Transcript of Matt Hilton’s speech at Solar and Storage Live 2024 at the NEC in Birmingham. Speech given on 26th September 2024 at 12.50hrs on the Everything Installer (Residential Scale) stage. “All power to you! Plugging homeowners into low-cost energy”

This speech is really a call-to-arms for the industry, a statement of intent for Brimstone Energy and our vision for the future.

26th September @ 12:50. Everything Installer (Residential Scale)

The slides can be accessed here:

[SLIDE]

Good afternoon, my name is Matt Hilton, Founder and Director of Brimstone Energy. We are a UK start up whose mission is to guide homeowners and business owners through the green energy transition.

Most of our clients who ask for an energy ecosystem are self-confessed geeks. They all learn a tremendous amount about low-temperature heating or battery storage before engaging with us.

Universally they say that the journey to decarbonisation isn’t easy, and requires many hours watching YouTube, reading blogs, or trawling websites.

So we know that if this industry is to have a meaningful impact and to bring low carbon technology to the mass market, then we must have a relentless focus on the customer experience. We must make the process of assessment, education, implementation and aftercare as frictionless as possible.

But when we discuss green energy projects with potential clients, the message that we hear back is that most folk are overwhelmed.

And I don’t blame them.

[SLIDE]

A customer new to the solar and storage market walking around this exhibition hall is highly likely to be overwhelmed.

[SLIDE]

If you take a walk around the NEC today – where do you start? There is probably one brand name that customers will have heard of, but mainly for their cars. There will be some other big brands that are stocked at some of the major wholesalers. Midsummer are currently stocking about 8 brands of inverter. But if we look around this exhibition hall, we can see dozens of brands, from all over the world.

To the consumer looking into green energy for the first time, the information landscape is complex.

There are very many options available to them. Solar, battery, electric heating, insulation, ventilation.

Most of the products will refer to a couple of key statistics.

Watts per panel. kWh of storage.

But to customers, who will likely only ever buy solar panels once in their life, how do they differentiate between panels?

If the customer starts to google “solar panels near me” they’ll be bombarded with adverts. If they then log into Facebook, they’ll suddenly see a whole host of spammy looking blokes talking about Solar. Lots of these adverts seem to imply that by filling in an online form with their contact details, they can get free solar panels. This sounds disingenuous at best, illegal at worst.

[SLIDE]

With electric heating, the information landscape is even more confusing. For years major national newspapers have been pedalling misinformation about heat pumps, questioning whether they really work in Britain.

But this national conversation about heat pumps is crowding out other competing electric heating options. We used to have these things called storage heaters – are they still a thing?  The subsidy regime is threatening – as usual – to skew the market, making it really hard for firms like Tepeo to gain traction.

So what to do about this?

[SLIDE]

At Brimstone Energy we are pioneering an approach we are calling the Brimstone Eco – System.

At its heart this is an education led approach, in which the customer is empowered to make decisions which are suitable for them and their home.

We know that customers want to understand what their options are.

They are seeking out expert opinion. However, the chances are, if they ask the engineer servicing their gas boiler what kind of replacement heating system they should get, the answer will look a lot like a Combi Boiler.

So where do they go for in-person advice? Impartial, whole of market advice. Not tied to a particular technology nor locked into one brand.

Brimstone Energy is seeking to provide that answer with the Brimstone Eco – System.

The customer will be offered a detailed home assessment, using a mix of technological solutions and in-person assessments. Whilst we feel that there is a lot of benefit to remote surveys, including those where a lot of the data is captured by the customer themselves, fundamentally we feel that if a customer is to spend thousands of pounds on a home upgrade, there is no substitute for in-person assessments.

And this isn’t necessarily because the quality of the data captured is better.

At its heart it is the recognition that the customer needs to be listened to. They need their questions answered. They need their mind putting at ease.

Communication lies at the heart of everything we do.

We need to convert sceptical members of the public into advocates for the Green Energy Transition. More than advocates. To eulogise

[SLIDE]

I went to a marketing workshop last week, and we built a case study in which we defined features and benefits.

