#8 Zappi: UK Manufactured Smart Chargers

In this episode of The EV Charging Podcast, we speak with Piers McHenry (Group Commercial Director) and Shaz Shadan (Managing Director, APAC) from MyEnergi—the UK-based innovators behind Zappi, one of Australia's best-selling solar-compatible EV chargers.

🚗 We explore:

• What makes Zappi unique in the Australian and global market
• Key differences between EV charging in Australia vs Europe
• MyEnergi’s approach to local manufacturing, training, and grid support
• Behind the scenes of the DECA-funded free Zappi program in Victoria
• How MyEnergi is building a smart home energy management system (HEMS) beyond just car charging
• Real-world examples of demand response trials and how customers are getting paid to help the grid
• The future of EV adoption and smart tariffs in Australia

Whether you're an EV owner, installer, energy nerd, or just curious about the future of home electrification, this episode is packed with insights into one of the most exciting brands in the clean tech space.

🎧 Listen now to learn why Zappi is leading the smart charger revolution — from Grimsby to Byron Bay.

🔗 Mentioned in this episode:

• Learn more about Zappi and MyEnergi
• Compare EV charger quotes instantly at solarchoice.net.au
• Find out more about the DECA Zero Emissions Vehicle grant program in Victoria
• Discover how GridPay is reshaping demand response in the UK

📌 Brought to you by Solar Choice – Australia’s only instant quote comparison service for solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps.
With 17+ years of experience, we support both homeowners and commercial clients across the country.
Visit solarchoice.net.au for more.

🔊 If you liked this episode, leave a 5-star review and share it with someone who’s thinking of switching to an EV or going off-grid.
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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

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SPEAKER_01: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the EV Charging Podcast, where we take you behind the scenes of the electric vehicle charging industry in Australia and all around the world. I'm Daniel Carson. And I'm Geoff Sykes. And we're your hosts from Solar Choice, your go-to trusted independent advisor for all things clean energy in residential, commercial and strata buildings. Today, we're chatting to Shaz and Piers from My Energy, the UK-based company who make one of Australia's best-selling home chargers, the Zappy. Shaz Shadan is the Managing Director of My Energy APAC, while Piers McHenry is the International Sales Director for My Energy, based in Ireland. In this episode, we cover the challenges of bringing a charger into a new market, And Piers talks about some of the key differences between the European market and the Australian market for home EV chargers. We hope you enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14

Welcome to the EV charging podcast. We're here today with two special guests all the way from the UK. We've got Shaz Shadan. He's the country manager for MyEnergy. Our installers may know the popular EV charging brand Zappi. The company behind that is MyEnergy. And also joining us today is Pierce McHenry. He's the international commercial director and joins us from Ireland. So welcome, Pierce and Shaz, to the podcast. Thanks for having us, guys. Great to be here, yeah. Great. So look, to kick things off, Shaz, I thought I might ask you a little bit about some of your previous career. I understand you're perhaps a beer baron in previous life.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58

Yeah, guilty as charged. So I'm relatively new to the renewable space. My energy was started in a small working class town up in the northeast of England, my hometown. So that's how obviously I've become involved with the business. So I watched it grow in the background. But yeah, I've worked in various other roles, mainly around sort of operations and sort of like running of companies. So usually I find myself in roles that involve daily firefighting and sorting out anything that's going wrong and trying to get everybody back on track. So yeah, I grew the beer business. very successful in the local area, big regional brewery. So very different to this world, but I think a lot of this stuff translates over. So we had a production facility to produce charges, very different, but the principles stay the same about quality and consistency. And then we have to build up sort of customer relationships and relationships are really, really important. Marketing, branding is really, really important and sort of like that ongoing aftercare. So a lot of those are transferable skills and then With My Energy being an iconic brand in the area, when the time came for a change, I was lucky enough to join the team there.

SPEAKER_02: 3:09

Great. And you've recently made the trip out and you're permanently with us now in Australia. How long have you been out here?

