Solar Coaster Podcast (AUS)

#7 - Special Announcements w/ Just Another Solar Podcast

• Supply Partners • Episode 7

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In this episode of the Solar Coaster Podcast, we have some special guests and special announcements. Nigel Morris (Solar Analytics) and Luke Beattie (SG Wholesale & iStore) from Just Another Solar Podcast join us to announce that Catch Power has acquired Solar Analytics. We chat about what this exciting announcement means and some of the latest hot topics from the across the Australian Solar and Energy Industry.

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.


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Welcome to the Solar Coaster, a podcast about the ups and downs of the Australian solar just, brought to you by the technical team at Supply Partners with host Wade Allen and technical guru, Andrew Thompson. Welcome to the, Solar Coaster podcast brought to you by Supply Partners, your partner in solar and energy storage supply. We're a 100% Australian owned and operated. We're your technical australia, bringing you not only top quality products, but sales and technical support solar we can help you thrive in this ever exhilarating ride we call the Australian solar industry. I'm your host, Wade Allen. And with me as always is our resident technical guru, AT, Andrew Thompson. How you doing? Good, buddy. How about you? Not bad. Pretty pumped. I know. I'm excited because today's podcast is awesome. It's a very special one because we are joined here in studio by 2 of the OG Solar Industry podcast legends, the hosts of Just Another Solar Podcast. Well, 2 thirds of them. That's it. Mister Nigel Morris and mister Luke Beattie. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here and doing this. Thanks for having us. I think I normally call Nige the industry legend, Nigel Morris. So if we can edit that out and just slot that back in, that'd be great. Indeed. Well, I think it's This is so professional. Oh, yes. Kind of weird for us. Right? But did we say before night, you've got a good face for podcasts? Yeah. That's right. That's right. But it's good to be here. So thank you, family. It's called a face for radio now. Podcasts are all videoed as well. If no. I think it speaks oh, sorry. AT, go ahead. If if if you are tuning in on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, just flick over to YouTube, and you'll see all of our beautiful faces. That's right. Indeed. But I was I was gonna say, I love the fact that you guys are here. It speaks absolute volumes for the character of, you know, both of our podcasts and what we're trying to achieve here. And that is just to educate and inform our industry, while hopefully having a giggler or 2 and keeping it entertaining for everybody. Okay. Come on. Group hug. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Bring it in. Alright. There we go. I feel bit I feel so good. Yeah. Is that a tear in your eye? That's what I do. I I like to I like to, you know, fluff a little. We usually start by diving into our guests just to sort of humanize them and give everybody listening a bit of a background on them. You guys are probably, quite known in the just, but, you know, out of curiosity and my own knowledge, you know, selfishly, I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay. Oh, Okay. Nige, let's just start with you, bro, because, I know you're a massive motorbike guy, and you've, you know, you've been in this industry since AT here was just an erotic glance in his dad's eye across the room. So, where did where did your journey into this industry start? Well, actually, technically, when I was, 18, I traveled to Europe, with my girlfriend at the time. We got a combi van. We drove around Europe as you do. And I was in Germany, and we went to buy our daily, you know, fruit and veg supplies. And we were looking at, the fruit and veg, and there was a big rack of tomatoes. And we noticed that, some tomatoes were more expensive than others, and the cheap ones had a nuclear radiation symbol on them. Oh my gosh. And we went, what's to go here? We eventually found someone who could speak English, and they said, well, you know, Chernobyl just blew up a couple of months ago. And, so these tomatoes could be radiated. We're not really sure, so we have to advise you of that, but they're on special. So, that was where it all started for me, actually, because that was the first time in my life I'd ever really thought about the cost of energy. Right? The implication of where energy comes from, and and all of those thoughts swirled around in my head Right. Ever since then. At 18? At 18. Yeah. Up until then, it was just, you know, dad pays the bill I use. Indeed. Yeah. And, so that's where it started. But 32 years this year Wow. That I've been doing it. So when you came back, what what happened then? When I came back, I actually I was a fitter interner. I worked in TV. I I worked in, in machine shops and, sort of bounced around doing a whole lot of things and trying to see a way to resolve this issue. And the only thing I could really do was was go to protests because they were shipping uranium out of Adelaide at that point in time, the yellow cake. And, that was about all I could really do. And then, actually, I saw I saw a show on TV about the hippies in Nimbin who'd just built a great big factory that was solar powered, and they desperately needed someone who was, who was a fitter and turner and a quality assurance another. And that was what my job was at the time, and I wrote him a letter. And the next thing I knew, I was I was with the old gang in Rainbow Power Company up in Nimbin. Nice. And, you know, obviously, outside the industry, like I said, I know you're a huge motorbike guy. Outside just industry, like I said, I know you're a huge motorbike guy. You've been converted to the EV bike. We talk about it often. It those are pretty pretty awesome. Hey? Yeah. They are. Yeah. It's actually, something came up on my feed the other day saying it's 12 years now since I got my first electric motorcycle. Gosh. I didn't even think they were around that that long. Yeah. Well, they were very different beast to what they are today. That's for sure. They were pretty basic, and they were DC brush motors, and, you know, they didn't have, anything like what they have today. But, yeah, I've always I'm on I think I'm up to bike number 50 now, and I'm I've I've only got 2 in the shed. I've got an old one, and I've got the the live wire. And actually, the best summary is an old buddy of mine who rides and has got a collection of bikes popped in on the weekend, and we went for a spin another. And we swapped because I said, you gotta ride the LiveWire. He hadn't ridden it. And, so I jumped on his, 40 year old Moto Guzzi, which I which I know very, very well and rode this, you know, lovely, noisy, smelly, cantankerous old bike on my favorite road. And when, oh, it feels familiar. I remembered how to change gears and stuff. But, you know, going watching him go through that experience of just getting on and going, oh my god. This is just so easy and so fast and so beautiful and yeah. So, yeah, I got a soft spot for all sorts of bikes, but the LiveWire's LiveWire's the best thing ever. Very cool. I can't I've I've never ridden one, but I can I can relate with our switch to EVs? It's just like it's night and day. I can't even go backwards. None. None. