Smart Energy Needs Smarter Customers

Recently the Smart Energy Council held a conference in Adelaide and by all accounts it was a roaring success, much like the battery incentive that’s currently driving the whole solar industry.

When the SEC said they were looking for industry experts to offer some insight, I figured they’d emailed me by mistake, but I went along anyway with some images to riff off of and enough notes to wing it for 15 minutes of fame.

Hopefully, nobody recorded this session because I couldn’t jam 30% more material into the 10 minutes I’d been allotted, however unfunny, everyone seemed to nod along in their headphones. The routine was well received and we even had a couple of good questions at the end. There were some points around how the home electrification industry needs to do better on customer education that I thought were worth detailing here.

People Need To Be Brought Up To Speed

When you’re sick of cleaning your gas cooktop and inhaling it’s carcinogens, there’s nothing to stop you installing a timber frame and an induction top for far less than a whole new cooker.

All the recent interest in batteries, getting off gas and other trends has seen home electrification finally go mainstream, and from my anecdotal observations, it’s the ones who were busy peeling glue off their hands or reading the football fixtures in science class that need the most help.

Or perhaps its all the toxins they are inhaling from their gas cooktop they refuse to upgrade. But with gas and electricity prices continuing to rise, the ones who’ve held out, ignored or put off doing something are now finally getting on with it. The trouble is, they’re ripe for being exploited by energy and building sectors that take them down the wrong path.

Solar Changed The Game For Energy Companies

This system was a big deal in its day, but is getting a little dated now, so the battery rebate may see it replaced.

Years ago, when panels were 195W each, their frames were a very stout 40mm deep and exclusion zones were something to be gleefully ignored, the system pictured above was king of the kids.

I thought this customer would go “crazy” and put an enormous 10kW on the roof, but as a joke we measured it for about 17kW. Things got real when he texted back “let’s do it” and we had to make it fit.

Challenge accepted, we landed on 5 strings of 19 panels for 18.5kW and as far as the electricity industry was concerned, this guy didn’t just swap retailers, he disappeared completely.

For Big Electricity™ a reliable $2000 – $3000 per quarter income stream vanished and those savings quickly paid the system off for the customer.

However as rates have risen and the introductory 16c/kWh feed in tariff trailed off, the bills have returned.

Big Electricity™ Isn’t Helping

Due to this, many previously happy solar customers are now ringing up to complain their system “isn’t working” and they book a service call to get things diagnosed. That’s good because a little maintenance is sometimes needed, as our latest video explains.

However, when there’s no electrical fault or shade issue, it turns out the part which “isn’t working” is the bill from the retailer.

At this point a solar electrician really needs to go into bat to make sure people understand how the whole electricity industry works.

Obviously, billing for kilowatt-hours isn’t sustainable when your customers are generating most of their own. With large fixed costs to meet, retailers (& networks) are raising rates all over the place and making the plans they sell so complex they’re opaque.

This design means they hope you’ll simply give up and just resign yourself to paying, which makes energy companies a justifiable target for a lot of rage and customer mistrust.

You’re Getting What You Paid For

With the arrival of the rebate plenty of people are turning to batteries to address rising energy costs, but this sector has a responsibility not to take advantage of customer ignorance too. It pains me to see some of these incredibly cheap deals going for solar batteries now, including for batteries that are way too big.

GoodWe is good gear but an oversized 50kWh Neovolt is what my nightmares are made of.

However, I have to reiterate that the cheerfully cheap gear often attracts the dismally cheap installers. While you might luck out with a great trades team, the most important thing with increasingly complex systems is having someone who can set it up right and answer the phone if it goes wrong.

While there are some really good tools available, getting a system just right generally needs some professional advice and training to arrive at, so reach out and we’ll be glad to find someone who can help.

Efficiency Is King

The other group that needs to do better at educating customers on home electrification is builders. I wish I could properly explain to people just how bad Australian building standards are and how builders are just shafting us all.

It’s not just the written standards in the Building Code Australia rule book, it’s the poor standard of workmanship and lack of enforcement meaning the finished building doesn’t even live up to the lax rules.

The fundamental design of this place pictured below is rubbish. A box gutter liable to leak. Low pitch with no ventilation of the roof cavity. Metal framing to carry heat straight through whatever insulation I’ll bet is badly installed.

Huge ducts outside the insulated envelope, so the HVAC is effectively outside in the shed.

I watched the HVAC contractor stripping insulation off this duct so it would fit through a thoughtlessly designed truss.

New and old builds alike suffer from people who don’t care about putting insulation back where it belongs and making sure there are no gaps.

Everything Pointed In The Wrong Direction

Despite the rising cost of energy, builders make houses bigger, more complex and harder to work on. I’ve written before about roofing and getting things right.

However plans like this keep coming across my desk, where the appearance from the street is all that matters and the actual cost to own the place is a distant third to what the Jones’ might think and how cheap the builder can make it.

There’s at least 8 corners and a dozen hips, ridges and valleys this place doesn’t need.

I don’t want a formal entry, home theatre, double kitchen, double vanity, double bathroom with a laundry I can’t swing the cat in.

So why don’t we demand a garage with a floor drain; which has the laundry, indoor clothes line and a shower to clean your tent/kyak/bike/boots/dog or yourself after a messy outing.

Imagine a utility room for sewing curtains, painting furniture, preserving fruit & jamming with the band. A room you’ll use more than any other because it serves as an airlock between the outside and your conditioned space.

There’s so many ways that education of customers can lift, or at the very least the energy and building sectors could stop capitalising so much on their ignorance.

For more, read my pieces on insulating your home if your builder didn’t bother, and on how electricians can opt out of the race to the bottom on dodgy battery offers.