SPEAKER_03: 3:16

I am. So I came out for Everything Electric in February and never went back. How are you enjoying it? Absolutely loving it. Yeah. So we've got family living in Australia and we've been up many times before. I've got two young boys. And yeah, it kind of been on the cards. We looked at moving out before COVID and COVID put a stop to that. And then I joined managing a group role. So I was global operations manager previously. So I was working with Pierce to look after the different subsidiaries. We obviously sell into dozens of countries and have offices in five or six countries around the world. And then when this opportunity came up, I was like, this feels like it's lined up and let's jump on it and make the move. So I haven't looked back. So yeah, loving it.

SPEAKER_02: 3:57

Great. So Pierce, you were formerly the managing director for My Energy in Ireland, currently Irish and reside there, I understand. And so tell us a little bit about that role and how that translated into your current role for My Energy.

SPEAKER_00: 4:13

Yeah. So The relationship with my energy actually started even before that. So I've been in the solar installation business since 2010, and it's set up in Northern Ireland as an installer. That then moved towards distribution for the island of Ireland and into GB as well. With my distribution business at the time, I was the first person to ever buy the Eddie, which is the part of it for my energy. And I can still remember doing the deal at my kitchen table in Ireland on the phone to Jordan, the co-founder, to forward buy the first batch of Eddie's. I still have the messages of, Jordan telling me that the Eddies were coming to Ireland and the excitement of a new product in that market at that time. We'd done really well with the My Energy brand. Obviously, Zappi followed. We had The Hub, The Harvey. Really great products at that time, and they stood to test at the time. But as the distribution business really started to go well in Ireland, then the conversation came up about My Energy Ireland. So I became MD in, I think, around 2011. And from that, we went strength to strength because we could open up more conversations with the likes of the big wholesalers in Ireland, the energy suppliers, the OEMs, leasing companies. And we're market leaders in Ireland. And then with that, Jordan and Lee had asked me then to step more into a group role. So actually moving from one subset, MD of that subset, went to international sales director, so was responsible for all the international subsets, barring GB. And then from January this year, I've made group commercial director, so responsible for all revenue now.

SPEAKER_02: 5:58

Yeah, okay. Well, look, before we get too deep, let's just set out for the listeners my energy week. is the overarching company. And underneath that, you have a number of products. I think in Australia, a lot of people will be familiar with the Zappi, the EV charger, possibly the flagship product of MyEnergy, but there's also the Eddie and the Harvey. So can you tell us a little bit about what they are?

SPEAKER_00: 6:23

Yeah, so the first product actually was the Eddy, which is the car diverter, which is primarily used to heat water with excess renewable energy. So that was the first product that we went to market with. Zappi quickly followed, and it was really, as you say, is the flagship product now. So the first charger in the world to be able to charge a car with excess renewable energy, whether that's from the sun, wind, hydro, whatever. So a really novel product. And the Harvey then is a wireless CT. So installers love the Harvey because they can get home to their families a bit quicker in the evening because they're not hardwiring, you know, for an extra hour, hour and a half, saving materials and that as well. So the ease of installation with the Zappi and the Eddy along with Harvey is really what took off in GB and Ireland. And also now we have the Libby in GB and Ireland, which is sort of rounded the circle of our ecosystem. and the interoperability of that in our app, you know, changing priority of the devices. In Australia, Shaz is shouting for the Libby as well. And, you know, in the near future, we'll have that coming to Australia as well, which will be really exciting.

SPEAKER_01: 7:30

So really, I think most Australians will think of MyEnergy as an EV charging company, but really we should be thinking about it as a full home electrification company covering all aspects of sustainability.

SPEAKER_00: 7:41

Exactly right, yeah. So we're a HEMS system, really. And we really play on that. And the installers like the fact that they have one company that they speak to with tech support. And the end customer also likes that they don't have to get in touch with multiple different manufacturers as well. So that's a real big USP of ours. And as I say, hopefully we can round that circle in Australia sometime very soon.

