In this episode of the Solar Coaster Podcast, we are joined by Lindsay Hart, Commercial Director at Selectronic, a solar industry legend with decades of experience in off-grid energy. We discuss the history of off-grid solar in Australia, the resilience of Australian manufacturing and the latest news from Selectronic.
ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Welcome to the Solar Coaster! A podcast for navigating through the ups and downs of the Australian Solar and Energy Industry. Hosted by the Supply Partners Technical team and joined by industry professionals each episode to help you turn chaos into stability. We'll be talking about solar, batteries, EVs, Electrification and much more, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
LINKS:
In this episode of the Solar Coaster Podcast, we are joined by Lindsay Hart, Commercial Director at Selectronic, a solar industry legend with decades of experience in off-grid energy. We discuss the history of off-grid solar in Australia, the resilience of Australian manufacturing and the latest news from Selectronic.
ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Welcome to the Solar Coaster! A podcast for navigating through the ups and downs of the Australian Solar and Energy Industry. Hosted by the Supply Partners Technical team and joined by industry professionals each episode to help you turn chaos into stability. We'll be talking about solar, batteries, EVs, Electrification and much more, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
LINKS:
Welcome to the Solar Coaster, a podcast about the ups and downs of the Australian solar industry, brought to you by the technical team at Supply Partners with host Wade Allen and technical guru Andrew Thomson. Okay. We are rolling. Welcome back to the Solar Coaster podcast brought to you by Supply Partners. We are Australia's technical distributor for both solar and energy storage equipment, and we bring you both technical and sales support to help you navigate your way through this crazy Australian solar industry we call the solar coaster. I am your host, Wade Allen. As always, with me, our technical guru, AT. How are you doing today, buddy? Doing great. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Good to hear. And today, we've got yet another excellent guest for everybody to listen to. I don't even know really how to describe you, Lindsay. You've been in this industry almost more than longer than anybody I know. But Lindsay Hart from Selectronik is here today. Thank you for being here, Lindsay. My pleasure, Wade. It's great to be up here in Supply Partners territory in great being in Queensland. Right? How nice is the weather? It is very nice. Well, it's not too bad in Melbourne right now. It's summer. Well, it's 38 degrees today, blowing a gale, and we're gonna burn. So, yeah, it should be a good day. So, tell us a little bit about yourself, Lindsay. Where where are you from? Where'd you grow up? Well, some people say I've never grown up Okay. Which is, you know, an interesting argument that I get thrown at me. But, from a personal point of view or, like, where, you know, right back, are we talking right where I was born? Or Yeah. Where were you born? I was born in Scotland. Really? I was. Yeah. So we can flip anytime you like to talking like but you won't understand much of what I say. Yeah. Now born in Scotland, come out here as a, 10 pound pound at about, 1967 or something like that on the fair start. Wow. And then, yes, started my apprenticeship at Selectronic when I was 16. Jeez. What year was that? You scared it? Discared it. Yeah. 78. 78. Yeah. Yeah. So wow. So Selectronic's been around for a bit? Yeah. They're they're just almost as old as me. So they're 1964. Wow. Yeah. So that's 60 years this year? This year. Yeah. Well, happy birth The big one. Happy anniversary, not birthday. But yeah. Yeah. So tell us what is what okay. You started your apprenticeship there? Yeah. Then what happened? We were actually a transformer company. So I was working on the factory floor and, had the dubious distinction of being the 1st, apprentice to finish his time. So the company was, at that age, what, 14 years old. For some reason, it had lots of apprenticeships come through, but nobody had really finished their time. Okay. And, I was the first one to finish, which was kinda nice. And, from there, sort of as a tradesman for the next few years, then I thought got married, but, oh, really need to make more money, you know, all the things that go with marriage. I don't think that was you thinking that. You're being told that. Yeah? No. Never. No. This this will be public, so I can't say that tonight. My no. And, yeah, went and worked for myself for about 3 years, and then I, came I was invited back to Selectronic, actually, which is Okay. Why they did that, I don't don't know. Yeah. Well So I came back there as a technical sort of sales specialist for about, about 7 years. And, then went to the other side, went to the dark side, and, headhunted to Solar Energy Australia and set up their inverter division. And that was one of those rides where you think, yeah, I can do this. I can do this. You know? They were based in Sydney. I was still in Melbourne, so backwards and forwards, regular to Melbourne to Sydney. Yeah. It's great, but then it weighs you down half twice. So about 6 years there, which is really enjoyable and a lot of I think every time you work for a new a new company, a new manager, you learn something all the time. You gotta keep moving to to keep progressing. Absolutely. So then I was, I was again asked back to come to come back to Selectronic in 20 2 dollar 4. And so Okay. So it's been 20 years then? This time around. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. So it's safe to say this is where you're gonna finish? I'd never like to talk about tomorrow. Who knows? It finish is such a complete word. I don't like it. Well, you've been sort of the face of Selectronic for me personally ever since I've known the brand, which has been 13 years now. 12 yeah. 12, 13 years. And And you've always sort of been that person that I can lean on when it comes to, cell Selectronic. So, like, do you actually have a title or is it just like, I'm the guy? That's that's a really good comment. I actually do have a title at the moment. It's not on my card because it depends on what I'm doing as to who I want to be. For instance, if I like, I'm I'm not an engineer, but I'm reasonably technical. That's how Andrew and I feel. Yeah. Just learn by experience. Yeah. Just solving problems. Yeah. Absolutely. And and hands on, I think a lot of us are that way. You learn by doing things and living off the grid myself. Mhmm. It's just a great, you know, learning curve. Still still is every day you're learning something. Mhmm. And, yes. So I've now got the title as commercial director, which basically means that everybody who is touching our customers, I will direct to make sure that how we're doing it is appropriate. Yeah. Whenever you touch your customers, you wanna make sure it's appropriate. You have to be very mindful of that these days. Yes. I wonder where that'll end up. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's something that has the the sort of the the wise old owl. I mean, I'm I'm, yes, predominantly the face, but there's so many people behind myself and and others in the team as well that, make the team what it is. Because, yes, she it's all the sum of the individuals that make it make the team. And and that's that's that's a really good thing when everything is going well. But also as well, if if things go pear shaped, it must be a bit of a burden on you as well when you do have a whole team of people behind you. It it is. You know, I think the industry these days is is more challenging than ever. So, yes, I kind of, I guess, I would be the the sort of fall guy when when somebody because you've been around for a while. If there's a problem and it's not getting solved or somebody thinks Yeah. Has an unrealistic expectation, it's on the phone to me. Yeah. Yeah. And you gotta deal with that. I had another one just on the way here in the cabin this morning. And you just gotta you just gotta deal with that and Yeah. Yeah. It's They probably got your number from me. I totally give it out. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Let's get it. At at the end of the day, somebody's respond gotta be responsible for it. I'm the sort of front of house responsible, and then obviously, Rod, our CEO, looks after all the back end type of stuff as well. So it's just a team effort. Mhmm. So it's just, for those listening, that haven't either even heard of Selectronic or put one in, let's let's explain the company and its origin a little bit. So you started as a transformer company in 60 4? 64. Yeah. Yeah. And at what point did it transition to making bidirectional inverters? Yeah. It's it's actually I think it's a really good story, and, I'll answer it because you've asked me. But I sort of think, oh, people are sick of hearing the story, but the people who are in the industry today weren't there 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Absolutely not. Happy to share it. So, yes, that is a transformer company in 64. It's run by Brian and Lois Scott. Just a family company out of a little shed. Mhmm. And, in those days, we actually did much more manufacturing in Australia. We made TVs in Australia. We made radios. Wow. We did telecommunications. So we were making, anything that was a wound component. Anything that had copper wound around something, we were making. So companies like, NEC, Fujitsu, Phillips, they were our customers, and that was that was our business. In 1970 late seventies, we started doing a lighting inverter, where basically a fluorescent light would run off DC for maybe exit lights or, houseboats, that sort of thing. And the reason that we did that was because it's quite an intricate coil that was involved in creating that little lighting inverter. So for not much more, we could actually make the circuit board and make a product. So that was good for a couple of years. And then in those days, they used to put together a, magazine where hobbyists would design would be able to build a, a product. And so it would be designed by some some engineer in the backroom of a of a magazine, and then hobbyists would go to places such as Dick Smith, would you believe Wow. To get their components kit and then put together this product. And there was one of those which was a 300 VA square wave inverter. And, we got approached in 1979, I think it was, 78 maybe, to hey. Can you make the transformer for this? The transformer is not very efficient. It's in there now. And, of course, when you're talking about using battery energy, you have to make the most of it. You can't afford it to be inefficient. So we started making a transformer design a better one, which was done through Ken Scott, who's the son of, the original, Brian and Lois. And, we're selling lots and lots and lots of these transformers. And then Brian and Ken sort of thought there must be a market for inverters. So, we started 12 months, I think it was. Ken and I put together, 12 months when I hear myself say, well, I'd love to be able to do it to an inverted 12 months now. Yeah. But, yeah, that was from a basically, Ken would draw up the circuit, and then I put it together on Veraboard. Then he'd test it, blow it up. Normally, I'd rebuild it, and we went from there. And then 12 months later, we popped out, a 360 watt inverter. Okay. We thought, I will we'll knock this other one out of the park, 360 watts. And it was a complete flop. Complete flop because we hadn't done any market research as to where these things were going. Okay. And, I can remember going to a place like Aussie Disposals and saying, hey. Look. I've got this box that makes 240 volts from your car battery. It was like trying to say, what's this white man magic you're talking about? 240 but it's a car. That's the car battery is 12 volts. Mhmm. And the conversation went, hey, oh, that's great. So I could run my floodlights at the camp. I said, well, yeah, you can, but your battery's gonna go flat really quick. Yeah. Okay. That's not oh, what about those new fluorescence? They're a bit more energy efficient. Well, we were talking about a square wave inverter. Mhmm. You can't run an inductive load like a fluorescent on a square wave inverter. So now we can't do that either. Oh, well, I could run my drill because in 1980, there was no cordless drills. Yeah. So we could run a drill. Yeah. Yeah. You could do that. Jeez. It's pretty expensive just to run a drill. It can't, is it? So it it flopped big time. And, we built a 100 of these things, which was really gutsy when I looked back. And, one day, a gentleman walked in, just walked in off the street, a gentleman called, Tony Stevenson from a company called Survival Technology. And, he was such a distinctive gentleman, like a a a long beard with 1 strand that I think probably just about hit the floor. He's smoking his rollie. And he said, I hear you guys make inverters, and I probably looked down my nose at him. Mhmm. And my I caught my middle a middle class nose. Here we are. Young and yeah. And he's I I said, what are you using for? He said, oh, in solar systems. And I asked him what a solar system was, and he then educated me that, hey. There's this whole community of alternative lifestyle is in Australia, mainly up the eastern seaboard. Basically, where the hills are, that's where the alternative lifestyle is where, and, kind of the rest is history. What when was that? What year? That was, early 1981. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So there's been a few iterations obviously since then to where we are now. Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Few struggles along the way as you've already described. Yeah. But for the company to have been around that long and still be going and have to have going, You've you've seen more change in this industry than anybody. It's unbelievable. It is something we're incredibly proud of that we've been able to last that long. And we talked about the solid coaster, but manufacturing in Australia is a coaster on its own as well. Yeah. A complete coaster. So we're really proud, and and people think manufacturers are often, you know, make big profits and all those sort of things. I wouldn't call us that kind of company. It's had its upsets. It had some incredible struggles, where suddenly, maybe a market changes for whatever reason because all that's business pretty well is battery storage. So 75% of businesses is off grid, 25% is on on the grid. But those changes that we've seen with, with manufacturing challenges and and new products coming in, etcetera, so I I was at SEIA last, yesterday here in Brisbane and, there's a bit of a presentation that actually went through a little bit of that history. And there's there is some fantastic history in our in our industry in Australia. Like, not a lot of people would probably know that people like AERL, just down the road from supply partners, actually invented maximum PowerPoint tracking. Electronik were a couple years behind us. 1984, I think they started. So we had 2, 3 very long established companies, all with Australian technology, which is just, you know, we forget about that. I've mentioned it before on this podcast that, my old man being from Australia so I grew up in Canada, but having to listen to him tell me that almost everything was invented by Australians Right. Yeah. Is hilarious. But here we are, you're just you're proving that point that there there is a lot of innovation here. And it it sort of segues to exactly what I wanted to chat about, and that is Australian manufacturing and how different it looks today to back then and just how important it is that Selectronic is still around and you guys are still manufacturing here. What is it must mean a hell of a lot. It it does. It it's something, as I said before, we are just so proud of, and we probably sometime gloss over it a little bit, and realizing what we do do. But when some people talk about Australian Made and what actually Australian Made is, I do chuckle a little bit. But Australian Made for us is really simple. From when we sit down at a table like this and say, hey, here's an idea. From that point to when it actually rolls off of the production line and into supply partners stores, that's all done here in Australia. Yeah. The whole thing. So we have our own r and d department, which is, all based in Melbourne. Everything from r and d production, the whole thing is actually thrown made. Sure. We have to buy some components in. You can't avoid that. But metal work, you know, we we actually worked out that the amount of people we employ, is at the moment around about 80 people. But then the amount of people that we employ who do our metal work and our cardboard boxes and all those sorts of things as well, the contractors. There's quite a number of more people that we actually employ. So it's yeah. It's more to it than just a kangaroo on a box. Absolutely. But it does it does symbol the fact that, yeah, you are you're creating jobs within the country. Everyone's paying taxes, that all that money is staying here. Yeah. It's all there's also, sort of roll off effects of Australian manufacturing too where there's a massive reduction in environmental impact as well, which Yeah. Plays right into exactly what we're trying to achieve here with the renewable energy industry. Yeah. Not having to ship things all over the world. I'm I'm not things that is. I'm not sure as far as your manufacturing processes go, but I do know at least, like, with mounting systems that, products that are kind of, manufactured in Australia, there are certain things they they can't do. I I might be wrong, but I believe I've been told that anodization of of rails is is illegal in Australia because it's kinda harmful for the environment, yet they'll do that overseas. Is there anything that maybe is the same as far as your manufacturing process? Not not particularly I'm aware of. You know, maybe lead soldering or, maybe an issue there. But what we have to make sure that we maintain is is the appropriate regulations and standards. There's no questions on that. And, you know, there's a lot of you're you're quite right. There's a lot of testing that gets done in other parts of the world, which you know is not kosher. And we play by we play by the rules. Mhmm. And that has hurt us sometimes. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. It's gonna happen. Just the way the world is, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. But you you're quite right. Your point about, hey, what's the true environmental impact of a product? You know, cradle to grave. And when we when I personally look at the industry, 20 years ago, it was full of people with passion, and they cared about the environment. That's what they were there for. Yeah. Sure. You're gonna make money out of it as well. Make a profit to pay everyone's wages. Probably not as much of that now, but we still try to make sure we think about that. You know? If a product lasts for 5 years, its environmental value is significantly different to something that lasts 20 years, and we're hearing regular stories, which is is just so heartwarming for us. In fact, one guy told us yesterday that he'd been up to Cooktown for an inverter that was about, must have been it would have been 20 years old. It was stuck in the mud with a plastic bag over it, and it was still working. So he's he's made a little box for it, pulled it up, put it on the wall, and it's still working. So, you know, that doesn't go to recycling. It doesn't have to have all the energy for recycling. So, yeah, we do try to look at that complete picture about how we actually make an impact. Now the your number one product, obviously, is the SP Pro. Yep. Right? So that's your big battery inverter, your bidirectional off grid inverter, but you do. It still works in hybrid as well. Yep. When was the was the series 1 the first one? Yeah. Yep. And when was that invented? So we started talking about it in 2004. Okay. And then that, we we knew we had fallen behind the market in 2004. So we had a lot of, bidirection we actually had bidirectional inverters because we we purchased a company where we I'm not I wasn't there at the time, but we got together a company called Power Solutions Australia. And again, some of the great history that's actually in Australia, people, such as, Dale Butler, James Brown, people who actually were really pioneered by the pioneering bidirectional inverters. So we we purchased or as they got together with them about 2000 year 2000. And then 2,004, we're right. Gotta do something new. And I remember the conversation we sat around saying, what do we do? Do we do a grid inverter, or do we do a battery storage inverter? At that time, the government had really incentivized rooftop solar. Mhmm. So we could see that, wow, there there'll be a lot of business there. What if the government changes its mind next week? We just won't do that. No. They don't. If we had have gone down that path and they did change their mind, we're not here now. Exactly. Simple as that. Because product development is we don't talk in 100 of 1,000. It's 1,000,000 of dollars Yeah. To do to do anything that way. So we thought, well, why don't we take our core business, which is is battery storage inverters, and build on that? But let's just be a little bit smarter, and we'll make something which also does grid connect. So we're trying to be smarty pants so you won't say, let's do off grid and do, a product that can go on the grid. So at that time, we felt we could get a differential of about 20%, and we thought that was reasonable. We thought people would pay 20% more to get a product that could also work on the grid. Mhmm. But