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As I said to my wife, she said, how was the ride? And I said, it was great, but the good news is I don't wanna go and buy a motor Guzzi. Yeah. It was great, but I don't want one. No kidding. And, Luke, you know, it's been great to get to know you over the past couple of years. It's been mainly industry. I don't know a lot personally. Some after hours stuff in there too, Wade. Yeah. But, you know, currently, you're the, what, national manager of SG Wholesale. And more recently, you're the channel manager for iStore. Yep. Wanna give us a bit of background on on how you how all that came about? That came about because I've been working for Solar for 7 years, and I started as SG Wholesale. So it's quite a diverse business. It's a national retailer. It's in commercial. It's got an electricity retailer. It's got a bunch of other businesses, attached. And I suppose as part of that diversification, there's always an eye out to see where the opportunities are. So we had the heat pumps in market, the IStore heat pumps, which have been out there for about 8 years, very popular in the market. And we built some brand equity in that. So Power was founded out of solar gain, but it really became its own thing to be to contain. Right. So it split out from solar gain, I suppose. And there was an opportunity for us to branch out from the heat pumps, which is established into inverters, batteries and upcoming EV chargers and other parts. So so as part of that, it's quite strange. There's a very established business, very process driven, whereas to do something like the the full ice store range, it's really a start up. So in order to do that, it's not that you hire 50 people and make it happen internally within the solar game family. There's a lot of competent people who could fill the gaps and could make it happen. We did hire people into the business of our store, but at the moment, you know, we've built a great national wholesale business and that's going to keep rolling along. But in tandem with that, the growth of our store, the products growing another roadmap means that, you know, we needed competent people there. So it's not either or. It's doing both at full steam. And I'd envisage down the track, you know, I still would likely be the whole thing. But at the moment, it's, you know, when you want to get a startup going, you just pull in all the resources you can. And, and it's been amazing today. I I I think you do have a head start at least because we see a lot of brands try to crack the Australian market, and understandably, they might start out with 1 or 2 employees. And then the conversation goes, well, as the sales come, we will scale accordingly. So you're starting with a larger base than many would. So It's true. And the unique position that we've had a retailer out there for near 20 years. We've had a wholesale business out there for 7 years. So we know what it looks like for a retailer and which products work, what sort of support works in that regard. We know what it looks like as an importer and wholesaler and dealing with manufacturers. What works, what doesn't, what good support looks like. So we've set the goal to be the best manufacturer that we would like to deal with. Now, it doesn't happen perfectly overnight, but we set that goal and all of the movement in the business has been framed around making that happen. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's a lot of work, a lot of great people doing heavy lifting. And I'll just say that, you know, the key leadership of our business, those people have been in the in solar for over 10 years, which in other industries, that's not much. But in power, that's that's quite a while. Yeah. But also, they're known to the industry. The reputations are known. People know who we are. They know where we've worked. And there's already an implied trust that goes with that. Solar, so now we're asking others to come on the journey with us. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Well, recently Sorry. Was that a bit too No. I love it. In a It's I actually wanna pitchy? I wanna no. I wanna jump on top of that as well and just talk about like, recently, the federal government has really wanted to start bringing solar manufacturing back to Australia. They've got that $1,000,000,000 they want to put into it. And I know that Selectronic also got a really big grant for bringing manufacturing, like, for to increase their manufacturing in Australia. Do you guys get any grants at all? The first thing I'd say is have been doing this for decades, and they're really an Australian champion. Yeah. And everyone looks up to them. What they've achieved for them to expand is a great thing because it's not new to them. They're not building manufacturing from scratch. Mhmm. My personal, preference, this isn't for our store, would be that we would look at steps to do local assembly as a first step. Advanced manufacturing is exactly that. It's not something that pops up overnight. Right. So I would say it's great to see Selectronic doing that in the panel space. Tindo, they've already got a plant, so it makes sense to support them to expand the plant. And SunDrive has done a lot of work, so I think they've got some merits, too. But if you just have, you know, support the incumbents, but if you just have new players that come tomorrow and say, I want a chunk of that being dollars to start panel manufacturing. Mhmm. Well, it wouldn't really make sense and probably wouldn't be a good spend of the taxpayers solar, in my opinion. That's my opinion. It's interesting manufacturing, isn't it? I saw a video the other day, of an electric scooter manufacturing facility in China, and they are actually I can't even remember the brand name because they don't even you wouldn't know the brand name. Mhmm. They sell more electric vehicles than than, like, the top 3 electric vehicle manufacturers in the world. They they sell, like, 24,000,000 electric scooters Oh, I think I saw that. Yeah. I was on electric. And and this facility, like, they were saying, oh, it's as big as, you know, 25 football fields or whatever. And they said, in fact, it's got a football field inside the factory where the employees can go and and, you know, cut loose. And so they got one inside the factory. But the the scale of manufacturing that is out there now, and this was largely automated, largely robotic, still lots and lots of people. They still needed a ton of people. But to that point about manufacturing, I mean, this is the scale that we're seeing around the world now. And there's there's companies out there. There's brands out there like these scooter guys I've never heard of before who you just go, oh my goodness. They are just doing incredible, incredible stuff. So it is a huge challenge. We I had this because when I was with BP Solar when we had the factory here in Australia for 11 years. And, you know, staying competitive and relevant in Australia is a real, real challenge. There are some great niches, but it is a real challenge. Yeah. In that article about the $1,000,000,000, they were talking about how 20 years ago, it was actually a Australian educated guy that went to China and started the whole thing. And now recently, they've opened up the sharing of technology because they've got all that IP for all that manufacturing tech in China. So They're bringing the only way it's good. Yeah. It's come full circle back. But that's the only way it could ever work is if we had their that technology here. But you're still dealing with, you know, an increased cost of labor force and increased cost of even the buildings and everything like that. I I don't know how they could ever compete, but