SPEAKER_02: 8:08

So my energy has grown fairly quickly and I think it's been able to establish... position as a leading manufacturer of EV chargers, amongst other things. And obviously, most companies in this space are relatively young compared to other companies. EVs haven't been around that long. But tell us a little bit about the backstory of MyEnergy in the UK and when things started to branch out into a more global perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 8:36

Yeah, so as I say, the company started in probably making products on the dining room table in Lee Sutton's house, the co-founder, along with Jordan Brompton then. So that's the two co-founders of the company. My Energy was formed in 2016. It's really testament to where the company is now. But yeah, started in making single products, then moved to a factory in Binbrook. So the company has found it in their hometown of near Grimsby. And Everything happened really quick. I think timing was important there. So obviously the UK market has gained maturity a lot quicker than here. So right product, right time. And actually the scale, they got a bit of investment in probably maybe 2018, 2019, I think around that time. And that really catapulted then the being able to produce more and keep up with the demand. So We know from probably making products on a kitchen table, we now have 60,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Stalingrad, top state-of-the-art factory. We take major players there, major customers there, and they're just blown away by the quality of the factory and the office space and great place to work as well. So in seven, eight years, the growth of the company has been fantastic.

SPEAKER_02: 9:55

That's probably largely becoming a point of difference for MyEnergy is that the manufacturing takes place in the UK. I think, obviously, you've experienced lots of competitors entering the market in the past even one year, but over the past two or three years, most of those have manufacturing facilities in China, and obviously there's potentially cost advantages to do that. So is that something that MyEnergy wants will you know need to consider or yeah how do you see that playing out in the future

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

yeah so zappy and eddie at the moment and the libby controller is all made in the uk great point of differentiation for us are you know the installers and the companies we deal with love the fact that it's locally made in those markets gp and ireland and Obviously, there's a lot of price pressures, a lot of competition coming in. But actually, as we look at the development of our products, and because the factory is so state-of-the-art, we believe that we can continue to make the products really competitively. And again, we're dealing with, I suppose, OEMs, energy suppliers who have presence in different parts of the world as well. But whenever... those companies are in the uk and ireland they do want to be affiliated with home brands as well and that's definitely a real plus for us and whenever they go and a lot of people don't actually believe we do make these products so whenever we can actually show the factory and the quality and everything yeah i think that really wins people over even more

SPEAKER_03: 11:31

I think there's an economies of scale there as well. The fact that we've got over 600,000 shipped devices, it's, yes, products coming in from other countries, but often in a lot smaller volumes. And we do have that economy of scale. I also think when people talk about, we can, I know, I obviously have price conversations every day. I know we can be very competitive on price and still get in line with where people need us to be. But I don't think price should always just be considered against the purchase price. It's not only the long-term cost of that product. So as Pierce mentioned, things like in-country tech support is really important to us. Saving the installer time on a job because they can get hold of tech support quickly, knowing that the product's reliable when they get it out of the box, bits aren't missing or broken or just not working right. All of these things... You might not see them in the upfront cost, but they have a cost elsewhere in the lifespan of the product. And it's the same through that warranty cycle and then beyond the warranty cycle.

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

So Shaz, tell us a little bit about My Energy's entry into Australia. Obviously, that's one of your key focuses in your role. From our observation at Solar Choice, we've got a network of EV charger installers that our customers across Australia can request quotes from. And we can see that Zappi is already a very popular brand of those installers. So you've been able to establish a good presence in the Australian markets. So tell us a bit about the backstory. When did you start? shipping devices here? When did you sort of shift to a physical presence? I can't

SPEAKER_03: 13:04

take the credit for the early stage, but I'll give you a bit of backstory. So my energy, obviously, and part of its growth, as Peter mentioned earlier, was the first solar-aware, solar-compatible EV charger. That sparked a lot of interest worldwide. And very quickly, we had inbound sales requests from all over the globe. And Australia was one of the places. So a local distributor started off few units turned into pallets etc and in a sort of similar fashion my energy australia subsidiary was set up a couple of years ago and that's slowly grown and grown and then around well it was february march when i moved out here so we had a bit of a group restructure we brought in some group investment from eip and that was to kind of take the company to that next level and we had a bit of a change around and i came in as country manager from march and Really, obviously, we might experience a group level weapon with Pierce just to see where we can take the company now moving forward. So we've been in market probably for about four years, roughly sold in some format. But we've just moved office and warehouse location in March.