Features and benefits. I am sure some of you in the audience will have done something similar.

Now when we think of the narrative around the Green Energy Transition, and the associated technology, it seems to me that the communication of the industry isn’t ideal.

For instance, we talk at length about the features of the equipment. How many watts per panel, or the size of the solar array in kWp.

But how often do we really explain to the customers that these bumper sticker values are not actually representative of their actual performance ?

[SLIDE]

So now I am going to ask for a show of hands.

Please simply raise your hand if you if you can confidently explain the difference between STC & NOCT?

And now a second question. Be brave. This is a safe space. We are not judging anyone here.

Please raise your hand if you have no idea what NOCT is, let alone what it stands for.

[SLIDE]

OK, so:

STC stands for Standard Test Conditions.

NOCT stands for Nominal Operating Cell Temperature.

When solar panels were invented, the industry needed to create a set of test conditions at which solar power output is measured. STC was proposed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1993.

STC means that we measure solar panel output at Standard Test Conditions, which are:

• Solar irradiance of 1,000 W/m2
• Cell temperature of 25°C
• Air mass coefficient of 1.5

NOCT gives you a more practical insight into how much electricity a solar panel actually produces. The test doesn’t presume peak sunlight but does presume higher air temperature and wind.

• Irradiance: 800 W/m2.
• Air temperature: 20°C Note that that this is a completely different temperature that is being measured. While STC measures the temperature of the PV cell, NOCT measures the outdoor air temperature.
• Wind speed: 1 m/s
• Air mass: 1.5. This is the same for NOCT and STC; no difference here.

To confuse things further, there is a third key test called the NMOT: Nominal Module Operating Temperature.

I don’t know about you, but prior to getting into this industry, I had never used a solar irradiance meter. I had no feel for what these measurements might mean in practical terms.

Now we are at Solar and Storage, the UK’s largest exhibition in this sector. It might have been reasonable to expect that we’d get 100% of people in this audience who knew exactly what NOCT stood for.

And I certainly expect that there are some people in this audience who have PhD level knowledge about the relative merits of STC versus NOCT versus NMOT.

But we cannot expect Mrs Miggins down the road to have this level of knowledge.

Nor should she need it.

[SLIDE]

I installed one additional Solar Panel on my roof this week, with an Enphase micro-inverter to convert the Direct Current into Alternating Current and feed it into my existing set up.

I had a spare bit of roof. As you do. It faces East South East. Only big enough for one Solar Panel. I wanted to put a panel on that spot, to catch the morning sun. I chose a Eurener Panel with a 30 Year Warranty through Midsummer!

Now this panel has a bumper sticker of 500W. To be clear, that is a STC value of 500W.

Would anyone like to guess what the NOCT rating of this panel is?

[SLIDE]

It’s NOCT rating is 376W.

So we have this headline figure of 500W STC. A nice round number. Exactly double what panels made 10 years ago were achieving.

But this kind of random number – 376W – for the NOCT rating.

I don’t want to get into a deep debate over the relative merits of STC versus NOCT, but I would simply point out that for the consumer, these various statistics are confusing.

To quote Midsummer directly: “NOCT values tend to be lower and so are not used for sizing.”

So what we effectively have is an entire industry that is anchored around arguably misleading information.

The bumper sticker – whether that is the rating of the individual panel or the nominal kWp of the array – is not reflective of what the customer will receive.

[SLIDE]

The MCS Scheme requires that solar contractors issue data to customers in a particular format.

You’ll probably be familiar with this table.

So, time for a bit more audience participation.

Again, just a simple show of hands is all I’m after:

• Who thinks they can confidently give a definition of kWp?

• How many of you can explain what shade factor is and how is it calculated?

• Who knows how to derive a kk number?

[SLIDE]

Broadly speaking, this information does allow customers to compare one system to another. From the customer’s perspective, bigger is better.

But when we consider the human interaction here, the human dynamics, I fervently believe we are creating problems for ourselves.

Mis-selling scandals occur because there is a misalignment in knowledge.

The sales person has all the knowledge, and the customer has much less knowledge.