hopefully. Yeah. Well, there was a great report that was released, and we've touched on this because, doctor Martin Green and, doctor Renata Egan, who we had on, on just another solar podcast recently, talked about the report that had come out where they'd done a deep dive into all the manufacturing opportunities for solar and batteries in particular, and how far upscale you can go. And and the the really fascinating thing is we've got a lot of the raw materials. We're blessed in all these fantastic raw materials. So although we don't have the market here, we've got a lot of the raw materials that make sense to to to add value to, which we currently don't do. And we're now blessed with tons and tons and tons of low cost energy, that's starting to feed the system. So that's actually helping us become competitive at a global scale even though the market might not be here. So it's a it's a really fascinating time. Yeah. No doubt. I'm always one for addressing an elephant in the room. I love it. So, Nigel, is there anything you'd like to talk about? I just I've got a I've got a different shirt. Any big announcement, Nudge? Yeah. No. Actually, yeah. I'm very excited to announce. By the time this comes to air, the announcement, will have gone public that Solar Analytics has been acquired by Catch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're, and the the short version of that is that, you know, we've had a wonderful relationship with the Catch team for a long time. We've been big admirers of what they do. And they build some amazing hardware. And, actually, as we've gone through the, the merger of our 2 businesses, I'm learning more and more about what they can do, and it's blowing my mind, actually. They're they they are really one of the best hardware solutions, most clever hardware solutions out there in the market and are really poised to take advantage of this opportunity for a gateway device. Yeah. So no matter what it is you're trying to control or ramp up or ramp down or export or import or divert to whatever, they've got this device now and the architecture behind it, which is really, really, really cool. We don't when Solar Analytics, on the other hand, was very focused on solar owners and building software that extracted value and building good dashboards and building great algorithms that could do intelligent things with software. So when you think about it, putting those 2 entities together is just a sublime match made in heaven because we've got this depth of experience and knowledge and expertise in software. They've got the same in hardware and have built a great firmware package. So when we finally, finally got to the table and worked out that it was time, I have to say every day has just been a day of fabulous excitement, and we had a big planning day this week where we went, are we gonna use this bit of yours and that bit of power? And and we're starting to mesh these pieces of the puzzle together now, and we've got a we've got a near term plan for the stuff that's gonna happen in the next month or so. Then we've got a medium term plan within, by September. Don't worry, John. September. I didn't say I didn't say Just. I said September. And then we've got a longer term plan that they're telling me is 18 months out, but that's gonna they're gonna drop that. We've got geniuses on board. So I believe I now work for one of the cleverest hardware and software companies, probably in the world in the, solar and control space, and, I am so pumped. Awesome. That is so exciting. Because from an outsider's point of view, it almost look like there's 2 great Australian companies almost running in parallel. Yeah. I mean, Catch Power had more the control. Solar analytics is more the analytics, of course. And now that they've joined forces, you'd think that it's gonna go even further. Yeah. And as is always the case. Right? You you know, we've been around a little bit longer. We're we're more than 10 years old now. So some of our internal systems and processes and stuff were were a bit more refined. And and, you know, as a software company, we've got some really, really clever people and some really clever systems for for building out that software at scale. And and, you know, we've got great, great, great scale. But, the control space is something we've been dabbling in for ages, but but, you know, we needed to get with a hardware solution to really be able to do that. And and, you know, to their credit, Catch have just rocketed it away, especially in the last few years, and they're just miles ahead. And you're working with Kathleen again. I was actually thinking. Is she a witch? Does she foresee this? Sorry, Kathleen. In in all honesty, it feels like mom and dad are back together. Daddy's in the house. You didn't go. No. No. That was a shutter for those listening. No. Yeah. The we know, though, that team really, really well. So it is, yeah. It's like getting the band back together again. You're right. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're excited about it, AT. I'm I'm really excited, and I guess one one thing I wanna probably just clear up is, historically, you've had a really strong relationship with with WattWatchers. Yep. Like, all the solar analytics hardware that's out in the field with the solar analytics, branding on it as well as more recent installations as WattWatchers. Did you maybe wanna just touch on that relationship? Yeah. That's a great, that's a great topic. So, you know, things will change over time. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. And we are always on the lookout for new ways to do all the control stuff that has to be done. And I think that, you know, in the next year I mean, it's already happening at a rate of knots. Right? But in the next year or 2, I think it's gonna be essential for monitoring devices to be able to do control. I don't think I don't think monitoring is just part of the solution. And WattWatchers have some great products in their pipeline as well. Yeah. Yeah. So we will continue to support the WattWatchers hardware. It still has a terrific 4 g solution. It can still do commercial really, really well. We'll continue to, work with Wattwatchers in the same way, and they've got new products coming down the pipeline that we will look very, very closely at as well. Likewise, we will continue. So we'll continue to do the inverter integration stuff that we've done in the past because we can just very simply remotely layer terrific software over a native platform and provide all the value that we can, on on native stuff. And then, of course, wherever you need control, wherever you need load diversion, wherever you need to do some cleverer stuff, then, of course, the catch control device is just gonna sweep in over the top of the world. Yeah. I guess, I'm not sure if you've all seen this, but Nigel shared a matrix of all of the the capabilities now and what's coming, and it it is massive. I did get some interesting feedback, though. So we're also working on some control stuff with iStore. The feedback was that some of the macro controls, things like hot water, make a whole lot of sense and divert into that to e v charges make sense. Yep. But then some of the controls go right down to small Internet of Things devices, and it becomes quite a quite a complex solution. Oh, yeah. Now speaking to a home automation guy, he said that once you get a customer, you are you are in their pocket for the warranted period of the workmanship. Yep. Now if you have a Karl Jensen, Mark Cavanagh, Shane Arnold, someone like that, they're gonna take it and run