1:27:18

, that's sort of yeah

1:27:21

, supply can be a really big issue , most

1:27:24

definitely . Yeah , you're right with EVs as well . How

1:27:27

many people now do you know who would go

1:27:30

and buy an internal combustion engine car

1:27:32

? Like , if , as your next car

1:27:34

, wouldn't be too many

1:27:36

, I wouldn't think Still a few dinosaurs

1:27:38

. I think that can't get their head around the

1:27:41

electric vehicle side of things . And

1:27:44

actually there's still people like me who want

1:27:47

to drive an electric vehicle , but I sort

1:27:49

of can't because of what

1:27:52

I require for the technology . Well

1:27:54

, I'm not saying the technology is not there , but we don't have the products

1:27:56

in Australia yet . We don't have

1:27:58

the vehicles for what I need .

1:28:00

So you need a heavy youth for long distances that

1:28:02

carry and tows , is it ?

1:28:04

I don't need to tow . Yeah , I need to carry

1:28:06

a big ladder . I

1:28:08

don't have that much gear , so I don't need to be able to carry . I

1:28:11

don't need to haul that much in the back . I

1:28:14

need something a little bit better than what there is available

1:28:17

at the moment .

1:28:18

So you're saying in the utility space , in

1:28:20

the youths and four-wheel drives

1:28:22

, large ones . The EV offering

1:28:24

in Australia is still pretty thin .

1:28:26

There's nothing . There's like I think you can

1:28:28

get an LTV maybe for about 92 grand

1:28:30

, something like that . Last time I looked something

1:28:33

two-wheel drive as well and

1:28:35

I don't know just heard they're a bit clunky

1:28:37

, I don't know . They just

1:28:39

sort of they're a bit like an internal combustion

1:28:42

engine car that they put a battery in . That's

1:28:45

what's been explained to me is , and there's no real nice stuff

1:28:47

in there , and

1:28:50

at the moment I'm driving a 2020

1:28:53

Triton , so

1:28:55

I bought that brand new . So

1:28:58

I bought that on . It was actually , yeah , it was on my

1:29:00

son's 18th birthday , so it was the 5th of February

1:29:02

2020 .

1:29:02

Is that a BW ? Or what's it about ? Stratton , mitsubishi

1:29:05

, mitsubishi , get your brand

1:29:07

slambit .

1:29:08

Yeah , that's right . Yeah , mitsubishi Triton

1:29:10

. So I bought that on the 5th of February 2021

1:29:13

. So I've had that now for

1:29:15

how long is that ? Two

1:29:18

and a half years , a bit more . So

1:29:21

I've done 115,000

1:29:23

Ks . Wow , in two and a half years

1:29:25

. Yeah , and you've got to think so there was probably

1:29:27

six months of that . I was working

1:29:30

at the CEC , still only doing small

1:29:32

trips for inspection . So basically

1:29:34

, in two years I've done 100,000

1:29:36

Ks in two years . So I

1:29:38

can do some long trips and I

1:29:41

don't mind stopping to charge . That's

1:29:43

okay . I've got to stop for fuel . Even

1:29:45

if I have to stop more frequently to charge , I don't

1:29:47

care . No problems , I've got to stop . I've got to go to the toilet

1:29:49

, I've got to buy food

1:29:51

, whatever it is . I need a rest , but

1:29:54

at the moment there's just nothing that will really carry

1:29:56

the ladders I require on those

1:29:58

longer distances . Maybe

1:30:00

there'd be something for just being in and around town , where

1:30:03

it's a bit better . But yeah

1:30:06

, for highway driving I'm

1:30:08

just waiting . I don't know , maybe it's the

1:30:10

F-150 Lightning , maybe

1:30:13

that's the one that's going to come out . What about the Cybertruck

1:30:15

? Well , we're just waiting

1:30:17

on the Cybertruck , aren't we ? When's that coming out

1:30:19

? Does anyone know when that's coming out ?

1:30:21

I think two days after we land on

1:30:23

Mars .

1:30:26

Are we going to send one of them into space as well ? Yeah

1:30:29

, so

1:30:31

look , a Cybertruck would be okay , as long as it can get

1:30:33

a roof rack on it and all that sort of stuff

1:30:35

.

1:30:37

I mean , I've got to be able to pay for it as well , so

1:30:40

basically , you'd love to have an

1:30:42

EV car that is suitable for

1:30:44

your particular needs , and currently

1:30:47

in Australia there's Zilch

1:30:49

on the market .

1:30:49

Yeah , that's right . The only thing I've had

1:30:51

people I've been on forums and asked about it the

1:30:54

only thing people have suggested is get

1:30:56

a Tesla Model Y and put a roof rack on it . I'm

1:30:59

like , yeah , that's not safe . I'm carrying a big extension

1:31:01

ladder . It's sort of four metres long

1:31:03

. When it's not extended , can't

1:31:05

do it , it's not safe .

1:31:07

Plus , you kind of would look a bit like a loser

1:31:09

. I mean , seriously , who's

1:31:11

putting the four-metre ladder on a

1:31:13

Tesla Model Y ? You can't carry

1:31:15

your latte and your ladder

1:31:18

at the same time .