SPEAKER_02: 14:14

I imagine the future is only onwards and upwards, a bigger team, a bigger presence as the Australian market expands.

SPEAKER_03: 14:22

Yeah, absolutely. So obviously we're seeing... If you zoom into EV sales too closely, you see quite extreme ebbs and flows. But when you actually zoom out year on year, it's steady uplifting growth. I think it'll be interesting to see how the Australian market plays out differently to other markets.

SPEAKER_02: 14:40

Yeah, I think there's a few probably structural differences with the Australian market and some of the European markets, one of which I think is just the expanse of Australia. You know, often we're in the city of Melbourne and things are nice and close here, but I think in the back of most Australians' mind is that, okay, well, last year I did that road trip out to somewhere that was 1,500 kilometres away and, you know, some of the... I guess misinformation or concerns around range anxiety and things really can be a limiting factor to the EV transition. So I think we've spoken with other guests on this podcast around some of those things needing to get to a tipping point where, you know, people's friends or there's so many EVs on the road that people sort of realise that these things aren't a big issue. And on the flip side, we've got to keep up with the public charging system to make sure that we're ahead of the numbed EVs on the road. Would that be a fair sort of comparison or do you think there's places in Europe that might have a similar challenge with EV adoption?

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

I think Australia is definitely a big difference, just the expanse of the land there. I mean, I live in you know, the north of Ireland, nearly at the very top of Ireland. And I can drive in five hours to the very south of Ireland, you know, so I would only have to stop off maybe once for a charge and you would need to stop off anyway, you know, to eat or do whatever you need to do within that time. So, you know, the likes of, you know, Ireland EVs really sit very well. But having said that, Ireland has actually seen a 30% decline year-to-date compared to last year in BEV sales after having really great growth over the last four or five years. And I think that's just a time in the market where you have your early adopters, and then there's a little bit of a dip before the mass adoption comes in as well. And we've sort of seen that historically in some of the other countries as well. Germany... is actually down 30% this year with BEV sales as well. That's more to do, I think, with the economy in Germany currently and also incentives being pulled also. So I think government intervention has a lot to play with the uptake of BEV still. But again, GB steady, 12%, 13% growth year to date compared to last year. And as a whole, again, if you zoom out, as a whole in Europe, sales are looking pretty steady there. But it is an interest in different countries, even within Europe, have very different trends. And even with, Shaz mentioned sales channels earlier, so even how EV chargers are sold in a country is very different. So for example, in Scandinavia, a lot of chargers are bought online. Online marketplace is very high percentage of sales. Germany is still very strong with the wholesale installer market, but the likes of leasing companies, OEMs, you know, those channels are becoming stronger and stronger because a lot of the early adopters are actually business leases for cars. So the benefit and gain tax incentives again, you know, so That has a big part to play with actually how EV chargers make their way to a house. And, you know, public charging is important, but I think that's more to do with confidence in the market because people do have range anxiety. But actually, 90% of my charging is done at home or the workplace. But you need to have that comfort, you know, on the times I am driving to Dublin or Cork, that, you know, you're going to get a charge as well. So it is very important that those two go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_02: 18:13

What sort of... Things exist in the UK to help customers learn about, you know, is an EV going to be suitable for them? Where can they go to sort of overcome some of these myths we know about? There's the Fully Charged podcast, of course, where they do some great stuff. Are there different resources that are available in the UK that we don't have here? I