with it because they can, you know, get the controls, tweak it, play around, and it works well. Mhmm. What about the average consumer? So if you set up their hot water, fine. If you've got all these other funky devices that are being controlled Yep. The phone is gonna ring even when they change the password on their modem. Let alone let alone when the kettle doesn't turn on at the correct time of the day or whatever it is. So Therein therein lies the problem. Therein lies the problem. So I think there's there's absolutely a demographic for the macro controls. But when it comes to micro controls, do you keep that limited? Do you make an assessment based on the customer about how much you want to control for them? Are you a retired engineer? Yes, sir. You've done the wrong phone number, Andrew. Yeah. Whatever you do. Yeah. No. Look. This was exactly we had a strategy day on Monday, actually, when we dived really deep, into this sort of near and longer term planning. And and you're right on the money, Luke. I'll say one thing. You know, we are unlikely to go beyond the switchboard. Right? We won't be going into, you know, plug in widgets and, you know, marrying all of those. There's opportunity there for sure. But one of the things that I've witnessed just in the last 7 years I've been with solar analytics is that those in high those behind the switchboard loads are getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. I've got I've got one at home. I looked on my app the other day because I've got some lights out the back that light up the back deck at night automatically on and off. And when I just look at the history, there's not enough load to measure it. Yeah. Right? So I've got no history of the energy consumption because the device can't even see the load. It's so it's so low. Right? Solar we will stick with the major loads. We we know that already as major loads. So it's hot water, it's air conditioners, it's EVs, it's batteries, it's solar. Right? Yeah. So we we will stick there. But to your point, exactly the conversation we're having is, you know, as an installer, you, you know, Andrew needs a dashboard that he can go in to support a customer or an installer and have a whole lot of ability to do all sorts of stuff and to do some diagnostic stuff, and we can leverage AI and machine learning to make your role easier to say, why is the hot water system doing this? Or why has the EV charger taken on taken load out of the battery? We didn't want it to do that, for example. So we're we now have the capability to do machine learning, and and and and and we're gonna start using some AI in that back end and build an incredibly sophisticated dashboard for the likes of Andrew and and the average installer to be able to understand what's going on. The solar app that's coming, which will be a combination of both of our apps in in the medium term, that is going to be the simplest monitoring app you've ever seen in your life. It is going to be simpler than any other app out there because that's all owners want. Mhmm. They just want to know, have you saved me money and how much? And if I wanna know more, okay, I might wanna dig a little bit deeper. But the average owner just wants to go, I need the car to be charged at 9 AM, or I'm willing for you to make that decision for me if it's gonna save me $500 catch check a box. Yes. Save me$500. And is everything cool? Right? That's You gotta make it boomer proof. It's gotta be boomer proof. It's gotta be boomer proof. How much is that? So we we already started the fleshing out what we think is gonna be actually one of the one of the, most refreshingly different and fantastically simple end user apps that, that exists. That's exciting. It's really exciting. Very, very good. You go till September, John. Yeah. Which genre are you That's our CTO. Oh, I thought you're talking to Degotardi. Mister technical? No. I also wanted to get your opinion on a completely different subject, and that is this whole solar panel 2016 stamp, 2021 stamp, or that's coming September 30th. AT, you're you're pretty confident that you think this might be turned around. What like, where where you at that with that now? I I I was nervous at the start of the year when almost nobody had, like, was aware of it. And those that were being made aware of it, not many people seem to care or understand the implications. Oh, October's so far away. Who who cares? But in in, like, solar time, that that was in the blink of an eye. Now as time's gone on, Nigel has pushed it, and we're starting to to hear noise, and and I I guess the CEC has been out surveying people. Now from what I understand as well, a lot of the people who've been responding to the survey have been indicating that how will this affect them. This could affect them to the tune of 1,000,000 of dollars fairly significantly. I don't think anyone who's responded to that survey is going to respond with an answer that's going to say it's gonna be great for them. Yeah. So I'm very, very confident that something will change. Common sense will prevail. But in the meantime, we have to just march on as if it's not going to change because Indeed. Yeah. We haven't heard otherwise. Yeah. They could just be checking boxes. I did speak to a panel manufacturer recently, and he said, no. We're looking good. Our stock's gonna be cycled. Our distributors are going to move the stock, and we should be all good. And I said, I don't think you're appreciating the disruption of other distributors and other companies that are sitting on stock that haven't been paying attention or don't care at this point. And come midyear, come August, if they're dumping stock, even if it's older stock, mono PERC 3 nineties or 4 fifteens, if they're dumping stock, you know, 10 to 15¢ a lot cheaper than what the market price is on Topcon or HJT, then that's going to impact on the wider market. Their run rates aren't going to be correct because there's a good portion of the market that will move just based on price. So they move to 4 forties because we don't go with the old stuff. We move along with the times. But if the price is cheap enough and you get enough desperation, it's gonna be there. I'm also optimistic, but preparing for the worst. Yeah. And and I think, like, one of the worst things as well is it's not just affecting distributors, but there are retailers out there as well who have actually, done done the right thing. They've they've bought up stock. They prepared for their future pipeline, but maybe projects are delayed. Projects have fallen through. And now they're potentially going to feel the pain. You can't just automatically find another project to use it on. So yeah. Why do we have another deadline? Yeah. There's always a deadline. Yeah. We're we're just always reacting in this just, and, yeah, it it's annoying. Yeah. Yeah. As you guys know, I sit on the product panel, as an industry rep. And so I've been on a number of calls and and and been sort of trying to learn as much as I can about this issue and make sure that the product approval panel in the CEC are aware of the implications of this, and and I think I think they are now. Mhmm. And part of the reason for that survey coming out was that we were highlighting to them that it's not only the PV manufacturers. The PV manufacturers have had notice of this going back out almost 18 months. So there's been tons of notice for the PV manufacturers to do something about it. The majority of them have done the right thing. Of course, the good guys will always do the right thing, but there are a number who have left