| 55 Harnessing the natural energy Solar Concepts Lorraine Gold - office administrator, left, Nic Gold operations manager and sales manager, Liv Feyter. Ange Davidson CONTRACTING Harvesting sunshine to power your home is a beautifully simple idea. Turning that idea into reality is Solar Concepts, a Hawkes Bay company that custom designs solar systems for residential retrofits and new builds. Operations Manager and registered electrician, Nic Gold bought an existing solar business just under a year ago. Along with his wife Lorraine and Sales Manager Liv Feyter, the young company is making a big impact. “Solar panels are the only asset you will put into your house that starts paying itself off right away. We want to get people started on their solar story by custom designing a system that is based on their energy consumption rather than just filling a roof with panels,” says Nic. “We’re about designing the best system for clients that will uniquely benefit them, not just about the sale.” “We ask questions about household appliances and how people use their homes, and we’ll look at their electrical use based on data from previous years. We’ll design an optimal system for their lifestyle, install the system using our own electrical company, Mill Electrical Hawke’s Bay, and check in during the year to ask more questions to make sure we’re meeting their needs.” Clients have an app that shows how the house is consuming energy and what energy is being produced. This encourages owners to be creative with their energy consumption and simple changes can be made to optimise energy use during the heat of the day, such as using power hungry appliances during daylight hours. “Most people are familiar with their power bill and keep an eye on it. We look at kilowatt usage, not dollars spent, and have the software to calculate the return on investment. There are set costs no matter how many panels you put up, but generally the returns happen around the six-to-eight-year mark,” he says. “If you are fortunate enough to have a monthly power bill under $200, then installing a solar system won’t be a significant cost saver.” As sunshine hours continue to increase in Hawkes Bay, people are installing more air conditioning units for cooling and household ducting systems rather than individual heating units like fireboxes. Even if the sun isn’t shining, the photovoltaic panels still generate power, though they are most effective in direct sunlight. “Running a cooling system while the sun’s out is the perfect solar equation. Throwing solar into heating the hot water for the house and a spa is even more perfect,” laughs Nic. “Using delays on household appliances and installing timers on the hot water cylinder to optimise solar consumption is also really effective.” Commercial buildings such as cool stores and packing houses are ideal consumers of solar as they’re generally at peak consumption during sunshine hours. Nic and his team are focused on residential homes, both retrofits and new builds, and will work with clients from the concept stage of a new build to ensure solar is fully integrated. Ideally people are on board with solar from the start so their builder can include the costs into the initial build price. Others may see solar as a luxury rather than a necessity and will explore this later which adds to the established budget. Your experienced solar installers, covering the bays. 1 100 100
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