then as the volume of solar inverters got got higher and higher and their prices came down and down and down, then the differential was a bit greater. Yeah. Yeah. So series 1 was when well, 2004 is when you went back. That's right. Yeah. So, obviously, one of the things that we we identified was was putting the, the the the wherewithal with the new product range. So, yeah, we sat around and said, right, what is it we need to do? Listen to the customers and find out really what it is that if we make this, will that be a winner? Yep. And that's a challenge we are we we we accept gleefully. When we talk to customers, we need to know what they're saying. We need to hear what they're saying, but we need to know what they're really saying. And as an example, somebody would say, look, if you made one of these, I'd buy a 1,000 of them. But it'll be $2,000 on and not at that price or whatever. You know, type type thing. So really understanding what the actual challenge is and then listening to that. So, yeah, series 1. So about 3 3 to 4 years to develop that. Yep. And then it, we'd probably pulled it up a little bit short actually because there was a couple of features we still wanted to do, but we hadn't yet finished. So Right. 2008, it came out. Yeah. And, obviously, there's there's some still kicking. I still get some yeah. Well, most. Yeah. I get offended when somebody tells me this is no good anymore. Yeah. In fact, we personally take it quite hard when we see systems that might have a a battery that needs replaced. Yeah. And system designers with maybe not enough knowledge come in and say replace the lot. Mhmm. They should be taken out the back and shot. Yeah. But you also you're adding more things into your house like EV chargers now and more and more television, so you might have to upgrade. There's there's other reasons. Upgrade and then recycle repurpose, I should say, the inverter. Sell it on Ebay because there's always somebody who's gonna want it. Yeah. Absolutely. To it doesn't have to end up in in, landfill. How long did the series 1, go until series 2 came out? So that was about about 3 to 4 years, about 2012. We got we were at Intersolar in Germany, and, we thought we're gonna pick up a new distributor over there. And, after 3 days of really good talk, where I thought this is gonna happen, finally, this gentleman said to me, he said, Lindsay, your product's fantastic. There's nothing else like it in the world, but we can't buy it. And I've just gone into what the type mode. And he said, stop stop stop talking about technical for a minute. He said, your SP Pro, this lovely series 1, it's ugly. Look at it. It looks like it was made in a Russian car factory. Yeah. And, he said, my Italian friends will not put this in the garage next to their Ferrari, and the Germans won't put it next to their BMW. And so we sort of, you know, on the plane home, thought, what would the Italians know about style? Yeah. Then we looked in the mirror and thought, yeah, okay. Let's shut up and listen. And so we redesigned the the SP Pro just purely to look a bit sexier and and made it a bit, a bit longer for it. It was easy to install. And added those few features that you wanted in the series 1, or did those eventually come anyways in the series? Most of those were in there, but it gave us the ability because it was we made it longer, it gave us the ability to put more features in with the, the the control card, the the ACC, so what we call the ACC data manager card. And what was the big difference between the 2 and the 2 I? Mainly that it came with the advanced communications card. Okay. So with the advent of smarter batteries where we need communications and a CAN bus, then we developed more features onto the, the data manager card. So that was the main difference. 2, you could upgrade with the data manager card just by buying an extra card and putting it in, but then we just made it a standard in the 2 I. So 2 I, I standing for intelligence. Question. If I had a, maybe, 10 year old series 1 that's still going strong and the batteries are at their end of life, can I retrofit a communication card, or can I upgrade that essentially to go and be paired with a lithium battery that's, from 2024? Yes. So if you were using a battery, say, like, the Power Plus or the Gen Z batteries, which are self managed batteries, then then you could do it. No problems. But if it's a battery like a BYD or a Pylontech, etcetera, that have the communications requirement, then, no, you can't do that to a series 1. Only because there's physically no place to put that data. Sure. Yeah. That's the only the only thing. But making making product backward compatible is actually important to us. And it's it's getting to the point where it's actually really, really hard, but it is something we've always believed so that we don't put our customers into a technology corner. I mean, you know, you we get our phones out these days, and, oh, the battery's no good, so we'll throw it away. And we can't replace the battery, and we try to take that into consideration, the backward compatibility. Mhmm. So besides being, you know, bulletproof and standing the test of time, what makes the SP Pro so unique and so special? I think the SP Pro is a part of what makes it work. It's it's a product that's very flexible. It's got a huge amount of flexibility. In fact, it's got too much flexibility. We probably spent a lot of the last 6 or 7 years trying to simplify it. Okay. Because it's got something like 450 adjustable parameters. Yeah. You can easily get sort of, you know, glazed eyes looking at all those, all those features in there. Hey. What I do? What I do? So where do I start? So we've tried to make that simpler and simple. So I think it's robustness. The fact that it's a 50 hertz transformer means it's got, you know, big, big peak outputs Mhmm. As opposed to something that might be a transform list for a different style of application. And just I think also the whole the warranty, obviously, the Australian made. It's the complete package. It's no one particular thing. I was studying some warranty registrations just last last week to see what are the real drivers. And, obviously, word-of-mouth and dealer recommendations are important in Australian made, but they're all there was no one dominant particular, feature that says this is why I buy this this product. Mhmm. So and on grid and off grid in the same product. I I think if we're gonna talk about warranty, one detail that stands out to me, and I have visibility over all brands in the market. And the thing that separates you, especially just being an Australian business, is just the clarity around what happens when something goes wrong under warranty. It's all publicly available on your website. This is what we will pay for travel up to this time. It is generous amounts. It is detailed. I have not seen that from any other manufacturer. And not to put other manufacturers down, but it simply comes down to the fact that they are not Australian businesses. They are not fully across the local laws. Yeah. That's such a strong point, Andrew. When about 2021, I think it was, Jack Hooper put together a bit of a, a group saying, hey. How do we get manufacturers to really take their responsibility for installer compensation, for instance? And