it till the last minute. And, I became aware another case last night of someone who's, you know, just now sort of trying to get their approvals through, and, you know, that's gonna cause a problem. And there's some stock that's gonna be caught. So, you know, some of the manufacturers really have not done a good job of getting this out of the way. But I I I think it's really, really, really important that if there are people out there who are gonna be affected, they make sure that the Clean Energy Council product approval team knows. I I sit on a panel behind. I'm not involved in the day to day. I sit on an advisory panel that we kind of deal with complaints or checks and balances and stuff and review some of the stuff that the product team does. But it's a product team who does all the hard work in terms of getting the approvals through and dealing with the standards. And even the clean energy regulator has said, well, this is a decision for the CEC product approval team. They are still in charge of that process. And so it is down to them. And, you know, I'll be I'll be very frank. You know, going back a month ago, the product approval team was telling me no one was complaining. No one was telling me that this was no one was telling them that it was a problem or that it had ramifications or consequences. So it's important that your voice is heard so that that team understands what if there are consequences. And they're they're good people. They're working hard to do the right thing. They they've gotta get this standards the standard through. And just remind everyone, it's it's it's not some conspiracy theory. It is Standards Australia who are actually getting our standards aligned with international standards. So, you know, in in many ways, this is a good move because you know what? Most of the PV manufacturers actually make product to the 2021 standard Yeah. To deliver to other markets. So we're catching up to that standard. So the alignment of standards and catching up on the standards is good. It's being driven by that change in standards. So don't get get on your conspiracy high horse and and blame the CEC or blame the CER or anyone else. It is a standards Australia thing to align us with international standards, has good merit. Mhmm. Now, along the way, though, pain, disruption, and lost money, I'm sure. There there is a lot of misdirection of blame, especially on the socials. And I know, Nigel, you normally come into the defense, but it's kind of at the point now where a pallet of solar panels could fall off a truck and you probably get people blaming the CEC for it. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have got someone else to target now who's got the SAA. Yeah. Yeah. You know, some of that's gonna gonna move across. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Wanna chat about that? Like, the move from CEC to SAA, when when's that taking place? It's half done. They're in the transition period. So if you're an installer and you haven't moved your accreditation across from the CEC, to the SAA, then, this is your reminder. Do it now. Press pause. Go and do it. Yep. And from from everything I hear, you know, the majority of people are getting through. They're getting their accreditation across. Of course, there are some bumps. They've gotta deal with 9,000 accredited installers, and there's gonna be some lumps and bumps along the way. Yep. And I know I know that's really negatively impacted some people's business ability to do business and to trade because if they get caught and they don't have the right accreditation or they can't get people through, there's been a lot of noise about the CPD points not not being accounted for correctly themselves. When they raise it with the SAA, even if there's a lag, they do recognize points. Yes. So it's I think it's that lag. You'll get there eventually. Yeah. You'll get there eventually. Same as the Yeah. Moving the registrations across. Yeah. I think there is a lag. There's a huge volume that's been going through. Solar people get the lag and then, you know, throw their hands in the air and jump on Facebook and say, oh, SAA is just hopeless. Like, the CEC, it's, man. I mean, it's real people, a real company Yep. Doing a massive transition of an accreditation program. So Yep. I saw the other day. They've listed a new phone. They've added another phone line now to try and, increase their bandwidth for taking inquiries as well. But that's that's a short term problem because once the bulk of the movements across Yeah. Then they can consolidate and actually build on it. So, ultimately, I think it's gonna be a great thing to have a dedicated accreditation board for installers, but people just have to bear with the lag. I mean, I think overall, they've handled it extremely well. Me personally, I thought it was going to go far, far worse. So it's it's actually going well. Yes. There has been some teething issues, but when when people raise it as well, and and a lot of people just assume that the products are being carried over with it, it is purely the installer accreditation. Mhmm. And the beauty of that means that this this new business or entity is able to put a lot more focus on installer education, just be there to support installers because they don't have all the baggage of the products, which, as we spoke about just before, there's always a deadline, there's always something new. So this is going to benefit long term. And hopefully, it opens up some brain units in the CEC to start getting products approved quicker. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree. I think the focus I think the focus is really valuable. And, you know, clean slate. Right? Yeah. Just clean slate. Tackle this. And, you know, when they did their launch, to their credit, I thought some of the stuff that the SAA were talking about that they were going to try and address to improve the way accreditation worked sounded fantastic. Sounded sounded like what everyone's been calling for. Mhmm. I want to talk about batteries because I love batteries, and I get emails every day about new technologies that are coming out. Something that 2 things that came across my desk recently. Sungrow announced, that their numbers for 2023, I don't know if you saw them, but it was just mind blowing. They increased their revenue by 79% last year. Like, that is a huge number for a company that we already thought was huge. Yeah. Wow. That had to be a good portion of that had to be in batteries because they've just gone strong into batteries. And CATL, cattle, A couple weeks ago, I saw that, I think John put it on our on our chat that they created a C&I battery that has, like, 5% degradation in a 15 year, like, accelerated thing. Whereas, normally, we're seeing, like, that's an industrial model. Yeah. What what Yeah. I I didn't read the battery too too deep Okay. Deeply. Yeah. Yeah. But also, they they announced the other day that they have a new EV battery that has a 1,000 kilometer range in it. Like, just a 1000000 kilometer expected life. Yeah. It's just unreal. Yeah. Yeah. This I love the fact when when batteries start getting uptake by the whole, obviously, the manufacturers are are making the the money. They're dumping all that into r and d, and this whole trajectory of of technology and batteries has just gone through the roof. I I love watching it too. It's like watching the whole PV industry 15 years ago, right, when China was just starting out in PV. Yeah. You know? And and and I I my favorite story about PV manufacturing when it kicked off in China was, you know, they