Brian Sadler, VP of Solaris Renewables, talks about using local solar installers, and the difference that can make when it comes to permitting, design, installation, and follow-up repairs and maintenance on solar systems.
John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher. I’m here today with Brian Sadler, vice President at Solaris Renewables, a solar company in Massachusetts providing premium solar and storage technologies with exceptional customer service; and designing, installing and servicing solar systems in Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire and Maine. Today our topic is “Using Local Solar Installers – What’s the difference?” Welcome, Brian.
Brian Sadler: Hi John. Thanks for having me on.
How Does Using a Local Solar Installer Help with Permitting and Regulations?
John: Yeah, sure. So Brian, a lot of national solar companies are operating all around the country, but how does using a local installer here in Massachusetts benefit me in terms of maybe understanding local regulations or permitting processes, or what are the reasons why you might want to choose a local installer?
Brian: That’s a great question and something that we do talk about quite a bit. Our industry’s relatively emerging in the grand scheme of things. The automobile business, for instance, has been doing this for a hundred years, where the solar business the application to residential or commercial installations on buildings and fields and such is relatively new. And now, although we’ve been doing it for a long time, and there’s been a lot of other companies doing it for a long time, and it’s accelerated quickly, and there’s a lot of nuance to it, I would say it’s not like each customer has purchased solar every year or several times. It’s usually their first time. So being a local company, we’re really entrenched into what the local regulations are in terms of utility, the various types of utilities, their regulations and protocols, as well as permitting, the individual inspectors, a lot of those pieces as well as the local incentives.
And that really drives some of the decisions we need to make in terms of the design and how best to meet code for this national electric code. But then there’s also a Massachusetts code and then inside of that there’s also regulations specific to the utility as well. And then inspectors just have their own flavor, sometimes, and they like certain things and don’t like others. And a lot of times we know that because we’re used to working in those different towns and cities and know the individual inspectors as well. But I’d say it’s really a benefit to get…these are customized projects to the customer site, and knowing the ins and outs of that landscape here locally is important, to check all the boxes and for the customer to get the solution that they’re looking for.
Better Quality Workmanship & Customer Service with a Local Solar Installer
John: Right. Do you think that a customer can get better quality workmanship and ongoing maintenance as well if they’re choosing a local installer?
Brian: I do. For us, for instance, when you call, it’s going to be a team member that…we’re all in the same office together and I know them by name and we all work together on a daily basis. They generally know the customer’s project, the customer’s name. There’s usually a familiarity there as opposed to an international or national call center where it’s occupied by various employees that just taking phone calls and routing them. And so I think you’re going to get a lot more personalized attention and solution troubleshooting and whatnot. So I think it is a huge difference in the customer experience and the quality of service and customer support you’re going to get. Because if our person on the phone can’t resolve it, they’re going to escalate it right away. It’s not like we’ll call you back. It’s usually right on the spot. It’s routed to the appropriate department. If there is something we need to look into, we’ll call back, but also the customer knows where we are, has all of our personal emails and phone numbers. So I think it’s a much different experience for the customer and much more direct customer service as well.
Supporting the Community and the Clean Energy Sector in Massachusetts
John: Right. A lot of people, too, are interested in supporting local businesses whenever possible. Do you feel like choosing a local solar installer can help contribute to the community and to the clean energy sector here in Massachusetts?
Brian: I do. And I feel like that’s something that we talk about a lot too. We really talk about those differentiators of being local, but we employ 50 employees or so. It ebbs and flows slightly, but it’s generally around that number. So because customers are choosing a local company, they are choosing for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine residences in our case, to have gainful employment in the clean energy sector and make the industry and those individuals feel fulfilled and have a great avenue for work that they believe in and can stand behind. So I do feel like it keeps a lot of the benefit in state. Similarly, we try to partner with as many local manufacturing and finance partners as we can, which again employs more folks locally and keeps the benefit in state. Like for instance, there’s third party ownership options, which has been prevalent.
It did help accelerate our industry in general with the tax credits and other local incentives coming online in the early two thousands. And that takes a lot of that benefit in terms of that financial choice and brings it out of state so that individual not getting the tax credit or local incentives and sending it to a company that is in New Jersey or Utah or California, that’s pulling a lot of that monetary benefit out of the state as opposed to other financial mechanisms that keep the benefit aid directly with the customer, which then is in state and giving them more access to the next level of consumer behavior that they choose to have. But nevertheless, keeping as much of it as local as we can provides layers and layers of benefit to the local economy.