we we helped Jack to bring that together, and then we we listened to what we're getting told. And then we chose to put together what I think is actually the best, probably, compensation install compensation in in the market at the moment. But the clarity of that 10 year warranty is is really important because what says it better if you're saying we've got a really good product, well, then put your money where your mouth is. Yeah. And if we're saying we've got a reliable product, prove it to me. You know, I I struggle with some, you know, European cars. It wasn't that long ago, expensive cars, but they only had 3 year warranties. I could you can look at the other cheaper cars, and they had 7 year warranties. Yeah. It's not talking to talk, walk the walk to them. So 16 years of SP pros, you had any field issues? Yeah. We have. What or 2? It stems back to COVID. COVID is I I don't expect anyone outside Melbourne to understand what COVID really was like. We're we're not, sort of trying to play the violin Yeah. But COVID was horrible. Like Oh, mate. Like, 2020, you guys were shut down for half the year. Well, it, it was kind of fun. No. Firstly, 20 No. 2019, I think it was, we were leasing a building for 15 years, and their idea we were leasing was because we wanted to be able to upgrade, expand whenever. Instead, what we did, we actually kept getting more efficient at how we did our production, and so we didn't need new premises for quite a number of years. But, anyway, people decided to sell the building and gave us, I think, 6 months notice. It's really hard to find a building suitable for a company like ours, manufacturing, in 6 months. We didn't find one in time. So to their dear little, bless their heart, the, the owner of the previous building said, oh, look. We've got another building. You could go around the corner. We literally picked the company up 300 meters around the corner in the end of 2019, and, and it was too small, and it was a it was a challenge to be in there. Then 2020 hit, of course, in COVID, and so everyone was working from home except for production. They were in a somewhat constrained space. And while we're trying to fit out, we had found a new building, but this time, we're trying to fit that out in COVID. Oh my gosh. The timing couldn't have been worse. It couldn't have been worse. No. And you you think little things like we've got to build a stud wall or whatever. We can't get timber. Yeah. And then when you do get it, yeah, it's 5, 6 times the price. So there's a whole heap of challenges like that. But, you know, the good thing is that the the industry really supported us. Sales were were very strong. Yeah. There's a lot of people looking to make lifestyle changes. Hey. I could go out to the the bush perhaps or to the country towns Absolutely. And live there. So that was that was really quite good, but we started to see some product problems with, processes. And we're not the only people that have seen this. Other people in our industry have said the same thing. The chip shortage, suddenly, we started to see some things that we'd never seen before. Mhmm. And that was a real that was a real challenge for us. Yeah. Right. And you'd probably lost a lot of your good staff that could have troubleshooted these problems because you had to lay people off. Well, it it was, there wasn't so much laying off because what we did is immediately COVID started, we we made a decision, a group decision, to go to 4 days a week straight away. Okay. We didn't know where this was heading. So let's, let's just cut it off before it becomes a problem. We have to lose people. So 4 days a week to reduce our our cost, and we all agreed on that. And that made it hard as as industry wrapped up again very quickly. We were actually trying to do 5 days a week work, in the 4 days. Everybody was in the 4 days until we had the confidence that this is sustainable or this is gonna last for a little bit longer, this upsurge in in business. Production, of course, was still in the factory. It had to be. We can't build from home. It's a bit hard. So, yeah, that they were challenges, but working from home has has real issues. And as I said, Melbourne, when you're, you know, told that, you know, you can't actually go outside this 5 kilometer radius and you can't do this, you can't do it. It got to a lot of people, depression, anxiety. I know myself, I probably became a different person than that. But the CEO Rod Scott and myself get on really, really well. We could have both killed each other that year. Yeah. He admitted to me that he would have happily showed me the door, and I told him I'd be happy to take your job and put it where solar shouldn't be. But, we got through that. Ear muffs, Rod. Ear muffs. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So they they were they were challenging times. Did you have a a turnover of stuff just naturally? Yeah. We lost most of our r and d team Wow. And our tech support team. Okay. And the amazing thing was you'd say to them, oh, where are you gonna work? Nowhere. And that was just the the mindset that a lot of people in Melbourne had through that horrible, horrible winter. Like, normally, I'm, you know, traveling around for winter as well. So I've never actually spent a winter in Melbourne. And it's a horrible place. The weather's crap. Oh, yeah. Why do you think I'm in Brisbane? And then on top of all the other the other, problems we're having. So, yeah, we lost a lot of the experience out of our out of our team, which really did hurt. Yeah. And we've had to rebuild that up again. And at a product like ours, you can't put, that experience just on young shoulders straight away. And so we've been having to invest invest, and people like myself are having to play very much of a mentor role to get young people who have got the the right attitude and the right desires. Yeah. And when we hire people, we have this sort of unwritten rule in in Selectronic that and and I'm sure supply partners are very similar. In fact, I'll be positive you are, is are you a Selectronic person? Mhmm. You know, you might be, you might have letters after your name, and you've got all this experience and qualifications. But if you don't suit our culture Yeah. Yeah. Then it's not gonna matter. So we 100%. Yeah. So we're very strong on that. The the key thing as well is even if you have the best onboarding, the best training, regime, at at the end of the day, it's still going to take a lot of time and just hands on and solving problems before all of that information that they've digested actually cuts through. Yeah. And you underestimate it. We we have, little bets internally about how long it takes to bring somebody up to speed in a in a company. And, some people are more optimistic than others, but it's normally sort of really, depending on the role, anything from 6 to 18 months before the I agree with that. I'd say more well, depends on what they're doing. But yeah. Yeah. I felt comfortable here after 3 years, I think. 