they have this strategy of, you know, just encouraging everyone and creating incentives for everyone to convert your plant and make solar panels and learn how to build solar panels, and we're gonna be big in this solar industry. And, you know, there were literally people closing down sock factories and converting them to making solar panels and cigarette lighter factories that were converted to making solar panels. And, you know, we got some pretty shitty products. Yeah. Let's be honest. Right? But what that what they did over time was weeded out the 100 and 100 and 100 and 100 of solar manufacturers and got the big ones to to bubble up to the surface, and now they have dominate they they dominate the world now with expertise and skill and quality and and scale. And we're watching the same thing happen again in batteries. But the batteries and older technology. Yeah. So lithium based batteries have been around over 40 years. So solar panels are quite a new technology for scale. So it's already established. They're not inventing the wheel. They are improving design, improving chemistry, exactly, but it's established. So maybe the sock factory can, you know, start a battery factory, and it won't be designed for a smart Catch know, it's it's yeah. Batteries are a different beast. I've got a story to tell on that. But but what what is what is interesting to me is is just like we saw in PV, and it was actually part of the reason for the demise of BP Solar, was the fact that, you know, those early entrants into the PV world bought long term contracts on silicon. Right? And, you know, silicon used to be$250 a kilo. And if you could get it to 2 20 and sign a 5 year deal to buy, you know, tons of silicon, you'd dominate the world. And that was kind of the world that BP Solar lived in when I in in its heyday. But then silicon suddenly started dropping, and it went to $45 a kilo. And the machines that we'd put in our factory 5 years ago had been superseded. And suddenly, there's a new company with a guy educated in UNSW, who you were talking about before, doctor Xi, who started up this new factory that can produce twice as much, and he's done a contract at $45 a kilo. Oh, man. Right? Now we're starting to see that leapfrog of tech already. Musk hasn't even got his 46850 cell. 46850, I think it is. He hasn't even got that cell online yet. They're they're not they don't build their batteries. They buy them. Mhmm. And so, you know, he's taken a long time to get that solar into production. In the meantime Yeah. We're seeing other companies like CATL leapfrogging ahead and doing it at scale. So we're gonna see this same leapfrogging of tech where it'll drive price down, it'll drive margin up, it'll drive performance through the roof, and and, you know, it's gonna get fascinating. The the other thing I wanna just question you guys on is how do you feel about battery rebates? The, Queensland battery rebate, application is going to close within days. By the time this comes to air, it'll be finished. What's your thoughts on battery rebates? My thoughts are it should be a national scheme, and it's been floated to have a similar scheme to, the STCs. So the RET, I think, having a similar scheme to that rather than piecemeal, state by state would make a lot of sense. We know that we need batteries on the grid. The DNSPs are coming to more sophisticated requirements solar they can, you know, choke things as they need to. They can call on it as they need to. So the technology is there to implement the batteries and to augment the grid and to make sure we've got the lights onfor years to come. So it would make sense to have a scheme maybe to 2040. And I'm not sure how they do it by size of battery or how the rebate would work. But the feedback I got from Wayne Smith at the SEC is that the RET would be the just, vehicle for it because it's been there for a long time. It doesn't have to go back to a vote in Parliament. They can modify the existing legislation, bring in a battery scheme, whatever they do with the solar panels and STCs, whether they continue it, extend it or get rid of it, to have use that existing legislation, change it to accommodate batteries. Then we've got a national scheme that the consumer wins. Yeah, we continue you know, increasing the demand so the price scales down. But, also, we do keep the lights on, to use that crude phrase. But I think, you know, small modular reactors is gonna get us there. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, I just got back from North America, and the number of EVs on the road blew my mind. Another were talking on the radio about how how compounded the problem is in California with energy because so many EVs, like, they've literally put the electric cart before the horse. They are having massive problems. We have to add batteries to this grid because, like we were talking about earlier, once you drive an EV, it's tough to go backwards. Yeah. And they're becoming way more affordable too. Yep. Like, what was that dolphin that we were talking about the other oh, the seagull. The seagull in China was actually equivalent of that, 10,000 AUD equivalent in China. Wow. It's nuts. I was in China 2 weeks ago. We're in Shenzhen, and they said that Shenzhen is very, you know, technology based. Oh, yeah. It's a hub for manufacturing. And I was told that 70% of new vehicles are EVs. And you see them everywhere. There's a whole bunch of brands you've never heard of in Australia. You do see some Teslas, but they pile into comparison to BYD, Neo, and a whole bunch of brands I've never heard of, but they look awesome. Everyone's driving them. The infrastructure is there. So you drive past and you just have, you know, a 100 fast chargers just over there in a parking lot near a service station. So wild hay. So they're miles ahead of where we are. You know, cart before the horse. I mean, what's the answer? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Who knows? Well, when I when I flew out of LA to Vancouver, and you you know, yeah, you're almost over the I5. So you've got all the coast on the left, and then you've just got nothingness off to the right. The amount of solar farms was mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah. It was I was like, what is that all down there? That's all it was. Yep. Solar farms. So they're I know they're trying record in California, in fact, for PV penetration in the grid. There was a record. I can't remember what it was. But and also for the amount of storage that they've got because they they had a huge storage Yep. Incentive as well. Back to your question, you know? Yeah. You look you look at what they've achieved in California now through a rebate program, through an incentive program that started in 2017 or earlier, I think. And if it's if it's done well and it's tied to the reduction in cost of the goods so that, you know, you know, you're a lot just like the STC scheme is, it declines over time. It allows for natural cost reductions. It's self adjusting. You know, catch It's self adjusting. You know, then really the only challenge you've got with a rebate is you gotta deal with the sharks that are gone circling for the blood. Yeah. And you have to have, you have to have a really, really well considered regulatory regime around it that can drive solutions. And we we've talked about what they achieved in Victoria. Mhmm. I mean, what Solar Victoria, they they transform my transformed the solar industry in Victoria with a rebate program program that was backed by regulatory change that they felt was needed to keep people safer