John Harman: Lightforce Solar owner reveals why the solar power business is hard in New Zealand

One expert has offered a theory about why SolarZero met the end that it did.

The Kiwi-founded solar and battery firm was placed into liquidation - costing over 160 employees their jobs.

Lightforce Solar owner John Harman says SolarZero offered an 'amazing' deal for consumers - but economic factors have created additional trouble for the sector. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
The owner of a solar panel business is weighed in
on why he thinks Solar zero has failed. So Solo
zero was a solar panel subscription service that was unexpectedly
put into liquidation by its one hundred percent yearholder, Black
Rock last week. John Harmon is the owner of light
Force Solar anders with us this evening.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hi, John, Good afternoon Jack.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Were you surprised by the Solar zero announcement?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I was absolutely stunned. Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
Why Well, they had such a huge pool of money
behind them, and you know, they had a pretty awesome
proposition that you could put solar panels on your roof.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
At no charge, So it was amazing. I was astonished.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, I mean it does from a consumer perspective, putting
solar panels on your roof and no charge does sound
pretty good. But I suppose from a business perspective that
there might come with a few more fishhooks. So explain
to us why did Solder zero close down?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, I mean the thing is, we're at the end
of the supply chain from China, A lot of the
batteries and the technology that we installed five to ten
years ago are our pasts. They are used by data
need replacing. So that's the first thing. And the second
thing is that you know the contract was for twenty

(01:39):
five years and most people buy and sell their house
within seven to ten years, and that contract had to
be transferred to the new owner, so that that caused
a problem. I mean, for instance, the final thing is
that the price of panels and the qualities come down,
so you can put twenty thousand dollars worth of panels

(01:59):
on your house and that adds thirty thousand dollars worth
of value to you when you sell it.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
So all of those.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Factors I think played into the demise of black Rock.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
So explain that point to us. So you can put
twenty thousand dollars worth of panels on your roof and
that increases your house value by more. Explain that to us.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
So that's that comes from Sydney, Australia.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
The fact that you've got independent energy source and these
panels last for thirty years increases the value of your house.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
So you increase the value of your house.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
You probably produce about twenty five to thirty percent of
your power off the roof for the next thirty years.
And if you move things around and sort of plug
in your EV during the sunny day, you get free
juice to run your car. So there's a lot of
positives about being independent and owning your own owning your
own sort of generation source.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, it's the capital cost that's often
the challenge for people, right. But I suppose if you're
putting panels at a capital cost of twenty grand on
your roof and you're going to be saving on power
to the tune of ten grand in the future, more
than it does make sense. So how's your business going, John,
how's light fource Solo going at the moment?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Well, we can't keep up with demand.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I mean, the people are aware that power prices are
going up. They're aware now that they need resilience and independence.
So we've got a three month waiting list to do
an installation. We're in about seven places around New Zealand,
major centers, so we can't keep up with Demandah. Yeah,

(03:36):
I mean it's really reached the tipping point where the
price of power, the price of panels, and the feeling
that Kevis want, which is to be independent of the
big boys. All of that's quite a moving feast and
it's really the tipping point for us.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So do you think that Solar Zero, because of its
kind of unique structure, was an outlier and that other
solar providers in New Zealand have more robust businesses even
in these trying economic times.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Absolutely. You just have to right size your business. And
we don't have a legacy of old customers requiring upgrades.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
And stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
So you know, if we do any upgrades with people,
they say I start off with ten panels, but now
I want another ten or they say I want ten
pounds in a battery because I trust that it really works.
So you know, that's a different model to least to own.
And we're quite a small population in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
And.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
You know people want to go with you know, they
often buy local and they want to buy locally owned.
We're a New Zealand owned company that they almost all
of my installation guys have been with me ten years.
They're real experts. And it's not one size fits all.
You know, each roof is different, each budget is different,

(04:55):
so you have to you have to you have to
make sure that you're meeting people's expectations and meeting the budget.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that makes total sense. You know,
it's fascinating to look at what Australia is done on
the solar front. And obviously there are different climatic conditions
in Australia or though I suppose a city like Melbourne
would be relatively comparable, relatively comparable to a city like Auckland.
But are there things that you think the government could
do John that would make it easier with regulation, that

(05:27):
would speed up the uptake of roofshop solar.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Absolutely, any new house should have rooftop solar mandatory, so
that's new bills.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
We should have recognition that.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
If you put a battery on that you're creating resilience
and you can use the battery to aid charge from
the grid during cheap power prices and discharge to the
grid from high power prices. So you basically become a gentile.
You generate power and you can sell power and those
are the things that modern technology is allowing you to do.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
And that's an ever increasing wave.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
I mean, in Australia, of the whole energy system, twenty
two percent is rooftop solar, not solar farms, rooftop solar
in New Zealand, it's aboutzero point one percent.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
We've got a long way to go.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, that is amazing, isn't it that. I mean, again,
very different kind of climatic environment, but that is quite remarkable. John,
How did you go from being a breast surgeon to
the owner of a solar panel company.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Well, I'm the accidental owner, Jack, So thanks for that.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
I really saw this as the future of New Zealand,
and I'm an entrepreneur, and I invested in the company
and then it grew so big that I had to
buy the original founder out, as often happens, and grow
it in the direction that was most business like.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Right, Yeah, that's amazing. How different is your life then?
You enjoying this?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah? I do. I mean I see.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
I asked some of our installation guys when I first
invested in the company, I said, how's it going? And
they said, Johnny, I have a different view from my
office every morning, and I'm saving the planet.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's the best job in the world. And I have that.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Sense within our community that we're doing right by our community,
and we're doing right by global warming. So and it's
really plugged into the latest technologies that are fast moving,
so it's exciting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
So for people who've been considering going solar for some time,
do you reckon there are going to be big reductions
in the cost of solar panels in the years to come?
I mean it keeps getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.
But for how much long is that going to continue?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well?

Speaker 4 (07:43):
No, we're starting to see panel prices at the cheapest
and they're putting in slight price increases, so they're at
the highest quality and cheapest price now that they're.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Only going to go up slightly in price.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
And you know, I think that the panels are incredibly
high tech and last thirty years, so they're not going
to get much better.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, thanks for your time, We really appreciate it. That
is John Harmon. He is the owner of Lightforce Soular.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
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