3 years. Yeah. That's how long it took because this industry has a lot to learn. Yeah. There's so many products and so many things can go wrong. And then just when you're around one of them, they bring out another version and it's completely different. There's something along those lines. I also wanted to touch COVID, you know, it impacted all of us. And if you and if it didn't impact you, you know, you're lucky. It also probably played a big part for the issues that you, yeah, that you were, talking about with regards to the chip shortages because we heard it from everyone. And it was because international relations changed during COVID too. Mhmm. Like, supply chains dried up. Who knows what was going on? Like, we're buying from that person, but who's that person buying from them? What are they doing in order to get that part and, you know, scrubbing of boards, I've heard that was happening and, like, all this crazy stuff. Yeah. Counterfeit products we've heard of. Yeah. Well well, one of the problems that we we did see in our product, we hadn't changed that part of the product at all. There had been no change at all. And so we had this this issue. We couldn't go to site because we were locked down. So we couldn't go to site and just find out exactly what's going on. So it took us 9 months of thinking we've got some sort of electrical interference or something happening here. Is it a BMS on a battery? Is it an a, an MPPT? You know, there's so much in a in a system now, and there's a lot more electrical electrical noise and switching in a battery system today than there ever has been. So 9 months of trying to remotely diagnose before we thought, hang on now, we've actually really got a product problem here. And so immediately what we did was we actually started to say, right, 72 hours is the the testing time now. So we took that from just a a couple of hours to 72 hours. And we set up new bays with power supplies so that every product that went out the door had 72 hours of of operation. So make sure we could capture You're really measuring that interference? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it was just it was just something we had to do, obviously. You know, we we understand our customers are not always just around the corner. No. Very very rarely are they around the corner. And with your compensation of every kilometer or every hour when something's 12 hours away, that's Yeah. That's motivation to make sure it's gonna work. Yeah. Because every time there's a there's a problem, of course, there's a problem for us, but it's probably twice that problem for the installers. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, we've got to, we we try to make sure that we're understanding their their pain, and I'm sure we don't get it always right. And and some of that does need a fallback on the installer in my view. I'm actually helping an installer through a remote Aboriginal community off grid installation at the moment. And if anything goes wrong, he's calculated his cost to be about $7,000 for the return trip. That's how remote it is. Now in my opinion, I couldn't expect that all to fall on the manufacturer. The installer probably has has to wear some of that as well as the cost of doing business in these locations. Yeah. I I think I think you're right. And looking at the contracts and and what they are covering, Obviously, we've got to support our our systems and products that we put in, but we have to be mindful of that. Because if we if we didn't, then, you know, manufacturers, if they do have a problem and sometimes it's not actually the Yeah. The your product. But a system is made up of many parts, and that's sometimes you just don't know what part that is until you actually get there and find out and diagnose. So, yeah, that is a challenge. Absolutely. They've got to take some responsibility as as we do too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like everything in in in life, I I firmly believe this. The the bigger the breakdown you're having, whether it's personal or business or whatever, on the other side of it, if you're resilient, is the bigger the breakthrough. So, you know, you every you guys have had a lot of challenges since COVID, and you've stayed there, you've worked through it, you've improved, And there's gonna be an an amazing, you know, breakthrough on the other side of this. What what sort of is the biggest thing that you see that has changed in the culture of Selectronic since COVID? I think there's a a new energy internally. We've got a lot of new people. So whilst they may not have, pardon me, have all of the, the experience, they've got new fresh ideas. They've got new energy. Like, I work in the marketing part of the company with a couple of people that I just love working with them because we come up with these ideas. We have a social media meeting, for instance, every week, and we just throw around. Nothing's off the table. And then these young people are gonna make it happen. And it's fantastic. You know, some of the idea Young people, I love it. Because Yeah. Those 2. Yeah. I mean, you know, the the couple of yeah. They are a couple of young people. Creative. But they're creative, and and I may be sort of creative at times, but they can make that and turn it into something better Yeah. And actually make it happen. Yeah. So gorilla suits and things may be part of that. Do you need drumsticks when you're in those meetings? That that is that your creative sort of muse? No. We just drumsticks don't normally come into work too much. But, no. Try try try to keep them separate. Fail often. But, no, just just a a whole attitude of nothing is off the table. Yeah. You know, we we did a couple of, well, like a, what was it, carpool karaoke when we're going to SEIA last year. Amazing. And, it just like, where does that come from? Somebody said, let's do karaoke, and then I'm thinking karaoke. Y m c a Hell. C e I a. Oh, that works. S c I a. And then we did Leila and I did carpool karaoke, and it and it gets engagement. And so there, couple of people, Rosie and and Paul, just make that sort of stuff happen, which is great. Mhmm. That's awesome. That's awesome. You've also, like because we're in Queensland. We'd we'd obviously deal with, Energy Queensland, and I know SAPN is is also very tight. I just wanted to ask, where where is it at or what is the problem currently with getting an SP Pro on for grid approval in these two states? Yeah. Just for a little bit more fun for solver trikes. So AS 4 Triple 7 2020, part part 2 2020, we couldn't actually meet, and and the main reason for that was, ride through. And one of the requirements of ride through was a 60 degrees phase shift. Mhmm. Not sure who listens to your podcast, but if anyone can tell us if they've seen a 60 degrees phase shift, but that's the rules. We couldn't meet that. And the reason we couldn't meet it because we've got this big 50 hertz transformer with a lot of energy in there and actually asking that to have to put up with a a 60 degrees phase shift without overloading was gonna we couldn't we hadn't worked that out yet. So we were told, hey. If you go into this appendix m, then that means you can't export DC energy from the battery, but you can get approval. So we did as we were asked, went through all the test houses. Unfortunately, the sort of left hand and the right hand of, 8 four triple seven committee and perhaps the the DNSPs is not quite talking to each other. And, it's taken us a while to get approval through this appendix m for all utilities except that's SAP and Queensland haven't yet found a way to