SPEAKER_00: 18:38

think Ireland's actually a very progressive country. place to look there. I mean, we have the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, which is like a one-stop shop for information on all things renewable and including EVs. So people are signposted to an independent source to get information from. And another thing which the Irish government are doing are they're making petrol forecourts now show the difference in pricing between buying petrol. or if you're charging with electric. But they take a blend. They don't look at the... Because obviously DC high-powered chargers can be expensive as well, but they take a blend of home charging versus DC. And that's really... It's a really good message to show people of how much cheaper it is to actually charge your car. So that's actually displayed at the Pertl forecourt as well. And then also online, they have to publish that. It's on the big sign in front of the

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

petrol station. It's got, yeah, two pounds for your petrol and then EV would be this. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 19:39

So that information is being published now as well. So that's really helping because people will vote with their pockets as well, of course. So if it's going to be cheaper.

SPEAKER_02: 19:46

So what are some of the... key markets for my energy outside of the UK and Australia? What are some of the key growth markets that you guys are focused on?

SPEAKER_00: 19:57

So we're active at the moment with offices in the Benelux region. So in Maastricht in the Netherlands, we have a subsidiary set up there and fantastic growth in Belgium this year, actually over 50% growth And again, that was down to very nice incentives for business car owners. So very excited about the future in the Benelux region. Actually, going back to more of the solar there, the Benelux region has had a very, you know, really good incentives with net metering, for example. That's actually been phased out now. So self-consumption products are becoming, you know, really hot topics there. So does that mean for charging the car for free from your renewable energy? Yeah. also the eddy for heating the water as well, primarily. And also those, you know, those countries are starting to phase gas out and heat pumps are becoming more popular. So, and our compatibility with eddy and the heat pumps is great. So again, going by, and the Libby, obviously the battery storage is very prominent now, or becoming prominent in the Benelux region. So our suite of products there and that ecosystem is becoming very popular. Germany, massive market, even though they're down 30% with the Bev sales this year, obviously they're still the biggest. bit of market in Europe. And we have an office in Cologne there. So again, just want to build upon the foundations that we have in Germany. But also I see interesting trends in Eastern Europe, similar to where Ireland was four or five years ago. And I know that market very well. So I can spot sort of the growth that's happening there. So the likes of Czech Republic, you know, sales are up 50% there this year, for example. And Slovakia is steady. And so certain parts like that, Spain, Italy, France, obviously the big... big markets there. So we certainly want to be looking to expand into those markets in Europe also.

SPEAKER_03: 21:45

Just over the last few months, we've been getting increasing inquiries from Southeast Asia. So a lot of imports of EVs going into the Philippines and Indonesia and places like that.

SPEAKER_02: 21:57

So I guess from a consumer's perspective... Once you buy an electric vehicle or place an order, there's a question, do I charge it with a plug point or do I get a wall charger? And then there's also the question, where do I buy that from? I mean, a lot of these people in the dealership will be potentially presented with an offer. We obviously know that Tesla have their own charger and that can be bolted onto a sale. Other manufacturers have partnered up with different brands and things like that. How do you see that aspect of the market playing out Will the charges eventually become just a, you know, add fries with that to the car sale or will there be a consistent market for consumers to purchase from a broader range of options?