and Mhmm. And and everything else. And I I so I think if it's done well Yeah. Solar being the best example out there, it it can absolutely and I'm with you. It should be federal. Was that an interest free loan or, like, a lump sum payment? In California, it was, it was the ITC. It was income tax credits. Sure. Yeah. So that's a way to do it without pulling capital out of the out of the federal budget. Right? Yeah. Instead you you build it into tax credits, which I know Grimesy's been talking about as as being a popular mechanism that's being discussed down in Canberra as well. Particularly for the, yeah, production tax credits for the whole manufacturing. I mean, that's the framework of solar sunshot. That's right. Yeah. It it makes sense. I know with the Queensland battery booster, the rebate was designed to be targeted towards low income earners to try and get low income earners access to batteries that they otherwise could afford couldn't afford. To get the full$4,000 rebate, you had to have a combined household income of less than$60,000. Yeah. So it's like, okay. I earn less than 60,000 a year. Battery system's going to cost $20,000, but, hey, I'm going to get $4,000 off. Still, that's a lot of money for someone earning $60,000 a year to front up for a battery. So what did we see? We saw a lot of, cheap, no name, poor quality battery installs going going in. It's probably gonna cause us headaches down the track. Yeah. It will be really interesting to see. I the the Queensland scheme looked a bit odd to me. Mhmm. Let's hope it pans out. Let's hope they've got I mean, I know they were hunting for, auditors. Yeah. I haven't seen an announcement. Has there been an announcement about who's doing the auditing now? I I haven't seen that, and I haven't checked it recently. But on the Queensland Battery Booster website, there's a list of approved installers and a list of non approved installers. I haven't checked that page. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Not not non approved. Just Sorry. Removed installers. Oh, really? I I haven't checked it, but I would hate to be an installer who ends up on that list because Oh, interesting. You know, like, with with the way SEO works is someone will search for a company and see that they've the only installer on the removed installers list. Interestingly, Solar Victoria had the same requirement. There's a whole bunch of things that would disqualify a company from participating Yeah. Including, I think it was something to do with Worksafe. If they're being prosecuted to a certain level, then they weren't eligible and a whole bunch of other things. Yeah. So it could bring improvement if they do it right. If not, the Sharks will at power. Yeah. I mean, we've covered a few really cool topics and interesting about what kind of my last segue and topic I wanna talk about, and that is for those listening, mainly installers listening out there. And, you know, what what can they what can we tell them now that that they're not seeing? Like, what do you what do you see as the biggest challenge for the solar installers of Australia for in the next couple years? Like, what should they be skilling up on now for tomorrow, or what should they be looking out for? Like, what are the warning signs? I suppose I would harp on something that we talk about a lot on our podcast, and it's more about, you know, business longevity. And as part of that, diversification is big and broadening broadening the scope of products that you consider and solutions that you consider. So Right. We started saying, you know, solar and batteries and then EV chargers are now in the mix and hot water. So heat pumps or diverters or basically looking out to see where are the tides going. So interestingly, just on the EVs, I found out yesterday that New Zealand's been running a trial for, I think, 2 years for EVs feed into the grid. So it was knocked in. I think it was 500 sites. And this is this is anecdotally. I haven't chased up and read up on it yet, But looking at that where, you know, it would make sense. So it's not just home batteries. We're going to get more and more EVs. And if someone sets how how much charge they need for a day and how many kilometres, well, then they can leave the rest available for the DNSP when they're plugged in, whether it's night or day. So it's it's Horizon Horizon Power just announced a trial like that too. Oh, they have? Yeah. Yeah. They make sense. One small one of those little isolated grid towns up north. Yeah. I can't bear who it was, but they they wanna do a a V2G trial up there as well. So it's just one example of keeping your finger on the pulse of other things you can add into your business, take the diversification. So if you get downturns, if you get rapid changes in regulation, which might impact on your business operations, then, you know, you've got other things you can be doing in the meantime. Yeah. We we talked about it before about the premium panel market. You know, how, like, there's been such a, you know, we've seen LG go. We've seen q cells. We there was announcement about SunPower laying off people, and we you know, that may not be the Maxion or what have you, but, you know, just I would be so nervous being an installer, and you put all your eggs in this basket of this, you know, great premium panel, there's been a lot of movement in that in that space. My my biggest concern over the next couple of years is that it's a very more so than ever, very price driven market. And I don't know whether that's due to cost of living pressures, but it's far worse than it's ever been. And a big problem that we're seeing, and I know, Nigel, you get heavily involved in this, is when things go wrong, installers and retailers aren't leaving enough fat in their solar price to actually cover problems when they arise. Now as systems get more complex and we're talking about the merging of catch and solar analytics, whether it be optional third party devices or or mandatory devices. In Queensland, you could have a a GSD requirement. You could have an EV charger that's talking to your inverter that's also dynamically being ramped with an export limit. All of these things where if one thing goes wrong and it requires a trip back to site, whether it's a product failure, a software issue, just leaving enough fat in it. And and it's very easy to point the finger at a manufacturer and say, hey. You need to pay me $300 for my trip to site. Yeah. It Yeah. It's a it's a topic that I've I've dealt with for for decades, actually, about that keeping that balance right between, you know, manufacturers meeting their obligations and and and installers having done enough training and understanding how to design and commission and and get everything right at their end as well. And there's a balance between the 2 that needs to be right. But one one thing, and this is the exciting part about the the the merger between Solar Analytics and and Catch, is we're seeing this every single day. Mhmm. Because as systems get more complicated, you you you've got wholesale trading available now out of batteries with companies like Amber. Right? So let's think about the the future for a solar installer. They're gonna have a battery that's being managed by someone charged and discharged. You've got an EV there that's being charged and potentially discharged. You've got hot water that's being timed or or diverted to handle excess solar. Then you've got the solar that's doing its thing, and then you've got regulations. So I need a dynamic limit on this site for the next hour, or I need a