approve us even though we are totally approved, but just under a different appendix. Yeah. Have you had a chance to read the draft of a s 4 Triple 7.2 yet? The one that was released at the end of last year, is that fixing anything for you, or is it going to be providing some more challenges? There'll be more there will be more challenges, but what we're tending to lean on now is a lot of, relationships outside. Now let's not us have to fix every problem ourselves, but can we actually work with partners, you know, such as maybe SwitchedIn and and, Catch Power, those sorts of companies where we could get the like, I think it's, Sys Oz. There's a new new requirement in June coming up. We think we could achieve that in other ways rather than just the product. Mhmm. But the actual 60 degrees phase shift, we we think we can solve it. Yeah. Perhaps we will wait until something new is coming along. It's it's a hard time. Like, as someone who's been in the industry now, I think I've been 12 or 13 years in the industry, I'm good at retaining information. I feel like it's harder than it's ever been at the moment because networks in SA, WA, Queensland, ACT, everyone is doing their to taking their own approach to how they want things. Flexible exports, there's no unity, So it's hard for us now to be across everything. But to be an inverter manufacturer and try to meet all of these different requirements, I feel it it would be harder than ever. It is really hard. Yeah. So we've got different requirements in in Western Australia's grid. South Australia, we're not. Victoria is different again. New South Wales, I think, might be the same as Victoria. Queensland, we're not. And Tassie is is is good. So, yeah, different rules in everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's about 25% of our business at the moment, which is something we'd love to grow. Of course. So we've we know we've got to, look at some, you know, next generation product to, to solve some of these these issues. Yeah. What do you see like, you're primarily off grid 75%, But where do you see, like, the evolution in Australian energy requirements from a home perspective? Do you do you guys see more people going off grid? What's the evolution of this? Yeah. Off grid is is something that's getting more and more popular and not just in the rural areas. Just to come back slightly to the the age 4 triple 7 issue, we've got some people saying, you know what? Just let's not use the grid. Mhmm. Or let's use it and abuse it, but let's actually do an off grid system and we just use the grid for charging. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a choice people are making. So we're seeing off grid still growing in the suburbs. Well, not so much suburb fringe of grid. I mean, like, Victoria last week, 500,000 homes with no power. And I think they've still got some of those homes without power. That resilience of the grid is something that a product like ours plays in really, really well to be able to to to solve that need. I mean, you can't really have, you know, hundreds of generator sitting around being plugged in, and I can see people advertising those sorts of things. You know, put a backup generator in. So we we see that more and more off grid, but at the same time, we'll see more growth in the on grid market as well as people look to use more FCAS events, etcetera, but resilience. I I I could see value. A lot of a lot more people are moving towards models like, Amber. And, obviously, probably one of the biggest draw draw cards of Amber is exporting, DC, to get a really high feed in tariff in the evening, which currently you can't do. But the flip side of that, which maybe could be hugely beneficial for Selectronic down the track, is if you did have a system that was designed as off grid, the grid is essentially used as the generator. Yeah. But if there was some sort of relay or smarts where if the price goes into negative, then import the power, charge your battery, supply those loads, get paid to do that. And the moment the prices change, just disconnect the grid again. So we're working with a a, on a partnership at the moment, which will allow just that. Perfect. I'm looking constantly at the pricing signals and then changing to to adapt. Yeah. Absolutely. We see that as a as a big big opportunity. So it's it's a lot. There's growth both in on grid and and off grid. But I think people's needs, are getting greater and greater, which is really good. Systems are getting bigger. You know, solar rooftop solar is getting bigger, but so too are battery energy systems for for off grid. I mean, we hardly sell a 4 kilowatt inverter anymore for our, AC coupling. It's all the eights and tens now. Yeah. Yeah. So we we backed off that. It's really it's changing quite quickly. And we're seeing a lot of new players come into the market. What's your like, what can you say about that? Because you you've been with this company that's been around for 60 years. You guys have seen more ups and downs in this industry. You've adjusted. You've had problems. You've fixed problems. It's a story of resilience. But that there's so much competition coming into the market. Like, what what would you say to that? I think you can't stop competition. It's going to come, and we've seen it over the years. Competition comes, and and if you if you listen to the vibe, we might as well just close the doors now because we're finished. You know? Yeah. And then the reality comes into it and, okay, things come back to normal again. You can't be arrogant about that sort of thing. Now you really need to be say, okay. There's new competition. What really will it mean? But what I really do implore to the system designers and I deliberately use that word system designers, not installers, because I think we forget that every time we put together a system, we are the designer of that system, that the the installer person is the the designer. And, think about your supply chain. It's so so important. So what is their backup? What is their warranty? Have they got enough people in in the the in the system to be able to support you? So when you buy a product, yes, it might be it might be a good product, but will it be here in 10 years' time? I mean, if you get a 10 year warranty, but how old's the company? Can they support that? Because somebody told me just yesterday that they had that very situation with a hot water service. The hot water service is no longer supported anymore. That part of somebody's company has gone out of business, and so the installer has to pay for a new one that was 5 and a half $1,000 out of pocket. So I think we have to have new competition. We have to see it, but making sure that it's appropriate for your business. Your risk your appetite for risk as a business will be linked to the strength and the quality of your supply partners Mhmm. And your the manufacturer behind that. Thanks for the plug. My pleasure. It's true. And and I guess as well, just on top of what you just said as well, is the backwards compatibility aspect. Like, I know I know with Selectronic Systems, you're seeing that the SP Pros are out lasting the batteries in a lot of cases. But on the flip side, with some of the new entrants to market, we might actually see, the inverters fail before the batteries do. Now I've already seen cases where the inverters failed, batteries are still okay, but the manufacturer can't provide that model inverter anymore. Yeah. And the inverter that they can provide is no longer compatible with those batteries. So then who whose problem is it? Yeah. And that's a challenge as as you have technology advancing quickly, you're always going to have some of that. And we try to be as mindful of that as as we can Yeah. Within reason, find a balance between what's commercially appropriate and what's financially, you know, doable. Mhmm. So, yeah, it is a it's a challenge. But we think that we think that going forward, we need to keep looking at holistically. 