And as a result, there is also a critical mis-alignment in the power dynamic between the customer and the sales person.

We’ve all seen it or experienced it.

The sales person introduces a whole load of terminology that is not familiar to the customer.

Words, phrases and data are peppered into the conversation, and the customer is immediately on the back foot.

We’ve probably all been there. You’ve done a bit of research, or watched a few YouTube videos, and think you know enough to make a decision. But during that critical conversation with the sales person, you suddenly realise you haven’t got a clue. Your heart starts racing. Hands go clammy. Your brain doesn’t know what to do – panic sets in.

Rash decisions get made.

[SLIDE]

If we take a step back for a moment, we must ask ourselves – why does this industry use confusing data?

When you buy an oven, you expect it to be able to keep a steady 180 degrees whilst you roast a chicken. My TV screen has a certain number of pixels per inch. Even my Egyptian cotton bedding has a certain thread count. There isn’t an Asterix which notes in the small print that actually the Thread count is lower on single beds than king sized beds.

[SLIDE]

You see, I am not from a technical background. I am a Social Scientist who became an Army Intelligence Officer [and yes – I’ve heard all the Team America derived Jokes].

But what I know is how to spot when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

I can step back from the minutiae of the STC versus NOCT or NMOT conversation, and I simply ask this:

[SLIDE]

If we here today, really truly believe that the ecology of the UK is in crisis. If we go for a walk in the pasture fields and notice that there just aren’t that many flies landing on the cow dung. If we wash our car and wonder why there aren’t many squashed insects on the headlights. If we wonder what happened to all the Swallows and House Martins that used to nest in our streets 30 years ago.

If we simply believe that we need to tread more lightly on the planet. And that despite Elon’s best efforts, this planet is all we have.

Then mustn’t we try to give the public clear, unambiguous information? Mustn’t we have the highest standards of integrity? Mustn’t we show beyond all doubt that this technology can deliver?

[SLIDE]

So how will we try to avoid this outcome? What separates us from others who use some combination of pushy sales tactics, jargon filled language or misleading data.

It comes back to company values. Why are we in business in the first place?

As the founder, I have brought with me the values and the standards of the British Army where I spent almost 2 decades. When I created Brimstone Energy, almost the first action I took was to define our company values: Trust, Integrity and Quality. Everything we do flows from these values.

Having had our MCS Assessment last week, as I said to our assessor – all of the patchwork of three letter acronym organisations, the accreditation through MCS itself (which in our case was in practice delivered by the NICEIC) and the membership of the HIES Consumer Code – is simply there to reiterate what for us comes instinctively. Trust, Integrity, Quality.

And so returning to the Brimstone Eco -System, the reason we feel this is necessary, is that de-carbonising a home is a major effort. For the homeowner, it is a significant investment of time, money and emotion. The work might be done piece meal, as time and money allows, but it all needs to adhere to some form of master plan. We’ll create this master plan, a de-carbonisation road map.

Heating, Hot Water, Batteries, Solar, Insulation, Ventilation. If action is taken to address one of these elements without giving sensible consideration of “what’s next”, you’ll inevitably compromise your ability to make decisions in the future. 

Most people instinctively want to do the right thing. They want to take action. But what puts them off, more than anything else, is fear. Getting quotes, doing research, making decisions, putting your faith in people. It’s scary. There are so many horror stories out there.

So we want to develop really deep relationships with our customers. Relationships that start by us listening to the customer, understanding their motivations, answering their questions. Relationships that extend over a period of years, in which we not only seek to solve their immediate needs, but set them up for ongoing success in their decarbonisation efforts.

Our message is clear. Unambiguous.

Modern technology will reduce the running costs of your home. But only if it is well installed, and considered as part of a wider eco-system.

Brimstone Energy empower our customers, provide them with good quality information and professional advice.

[SLIDE]

As Jordan from Artisan Electrics says in his recent YouTube video, where he was auditing the shoddy workmanship delivered by the Local Authority endorsed Solar Together scheme,

“be the change”

[SLIDE]

Brimstone Energy is part of that change.

Thank you for your time.