backstop to trigger for an hour, or I need to limit the EV charge because there's a regulation requirement. So the orchestration of that is inevitable. Yeah. Right? It is absolutely inevitable. And and the interesting part of the equation, and and I only learned this recently, it's one of the very cool things that catch control can do. In a lot of the flexible, and dynamic control scenarios, you are only allowed to have one connection point to a home. So if you put a Fronius inverter on that home, and then down the track, you add a Sungrow battery or, you know, a a a Sungrow inverter, you now can't dynamically control them. Mhmm. Because you're only allowed to be connected to Fronius if you've gone through the Fronius connection for flexible export control. So now you need a device or some method that allows a single point of connection, but to control multiple devices in the home. Right? And that is absolutely inevitable. You know, we we see the stats all the time about the increase in from memory as we're, like, 300,000 systems a year, resi each year roughly. And I think if I recall correctly, it was like a 100,000 of those are upgrades. Right? Solar they're either adding on or they're ripping off an old system. But the ideal scenario is don't rip that old system off. Let's find a way to keep that asset working for you. Add another system. Expand. Get that battery on. Get that EV plugged in, but I need it to be orchestrated. And it's not gonna happen. There are systems being knocked back every day because they're not being or they're not able to be orchestrated. And so whether it's for the demands on the network or whether it's for the demands from AEMO for centralized generation control or another it's just a consumer who wants the thing to operate properly. That's that's where we're heading. That's where we're going rapidly. I I suppose another way around that or or a way to reduce the risk is maybe just to consider, monitoring the products that you offer, streamlining it, maybe pushing one brand, sticking with their infrastructure, learning it well. There is a lot of noise, and I know that support from, especially, inverter manufacturers hasn't been great. It it it has improved a lot. I suppose as products have, gotten more complicated, the amount of phone calls has increased. But some of the quietest people are the ones who pick a brand and stick with it. You install it every day. You learn what goes wrong. You know how to resolve it. You very rarely have to get on the phone. So people perhaps need to stop trying to be order takers and trying to be everything to everyone and be the energy professional and sell them a a suite that they know works and is reliable. Hear. Hear. Good point. That is great point. We I mean, we're talking about core business about Yep. You know, SunPower and everything like that. I mean, recently, Supply Partners has done the same thing. You know, bringing bringing somebody to help you work on your core business and simplify it. Mhmm. You know? You guys have a big range to service. Right? I mean, as a as a whole, so I don't know what to do. Our catalog's about a 100 pages long, and we try to know about everything as best that we can. In the moment we don't, you you you get a serve. If if you put yourself on a if you put yourself on a pedestal and and try to be better than the rest, then people will hold you accountable. And I know you've mentioned this when you're talking to PowerPlus Australian manufacturers. If if if you set yourself apart from the rest, you need to be prepared to take the punches. And you you know that there as well that if you have a good relationship with a wholesaler or a couple of wholesalers, then they buffer a lot of the issues that happen with manufacturers they communicate it to. That's right. If you're shopping around based on, you know,$20 cheaper there and jumping over town, apart from the fact it's a false economy because it costs you money to do so, that means that if you're dealing with Andrew or Wade or whoever else, they'll be out there to help you. They'll communicate beforehand the things you need to know. And in the event that a manufacturer pulls out of the market, they're going to understand what's going on. They're going to support you in that way. Now, on that note, we did or you did mention LG and you did mention Q Cells. They're still warranting their products. Yeah. So it also shows that if you're dealing with reputable companies, I would tell you that if we go out to the warehouse there in 10 years time, not every brand will be market or it's highly likely that there's going to be a couple drop off. But if it's a reputable company, you're still going to be warranted and your customers will be warranted. If you're dealing with a reputable wholesaler, they're gonna be there to support you. So there's a case to be made of having close relationships. Yes. Keeping the narrow range of products and manufacturers that you deal with to understand and, you know, single fleets, but also the import solar is very important to have a good relationship with them rather than to shop everything around. Because that extra $20 you spend, it might be worth tech support from AT. It might be worth them giving you the heads up before something happens in the market that's going to impact on your business. Absolutely. Well, I think that's probably a good place to stop. I never thought I'd advertise for supply partners Nigel, would you like to say something about us? Oh, you guys have been fantastic. Well, we have had a very long beautiful relationship with Solar Analytics, and I look forward to this new merger with with Catch, man. This is great. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean and and, yeah, ditto. And, you know, Andrew and I often talk about this emerging space of of the need for gateways and and orchestration. And and it's actually the funnest part about, you know, when you're trying to deliver energy for for energy solutions for someone, what you're really trying to do is get them a nil bill. Mhmm. That's what everyone wants. Yeah. Yeah. They want they want a fast car, They want a nil bill, and they want life to just be simple. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. And we talk about how do we find the technology and the software to make that happen? And, yes, the just part. Yeah. Something extremely complex. Very simple. That's right. Yeah. And and I suppose just to wrap it up, can can you tell us, did you end up going with the cheaper nuclear tomato or the more expensive Well, I took the other option. I took the nuclear one. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I wanna thank you guys both for being here. It's so great. I love collaborating with you, and I appreciate you both for everything you do, both for the industry within your own within your own, businesses and also, with your podcast. It's great. I listen to it all the time. So thank you for being here. Ditto. Ditto. And I I know I'll just for the audience's sake, I'll say I did actually ring you the other day, Wade, and say I was driving through the countryside in Victoria listening to your podcast, and I rang you and had to tell you what a great episode it was. You brought me into tears. Yeah. He's I really appreciate it. I was just Spotify wrapped this year should have Solar Coaster number 1 instead of our 1. Yeah. So he's a he says, oh, turn it for quality control, but he said that his number one podcast was our 1. So, I mean See? I knew I'd get him to to plug us near the end. Alright. Thanks, boys. Thanks, man. Good on you. Right.