1 of the the things we're trying to do, where we're trying to go is to go to a bit more vertical integration. So both in our manufacturing. So we've just put in our own a new surface mount line, which, something like that 2 and a half, $3,000,000 to do our surface mount soldering in Melbourne. It used to be done in in Adelaide. We've done a new, what do you call it? A, conformal coating machine where we used to have so every circuit board has got a silicon based conformal coating on it, and that used to be done in a nice cute little machine that did one at a time. Now we can do a whole rack at a at a time, and we're just getting we're getting a complete quicker and more thorough process in that. And that's ways of getting our cost down through automation. So a lot of investment there as well as the, the new r and d team, which we've we've built up now. It's actually the biggest that we've actually had in our industry our history of our company. So lots of new things coming. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And and I suppose that if you've sped up certain aspects of the, manufacturing, process, then that allows you to take the longer time you need elsewhere for more rigorous testing, like you mentioned. Yeah. We're we're investing Don't quote me on this. Maybe something like 1, 1 and a half $1,000,000 on test fixtures as well. So more complete test fixtures, which will test more parameters, accelerated testing. So that's a big part of what we want to do. We we've got some goals internally. Unfortunately, I can't share those with you, but it's it's not to be it's not to be good. It's to be great. Yeah. We can't live in the past. That's cute. You know, we all sit around. We got our gray hair and all that, but we've gotta be still use our experience, but still be thinking fresh. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a big part. But going ahead with what we've got in the pipeline and what in our product road map is, yeah, it's very exciting. And I I think we can still see Selectronic being a bigger player than what we we are now in a global sense as well. Oh, that's fantastic to hear. Yeah. And any business that's been around as long as yours, like, business is just basically a bunch of human beings interacting with each other. Like, the the relationship with within your business and with your customers is probably the thing that you guys can hang your head on the most. I know you're big on relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The relationships is an interesting one, and I I love nothing more than sitting down with somebody and having a mature conversation. It might be a conversation that I don't like the content of, but it's the cons it's it's a mature. We've got a problem. Let's work through it. And that's what you want. You know? When I see people jump on the Facebook and whinge, that really annoys me because it actually I take it personally. And that's something that I'm struggling with a little bit at the moment that I've got to work out how to deal with. I got a person for you. So I think that, the first step when you've got a problem should be talk to the manufacturer. Talk you know, have a relationship with them and talk it through what's the real issue. Every day, we're having those conversations. And if I had my way, I would take email and I would throw it away. I would say have a conversation with people because we can do things quicker. Oh, yeah. And we can do things more complete. And nothing's taken out of context either? Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I may have been guilty of that once or twice. We we all have. Nobody's perfect. From what I hear as well, you have a new rep that's going to be looking after certain regions. I know Leila's looking after a new region, and you have plans to spend a lot of 2024 on the road having in person meetings. Yeah. With with some of the issues that we we have had, we're trying to make sure that we we're not ignorant of those and and really do something about it, and that is having those conversations. And we know that some of those conversation will just be it just gonna have to have a bit bit bit of awkward, but let's deal with it. Let's sort of ignore it. So, yeah, Leila Playmore looks after the Queensland territory now as well as the distributors. New guy called Jay, who's a very experienced gentleman. In fact, he was, responsible for the biggest system that Selectronic have been involved in, which is about a megawatt hour over in Indonesia Oh, wow. When he was working in New Zealand. So he'll be looking after New Zealand and New South Wales, and then I'll be looking after, some of the the territories as well. Not so much at the low, low level, but just so we can make sure we're having the right conversations with people. Feel their pain. What is your pain? Have you got pain? Or is it just, hey, this is great. Let's keep doing it. But if you don't have conversations, I think you you sort of die in the water. You might do well for a little while, but eventually, that hurts you. Yeah. Yeah. My wife always tells me communication is the key. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, Lindsay. Well, I I just wanna thank you for being here, man. This has been a pleasure. And, I also just wanna thank Selectronic for being such a pillar in Australian manufacturing. So it's inspirational for anybody who really wants to be a manufacturer in Australia to look at a company that's been around for 60 years and and had gone through everything and the resilience of the company. And it's obviously built on very strong foundations and, yeah, I just wanna thank you. Oh, it's been a a pleasure. And, yeah, we, not me, but we as a as a company, a team are are proud of what we do. And I know there'll be some people listening to this podcast who say, let me add the little shit. Bring it on. If if there's a conversation we had, please bring it on. We'll solve we'll solve the problem here. So now thank you. And it's great to have people like supply partners who think our way as well. Yeah. You know, when we've got problems, we work through them. You're very efficient in what you do. You know what you're talking about, which is great. You know, you 2 guys are a testament to that. So, no, it's really, really great to work with you guys. I thought you're gonna tear up for a moment there. Man, I almost did. Hey. I'm an emotional person. Listen. It's I'm I'm on my own coaster here. Yeah. You you are your own sine wave and solar coaster. I'm I'm in a glass case of emotion. Alright. Well, thanks, Lindsay, and thanks everyone for listening. Thanks for the opportunity. Thanks.