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Speaker 1: The owner of a solar panel business, has weighed in

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Speaker 1: on why he thinks Solar zero has failed.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: Solar zero was a solar panel subscription service that was

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Speaker 1: unexpectedly put into liquidation by its one hundred percent shareholder,

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Speaker 1: black Rock last week. John Harmon is the owner of

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Speaker 1: light Force Solar anders with us this evening.

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Speaker 2: Hi John, Good afternoon Jack.

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Speaker 1: Were you surprised by the Solar zero announcement?

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Speaker 2: I was absolutely stunned. Yes.

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Speaker 3: Why well, they had such a huge pool of money

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Speaker 3: behind them, and you know, they had a pretty awesome

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Speaker 3: proposition that you could put solar panels on your roof

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Speaker 3: at no charge, so it was amazing.

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Speaker 2: I was astonished.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it does from a consumer perspective, putting

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Speaker 1: solar panels on your roof and no charge does sound

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Speaker 1: pretty good. But I suppose from a business perspective that

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Speaker 1: there might come with a few more fish hooks. So

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Speaker 1: explain to us why did solar zero close down?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean the thing is, we're at the end

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Speaker 3: of the supply chain from China. A lot of the

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Speaker 3: batteries and the technology that we installed five to ten

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Speaker 3: years ago are our parts are used by data need replacing.

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Speaker 2: So that's the first thing.

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Speaker 3: And the second thing is that you know the contract

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Speaker 3: was for twenty five years and most people buy and

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Speaker 3: sell their house within seven to ten years, and that

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Speaker 3: contract had to be transferred to the new owner, so

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Speaker 3: that caused a problem. I mean, for instance, the final

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Speaker 3: thing is that the price of panels and the qualities

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Speaker 3: come down, so you can put twenty thousand dollars worth

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Speaker 3: of panels on your house and that adds thirty thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars worth of value to you when you sell it.

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Speaker 3: So all of those factors I think played into the

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Speaker 3: demise of black Rock.

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Speaker 1: So explain that point to us. So you can put

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars worth of panels on your roof and

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Speaker 1: that increases your house value by more. Explain that to us.

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Speaker 3: So that's that comes from Sydney, Australia. The fact that

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Speaker 3: you've got independent energy source and these panels last for

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Speaker 3: thirty years increases the value of your house.

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Speaker 2: So you increase the value of your house.

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Speaker 3: You probably produce about twenty five to thirty percent of

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Speaker 3: your power off the roof for the next thirty years.

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Speaker 3: And if you move things around and sort of plugging

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Speaker 3: your ev during the sunny day, you get free juice

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Speaker 3: to run your car. So there's a lot of positives

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Speaker 3: about being independent and owning your own owning your own

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Speaker 3: sort of generation source.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean absolutely. It's the capital cost that's often

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Speaker 1: the challenge for people, right, But I suppose if you're

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Speaker 1: putting panels at a capital cost of twenty grand on

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Speaker 1: your roof and you're going to be saving on power

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Speaker 1: to the tune of ten grand in the future, if

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Speaker 1: not more, then it does make sense. So how's your

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Speaker 1: business going, John, how's Lightfoce solar going at the moment?

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Speaker 2: Well, we can't keep up with demand.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the people are aware that power prices are

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Speaker 3: going up. They're aware now that they need resilience and independence.

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Speaker 3: So we've got a three month waiting list to do

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Speaker 3: an installation. We're in about seven places around New Zealand,

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Speaker 3: major centers, so we can't keep up with demand. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I mean it's really reached the tipping point where the

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Speaker 3: price of power, the price of panels, and the feeling

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Speaker 3: that Kevis want, which is to be independent of the

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Speaker 3: big boys, all of that's quite a moving feast and

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Speaker 3: it's really the tipping point for us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So do you think that Solar Zero, because of

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Speaker 1: its kind of unique structure, was an outlier and that

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Speaker 1: other solar providers in New Zealand have more robust businesses

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Speaker 1: even in these trying economic times.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, you just have to right size your business. And

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Speaker 3: we don't have a legacy of old customers requiring.

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Speaker 2: Upgrades and stuff like that. So you know, if we

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Speaker 2: do any upgrades.