SPEAKER_03: 22:46

I don't think it'll be a one-channel wins-all strategy. I think... every individual need is different depending on where you sit in that journey. And one of the stark contrasts I've noticed here versus, say, the UK is it feels like the UK market was, in terms of renewables, was very much EV-led, solar second. I don't know if you necessarily agree with that. I mean, a lot more in the solar space than mine versus Australia by comparison. Australia, obviously, solar's not a new thing, right? Very well established. So I think If you think what that does to the psyche of somebody buying an EV, you've never put solar panels on your house. You've never really spoke a great length about kilowatt hours or inverters or even self-consumption. These are completely new buzzwords. So really, when you go to buy your EV, you're just talking about the battery in the car and how do I get power from my socket. a house into that car and oh this device is safer and has functionality etc whereas when the consumer has massive solar array maybe double solar array they could even have a battery on the drive already power wall or or whichever brand and um then all of a sudden they're looking at their ev they're already quite aware of sort of like how energy is moving around the home and how it's consumed and how it's actually created as well so i think that very much changes the buying dynamic there as well. So, and it'll be, it'll be interesting again to watch those channels change as obviously we've talked to all the major energy retailers in the region. And there's a lot of conversation around sort of quite exciting new tariffs coming through that we've, we've already seen developed across Europe. And I think that's going to change, well, introduce a new channel as well, because obviously the way to access those tariffs is through, through the intelligent charging. So I think it's a big mix, but I think, kind of reiterate pierce's point as well it's finding the channel that works best for the end consumer and whichever charger you're installing it also relies on a competent installer as well so looking after making sure the end customer ends up with the best product for them and making sure that we're dealing with reputable well-trained knowledgeable installers and they're being looked after as well in that pipeline as well is always very important. And then the channel beyond that, I guess, it depends which demographic resonates best, whether it's the car manufacturer or the in-charge or the wholesaler.

SPEAKER_02: 25:06

So Shaz, I understand that there's some lucky customers in Victoria that are getting a free Zappy at the moment. Can you tell us a little bit about the funding you've got for that program, what the objectives are?

SPEAKER_03: 25:19

Yes. So it's a project with DECA and it's zero emissions, vehicle project and essentially we've 50% match funded the project with Deca, and it's to provide 100 Zappies into homes. And the purpose is to then conduct a six-month trial where we monitor all the homes after as a pre-requirement, obviously have an EV starters, but have home solar and connectivities to the internet so we can monitor those devices. And basically over that period, we're going to monitor solar consumption and demonstrate the reduced demand placed on the grid by self-consumption and a few other measures as well and also we'll be conducting some demand side trial demand side response trials through it as well so essentially sending out start stop signals at times of peak demand to control the devices and just show what a huge impact that can have on the pain points in the grid. Obviously, something that's very common in Australia is that duck curve on a hot day when it suddenly sets and everyone's solar stops pumping, but the air conditioning is very much still on. Obviously, it can often land around the same sort of time that everyone's come home and plugged in their car to start the charging cycle. That charging cycle may not necessarily need to have started just then and could potentially be delayed for an hour or two until demand reduces down. So yeah, we're going to simulate, we're going to take some live data as well from the grid, but also make some simulations as well. And we'll be producing a white paper at the end of it to demonstrate our findings. But of all the studies we've done across Europe, I think we're only going to see a compounding effect in Australia where the benefits are even greater because of the huge amount of solid.

SPEAKER_00: 27:07

And we've actually proven, you know, proven a lot of that already in GB. You know, we have a, it's not a concept now, it's actually in play called GridPay. So we do have end customers now actively making money, making revenue monthly from helping the grid out. You know, and so actually this asset, which is there to charge your car, that's how it's seen, is now actually generating revenue as well for these customers because they're helping the grid out.

SPEAKER_02: 27:34

And so in a customer's position, they get home from work, plug in their car, maybe there's some event on the grid that's drawing a huge spike in demand. Zappi can come in or through your network partners can stop the charger on a fleet of potentially thousands of cars and reduce the demand on the grid and could be as short as five minutes, I suppose. Exactly. And there's a payment for that. inconvenience, perhaps for a customer, but if they're plugging their car in overnight, it's probably not much of an inconvenience anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 28:07

Yeah, you basically nailed that. People want their car charged by 6am, 6.30am. So if there's a couple of events in between times where they're helping the grid out and they're even getting paid for it, it doesn't really matter if the car is charged by 4am or 5am. So these customers have really bought into that and are reaping the benefits.

