Industry Spotlight: Making Informed Choices with Green Team One

What does good advice look like? Here’s how you can maximise your energy production, how batteries take the pressure off the grid and reduce the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Who is Green Team One?

We sat down with Rob Johnston, Founder & Managing Director at Green Team One to discuss the solar power industry, how homeowners can maximise their energy production and how to cut through all the noise to get to the good advice.

The team, now 3 years established, draws expertise from decades of industry experience. Green Team One specify and install renewable energy technology for homeowners – covering solar PV panels, batteries, EV chargers, air conditioning and heat pumps. Rob, Founder & Managing Director, describes how the relationships with suppliers and insurers are flourishing the longer they are in the industry – building the trust needed to effectively supply homeowners with the best advice.

Q: Why did you join the retrofit industry?

Rob fell in love with solar PV when he had it installed on his house in 2010. Since then, he has seen the solar market and customer demographic change over the last 15 years:

In 2010, the solar feed-in tariff enabled customers to invest in solar energy and profit from the set-up very successfully. As this scheme dropped off, the number of solar installers became larger than the demand for solar PV installs.

Customer demographics then changed – ‘early adopters’ of the renewable technology who could afford the upfront cost to install and had a green-minded approach.

The cost of the renewable technology reduced as a result of the UK leaving the European Union – the kit became easier and cheaper to get hold of, increasing the number of installers getting ‘in the game’.

The recent increases in the cost of energy have increased demand for solar PV, but along with that demand there has been an increase in installers of varying levels of experience and quality joining the market.

With Rob and the team’s experience, Green Team One have established themselves to provide transparent, experienced advice along with high-quality installations – aiming to educate and empower the homeowner to make informed decisions and cut through the noise.

Q: How do you help the homeowners make informed decisions?

There’s a whole world of renewable technology out there. It’s daunting for people to navigate and know what solutions will suit their home. Green Team One interpret and understand the wide variety of technology on the market and suggest the best solutions for the individual homeowner based on their needs. By empowering the customers with a variety of options and explaining them, the team can demystify the vast expanse of renewable tech.

Q: Tell me more about your process.

Green Team One offer a free design consultation with a design engineer (not a salesperson). This design process can happen remotely, over the phone and using aerial images, or they can do a better job of it by visiting and conducting a site survey. After a detailed conversation about the client’s circumstances and wants, the design engineer will then send them a design quote by email.

They leave the ball in the customer’s court but do follow up with a phone call about a week later.

If someone decides they want to go ahead, they pay a £100 compliance fee, which is always refunded. This instigates all the compliance protocols including the permission to connect to the network and any planning requirements. A technician visits for a technical survey to establish the kit location and cable runs as well as conducting a structural survey and answering any questions. Once the compliance is in place and both parties wish to proceed, an insurance-backed deposit is taken, and an installation date is confirmed.

The installation team come on the agreed date. Simple jobs may take as little as one day, but if it needs to take longer to get it done right, then that’s what they do.

Shortly after installation, the design engineer pays the customer a visit or books in a video call to train them on the monitoring portal, offer advice on the best energy tariffs for their circumstances and answer any outstanding questions.

See more about their approach here.

Wrapping up the customer journey – By providing a platform where homeowners can monitor their energy usage and visually see their habits, the switch to renewable technology is more tangible and effective. Through the portal, users can access live information about their electricity generation and usage. They can also use intelligent settings which learn your habits and make decisions about the battery charge schedule depending on weather reports.

How You Can Take the Pressure off the Grid

Q: Why should people seriously consider battery storage as a solution?

Drawing power from the national grid naturally has peak times – times where the electricity companies charge more for electricity.

For example, overnight electricity tariffs become low due to low demand. In peak times, the grid draws from both renewable sources and fossil fuels to meet the demand for power. There is a solution to save both your pocket and reduce the reliance on fossil fuel sources to cover the demand.

Q: So, are batteries the solution?

If you have a battery installed at your property, you can charge your battery from the grid during off-peak times and use the stored power during the day. The solar then charges the battery up too, so with the right set up you can avoid ever paying peak rate for electricity.

Graph from GivEnergy monitoring portal.

This reduces the pressure on the grid in peak times and saves you money by taking advantage of off-peak costs.

You can also buy the power at these lower prices and effectively ‘sell it back’ to the grid in times of high demand. Energy providers, like Octopus, can help owners ‘trade’ in electricity and save the planet by moving energy around in this way. Currently, for Green Team One, about 1 in 5 installs don’t involve solar PV panels at all – homeowners are opting to install just batteries to trade energy.

Got a question about batteries? Check out Green Team One’s solutions here.