A Local Solar Installater and the Design Process
John: Can you elaborate a little bit more on how a local solar installer can help me to design a solar system for my home that meets my specific needs as compared to a national company that maybe has a more standardized approach?
Brian: That’s a great question. There was a company, recently, that transferred all of their design to basically a menu choice online, a big national installer. So basically you buy them in a kit by the kilowatt and it’s like 4, 8 or 12 kilowatt, and that’s extremely cookie cutter. And then we also over the years have heard a lot of the other national installers, they want a very simplified site and solution for them to be able to install. So for them to be able to hit their goals of profitability and for ease of install and things like that. And so I think there’s a big benefit for the local installer model that we’re able to not only understand the regulations, certain setbacks, the code, local code and things like that. And not to mention individual inspector’s flavor or interest, but we know that nuance and we’re more willing to do the harder things. So we’re more willing to go into attics and crawl spaces to spend a little bit more time on site and give the customer the aesthetic and the performance that they’re looking for by a more quality and thought-out design, and then executing that due to knowing what the local landscape is.
Maintenance and Service with a Local Solar Installer
John: And then finally, does having a local installer ensure that I have a reliable partner when it comes to maybe future maintenance or service needs that might crop up after a solar installation?
Brian: Sure. I mean, we certainly aim to make these maintenance and service free, but there are things that do happen over the course of time, and these are long-term solutions. So we’re talking 25 plus years that the warranties are good for. We anticipate the system lasting for 40 plus years, but there’s a lot of extreme weather here in New England for one thing. But electronics is probably the most apt to fail if there were something to fail. And then also ownership changes or customers change their internet provider, their equipment, things like that. So those things are little hiccups along the way that we’re really well suited to handle being local. So all of our customers know they can pick up the phone and call us anytime. They can come into our office if they so choose, but we’re all readily accessible to support our customers.
And I think it’s a big difference [compared to] calling an international call center that is someone that, aside all of the potential language barriers or other challenges, you’re not getting a personalized approach. And customers get frustrated with that. So if they even think that their system is not operating correctly, they’re going to get routed all over the world on kind of a wild goose chase to discover that they still probably don’t have a solution to that necessarily.
It’s a much more personalized approach. Again, calling right here to our office, speaking to a human, not an automated call center and things like that. And then again, our team knows this customer, knows their project, has everything about their project at their fingertips, and we try to remotely troubleshoot it right away or answer their question or get whatever resolution that they’re looking for. Sometimes it’s just a paid-in-full receipt, things like this so they can file their taxes.
So we’re equipped to do that on the spot, and then again, if our first line can’t take care of them they’ll expedite to the next level, but we always make sure they get those things taken care of right away. And if it requires an onsite visit, again, it’s our team doing it. So it’s our team scheduling our team to go onsite. So I would say the experience is much different and we really aim to make a fully turnkey project where the customer really need not do much throughout the project portion of the process.
Then once it’s installed and it’s energized, we want to be a set-it-and-forget-it. And we find, over time, customers almost forget they have solar, right? When early on they’re checking in on their app all the time, they’re excited, they’re learning how it works, but after they understand how it works and they’re reducing or eliminating their electric bills, incentive payments are flowing in, all these things start to happen. They start to pull back and they almost forget they had solar and then something comes up and they call us and we’re right there for them and make sure we handle it in a professional and quick fashion. And I think that’s because we’re local and we’re all a team working on the project together.
John: And like you said, that the chances are pretty high that maybe they’re calling and they’re talking to the same person that they talked to when they called to get their system installed, or the same person who installed their system is going back out to check on it and make sure that it’s working properly, or something like that, because you have a good team of people.
Brian: So a lot of our customer care team, we’re the ones that made the phone call to show them how to energize a system, get them their solar kit with all their information, and kind of wrap it up. And then our project developers, our sales reps, our reps are with the customer throughout the consulting process, their entire project and thereafter. And so all of our customers know they can always call their project developer, but we also have the customer support team, and then we have management and our operation team, which like you said, it could be that a service tech that could be going on site is maybe someone that had already installed it, was there, remembers the site itself. So that is a huge benefit that we have been through with them throughout the entire process. We have all the information here and we’re able to rely on that to get answers or execute any issues that the customer may have.
John: Alright, well, that’s really great information, Brian. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Brian: Thank you, John. I appreciate it.
John: And for more information, you can visit the website at solarisrenewables.com or call 781-270-6555.