SPEAKER_02: 28:30

We understand there's a very big spike in energy in the UK when Coronation Street finishes and everyone goes to put the

SPEAKER_00: 28:36

kettle on. That's correct. Around 7pm, the kettle goes on, there's a spike. And I think Jordan always says that She's had this vision of my energy to be bigger than Drax power plant, which is four gigawatt, I believe. And, you know, we believe in the next couple of years we're going to have seven gigawatt to play with. So that sort of virtual power plant that we've talked about brings great help to the grid. And because our products are future-proofed and we can do this and we're continuing to work on that. And again, I think we've talked about so much information here in the time we are. It's how we get this across to the end customers. And again, how we do that is with the great relationships we have with the wholesalers, the installers and the different partners that we have as well. You just simply can't do this all yourself and we appreciate all the business that we have with our current customers as

SPEAKER_02: 29:25

well. That is one consideration I think that we've seen play out with solar manufacturers and other product manufacturers that we work with is that the customer experience, feedback, and even reflection on Zappi itself largely comes down to the installer that's putting it in, the education that installer gives to the customer, whether they do the job correctly. Obviously, there's pretty clear codes around how an EV charger should get installed, but often it's not the most experienced electricians that are doing these types of installations. So how do you guys... manage that and ensure like a customer outcome is great every time even though some parts of that are out of your control

SPEAKER_00: 30:07

i'll let you talk a bit the problem is also you know

SPEAKER_03: 30:10

yeah so for the apac region basically i'm just bringing in best practice that's been uh tried and tested from gb through i guess trial and error and seeing what works so one of my first appointments when we when i got here was to bring on a training installation manager So Lee's a qualified electrician who's based up on Central Coast. He's been working across the solar sector for decades, very knowledgeable guy. And his remit was to come in and basically bring all our training up to a really high standard. And between Lee and Johnny and our tech support team, they deliver loads of in-person online training seminars. These aren't like 15-minute training sessions, 30-minute training sessions that kind of people can just tick a box and go off with a piece of paper saying I'm certified in solar. an average installation training session can take two to three hours and there's an exam at the end and then basically the next level beyond a trained installer is a product champion it's a new scheme that we've just launched basically to become a product champion you complete our training then we invite you to sign up to our product champion charter so it's not necessarily a contract it's a charter but it's I guess it's best practice you're signing up to my energy principles to say that you're going to ensure that all your electricians are certified trained as a company you're keeping up to date with things like public liability insurance etc and you're always going to comply with AS3000 and the standards and with their commitment to us by going through that due diligence we then offer obviously in addition to the training expedited customer support as well so Johnny was running through some stats with me the other day Johnny runs up our tech support team and I think our average call answer time is under a minute at the minute for installers so whenever Like I say, installers are one of our main routes to market. And if they're at a site and they're struggling to configure Wi-Fi or get an app connected, it can be too tempting sometimes to think, I can't get hold of anybody, so it'll charge. I'll leave, but then you'd have the smarts connected, right? So our job, our responsibility is to take away any roadblocks that can stop that from happening. So making sure that they know they can pick up a phone and within a few seconds, somebody is going to answer. As long as that device is connected to the internet, they can remotely log in and just quickly do a config check and make sure everything's up and running is really important to us. And that's been a lot of the feedback we get from installers about why they come back to us time and time again.

SPEAKER_02: 32:33

Awesome. Well, I think we've run out of time, but thanks so much, Piers and Shaz, for joining us. Thanks for having us. Yeah, it's been a great chat. And yeah, we look forward to seeing the progression of my energy in Australia and in Europe and the rest of the world. Thanks for having us on. Thank you. So that's it, and thanks for listening to this episode of the EV Charging Podcast. Brought to you, as always, by Solar Choice, Australia's only instant quote comparison service for solar, EV chargers, heat pumps, batteries, and air conditioning systems. We also provide independent consultation and tender management for clean energy projects in commercial and strata buildings with over 17 years of experience. Find out more at solarchoice.net.au and stay tuned for the next episode in two weeks.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

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