1:31:19

No , that's right . So I would

1:31:21

love . Yeah , exactly right , and you want to

1:31:23

be presenting a professional

1:31:26

sort of . I want to be looking

1:31:28

like a professional when I turn up . I

1:31:31

don't want to be turning up in , you know , you sometimes

1:31:33

just see inspectors turn up in , you

1:31:35

know , like an old Commodore or something like that , with just

1:31:37

a fold out ladder in the back or whatever

1:31:40

. Like , I try and make sure I've got all the right gear

1:31:42

and I'm doing all the right things . So that's

1:31:44

yeah , probably a Tesla Model

1:31:46

Y with a roof

1:31:48

rack on it's probably not the right one .

1:31:50

Now you know a bit about electricity and

1:31:52

stuff , possibly quite a bit more than I do . What's

1:31:54

the likelihood that we're going to see EVs

1:31:57

one day plugging in to

1:31:59

become the battery infrastructure and

1:32:01

back up for the house ? I know that

1:32:03

the Australian standards don't support it at the moment

1:32:05

, but is it a good ?

1:32:07

idea From

1:32:09

what I know about it . So you're talking about , like Vika to Grid

1:32:11

. Yes , yeah , I

1:32:13

really like the idea and I like the concept of it . I

1:32:16

think it's

1:32:19

a matter of time , isn't it ? Until it comes to

1:32:21

Australia , I think it's only a matter of time

1:32:23

. Look , I'm not 100% over

1:32:25

all the safety concerns that

1:32:28

may need to be overcome , but I can't see it being

1:32:30

that hard . I

1:32:32

think it's a really good idea and

1:32:34

, yeah , we should move forward with it . Seems like a good

1:32:36

way to stabilize the grid , to provide

1:32:39

power when it's required

1:32:41

. Yeah

1:32:43

, I can only see pluses with that .

1:32:45

But what about if you decided to run your air con all

1:32:47

night and the kids played PlayStation and you try

1:32:49

to drive 100K in the morning and you're flat ?

1:32:51

You're not going anywhere , are you ? Yeah

1:32:54

, look , there's those things to consider . There

1:32:57

are those things to consider , but I think now

1:32:59

, a lot of

1:33:01

the bits of kit which are installed

1:33:04

, whether it's not just monitoring , it's

1:33:06

changing , load shifting and all that sort of stuff

1:33:08

and trying to utilize the right tariffs

1:33:11

, surely we can get around that , can't we ? And

1:33:14

only use it when we're required to use it

1:33:16

.

1:33:16

I'm sure there can be the software that says okay

1:33:19

, I want to have a buffer of 50% of my car

1:33:21

battery , that is preserved and after

1:33:23

that you're not getting it out of my battery

1:33:25

. I'm sure this is quite easy to install , but

1:33:28

it doesn't seem like it's driven really by

1:33:30

a vision from our politicians .

1:33:34

Yeah , I really haven't heard politicians talk about

1:33:36

it too much . I

1:33:39

think it's the DNSPs that are pushing back a bit

1:33:41

, isn't it ? Who are the , the

1:33:43

DNS distributors like OzGrid , City

1:33:46

Power or those type of ?

1:33:47

Well , I mean , it takes away from their power and

1:33:49

monopoly , doesn't it ?

1:33:50

Well , it probably does . It probably does a little

1:33:53

bit . We've had our challenges in the industry with them

1:33:55

as well . I think they're more on board

1:33:57

now than they have been with

1:33:59

accepting solar ?

1:34:01

I don't think so . I mean , what gets me cranky is

1:34:03

this Solar has been going

1:34:06

since 2004 . The

1:34:08

curve of solar has only gone one way

1:34:10

, which is up , and the energy

1:34:12

retailers have been sitting there all this time watching

1:34:14

it export in the middle of the day . And now

1:34:16

, 15 years later , they pull the hair out and say

1:34:18

oh , there's all this solar . What do we do with it ? Why

1:34:21

haven't they created some buckets , meaning

1:34:23

some big batteries in the meantime ? I mean , they

1:34:25

could have foreseen this , and now

1:34:28

we're wasting this renewable energy going to

1:34:30

nowhere because we don't have the infrastructure

1:34:32

to handle it . What's your position ?

1:34:34

on that . Well , I mean , as

1:34:36

far as that goes , I don't understand why

1:34:38

, once solar penetration started getting

1:34:40

a bit more sort of where

1:34:42

it is now , or even years before this , why

1:34:45

didn't we have off-peak rates for

1:34:48

hot water in the middle of the day ? That

1:34:51

seemed to me to be an easy win . So

1:34:55

I think there's still some night rates where you get your

1:34:58

hot water at night because it's the cheaper night rate . So

1:35:02

that doesn't seem to be now the

1:35:04

cheapest time to have power , because , yeah

1:35:06

, obviously the sun's out in the middle of the day . We should

1:35:08

be harvesting it . Yeah , I

1:35:11

think you're right , we should have put more batteries

1:35:13

in , even on a utility

1:35:15

scale Starting to happen

1:35:17

a little bit now . But yeah , I think we're behind .

1:35:20

I mean I just don't see the energy retailers

1:35:22

really taking the opportunity that they could

1:35:24

in driving us with innovative

1:35:27

ideas to try to get out

1:35:29

of the fossil fuel . They still seem to be vetted

1:35:31

very much to their old model .