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Speaker 3: With people, they say I start off with ten pounels,

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Speaker 3: but now I want another ten or they say I

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Speaker 3: want ten pounds in a battery because I trust that

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Speaker 3: it really works. So you know, that's a different model

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Speaker 3: to least to own. And we're quite a small population

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Speaker 3: in New Zealand, and you know people want to go

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Speaker 3: with you know, they often buy local and they want

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Speaker 3: to buy locally owned. We're a New Zealand owned company

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Speaker 3: that they almost all of my installation guys have been

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Speaker 3: with me ten years. They're real experts. And it's not

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Speaker 3: one size fits all. You know, each roof is different,

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Speaker 3: each budget is different, so you have to you have

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Speaker 3: to you have to make sure that you're meeting people's

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Speaker 3: expectations and meeting the budget.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that makes total sense. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's fascinating to look at what Australia has done on

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Speaker 1: the solar front. And obviously there are different climatic conditions

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Speaker 1: in Australia, though I suppose a city like Melbourne would

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Speaker 1: be relatively comparable, relatively comparable to a city like Auckland.

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Speaker 1: But are there things that you think the government could

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Speaker 1: do john that would make it easier with regulation, that

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Speaker 1: would speed up the uptake of rooftop solar.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, any new house should have rooftop solar mandatory, so

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Speaker 3: that's new bills.

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Speaker 2: We should have recognition that.

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Speaker 3: If you put a battery on that you're creating resilience,

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Speaker 3: and you can use the battery to aid charge from

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Speaker 3: the grid during cheap power prices and discharge to the

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Speaker 3: grid from high power prices, so you basically become a gentaile.

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Speaker 3: You generate power and you can sell power and those

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Speaker 3: are the things that modern technology is allowing you to do.

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Speaker 3: And that's an ever increasing wave. I mean in Australia,

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Speaker 3: of the whole energy system, twenty two percent is rooftop solar,

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Speaker 3: not solar farms. Rooftop solar use the Eland it's aboutzero

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Speaker 3: point one percent. We've got a long way to go. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is amazing, isn't it that? I mean, again,

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Speaker 1: very different kind of climatic environment, but that is quite remarkable. John,

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Speaker 1: How did you go from being a breast surgeon to

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Speaker 1: the owner of a solar panel company.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm the accidental owner, Jack, so thanks for that.

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Speaker 3: I really saw this as the future of New Zealand,

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Speaker 3: and I'm an entrepreneur, and I invested in the company

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Speaker 3: and then it grew so big that I had to

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Speaker 3: buy the original founder out, as often happens, and grow

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Speaker 3: it in the direction that was most business like.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's amazing. How different is your life then?

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Speaker 1: Are you enjoying this?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I do. I mean I see.

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Speaker 3: I asked some of our installation guys when I first

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Speaker 3: invested in the company, I said, how's it going? And

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Speaker 3: they said, Johnny, I have a different view from my

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Speaker 3: office every morning, and I'm saving the planet.

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Speaker 2: It's the best job in the world.

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Speaker 3: And I have that sense within our community that we're

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Speaker 3: doing right by our community and we're doing right by

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Speaker 3: global warming. So and it's really plugged into the latest

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Speaker 3: technologies that are fast moving.

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Speaker 2: So it's exciting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So for people who've been considering going solar for

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Speaker 1: some time. Do you reckon there are going to be

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Speaker 1: big reductions in the cost of solar panels in the

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Speaker 1: years to come. I mean it keeps getting cheaper and

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Speaker 1: cheaper and cheaper, but for how much long is that

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Speaker 1: going to continue?

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Speaker 3: Well, no, we're starting to see panel prices at their

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Speaker 3: cheapest and they're putting in slight price increases, so they're

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Speaker 3: at the highest quality and cheapest price now that they're

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Speaker 3: only going to go up slightly in price. And you know,

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Speaker 3: I think that the panels are incredibly high tech and

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Speaker 3: last thirty years, so they're not going to get much better.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, thanks for your time. We really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: That is John Harmon. He is the owner of light

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Speaker 1: Force Solar.

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Speaker 3: For more from Heather Duplessen Drive, listen live to News

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Speaker 3: Talks it B from four pm weekdays, or follow the

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