Can EnergyPal Help You Go Solar? Full Interview

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Well I am here with Lincoln Panacy and Marcus Ju from Energy Geeks and the reason I wanted to have them on today is because this is a really interesting company for me because I heard about them and I didn't fully understand them and I talked to Lincoln a lot about their company and I was really intrigued by it and I think it's a really cool model and I wanted to get Energy Geeks to explain it to you guys in person about what they do to help you get solar on your roof so thank you so much for meeting with me today you guys thank you for your time tell me like in a nutshell what Energy Geeks is. Our whole job is to help people go solar that's how we you know that's how [00:00:40] Speaker 2: we market ourselves that's what we do that's all we all we focus on and the way we do that is really doing every all of the sort of energy consulting work the analysis of what kind of panels you need how much how much power is really needed how should you finance the system should you finance the system really that sort of decision making we really have streamlined that whole process and we are I think pretty knowledgeable about different types of panels and different technology we're a little geeky about it almost and you know people have to stop us from going off on rants about you know microinverters and things like this so we really know we're talking on that side and on top of it because we're set up the way we are we're all all digital all remote we work with multiple different local and national and regional installation companies to get the actual projects done and the value of that is that we're able to be there through the project so a lot of solar companies are not set up this way they you know they got a field guy going out to your house or something like this and you get a nice experience in the beginning but then if there's any issues you have a harder time getting a hold of that person because you know you can't text and drive right and so for us we've got our workstation we've got all of our access to all the different projects our whole fleet of projects we've helped and that's why I think we give people a better customer experience over time and because we do everything digitally we keep our costs so low we can actually offer some pretty premium panels that are normally priced higher but because our kind of cost is so much lower we can really provide a really good [00:02:03] Speaker 1: value for people so this is what confused me when I first started hearing about it because it sounded too good to be true I was like so you guys can give me pretty much all this information about all these different solar providers because normally as a consumer if I'm interested in solar you know I might call solar city or I might call Sunrun or somebody and I'll get you know their pitch but then it's like well I want to shop around I want to find out more so that's a lot of work on my part as a consumer to make more phone calls and have more meetings you guys kind of take that out of it right I call you guys and you guys basically tell me okay we know all the different players we're going to figure out your roof situation and figure out who might be the best for you and so that sounds quite frankly awesome so then I was like okay but how does this work how do you guys get paid it's a pretty [00:02:44] Speaker 2: common question we get all the time I mean every solar consultant right energy consultant that goes out to your house they get a commission when the project is sold so we also get a similar kind of commission structure the thing that's been keeping this the solar costs the actual installation costs on a per watt basis so high has been all the soft costs it's not really the panels at this point anymore it's the soft cost like marketing customer acquisition that's a big part of a solar project that you have to pay so we just receive a fee from our installation partners it's just we don't have to charge as much [00:03:17] Speaker 1: so now I guess another question that came to mind in the beginning was well so do you guys have some kind of bias were you gonna just pitch me whoever pays you the most for us we've learned it's it's about helping [00:03:27] Speaker 2: people you know I think what's more important about you know the way we structure ourselves is trying to actually really get a sense of how people live in their home understanding really you know do they need that 10 kilowatt system to cover 100% of their historical energy needs or different do they really need like a seven kilowatt system and trying to find that's really the conversation when I was [00:03:48] Speaker 1: getting solar back in 2013 I kind of just took a leap of faith because I wanted it so bad I didn't fully understand hardly any of it to be honest you know and I didn't get multiple quotes either I was just like I love solar city so I'm gonna just go with them but since then I've you know because you actually have it on your roof you you learn a lot more about it but like I'm thinking today if I had to start today I'd be overwhelmed because there's s-rex and there's you know all these questions and how big should the system be and I've seen this happen with a lot of people that reach out to us with questions where they're just like you can tell they're kind of paralyzed there's just so much information they don't know who to ask and they don't know who to trust because obviously if they're gonna ask like one company they know pretty much they're gonna get the answer that one company wants to give them you guys are different in the sense that you you work with all the different companies we're just [00:04:36] Speaker 2: trying to build our business based on on trust on a national scale being able to provide kind of like local pricing right but being able to get that sort of national brand sort of stability that you know that you can call us up and we'll be able to make sure to solve the problem for you if I go through the [00:04:51] Speaker 1: process with you guys and you know a few hours in I'm like I don't know if any of those options are going to work for me how does that work do you guys just go like well it's not it doesn't seem like we have the options that are going to work for you yeah I guess so right like if at the end of the day [00:05:04] Speaker 2: someone says they don't want to they don't want to go solar you know first step is do you want to go solar does solar make sense take out the leasing PPA find it take that all out you know are you even in a good position are you about to move in four years you know like like four months and you're gonna go to Florida like maybe solar is not a good project for you I don't know so first step is figuring that out and then once that's the that's been solved then we start looking at okay you know what quotes do you have what quotes can we provide you know and more importantly what do you what do you really need and I think that's where people don't know what they need because they don't know what's available so there's first there's an education of like here's the different options here's how things work um here's the incentives um here's how you can maximize your investment if you were to buy here's how you can maximize your peace of mind if you were just to sort of rent the panels okay then we go into the next phase of saying now let's figure out what do you want to do and and then only if you someone actually says yes this plan makes sense for me we'll um we'll dispatch our team and get a you know site evaluation done and do that process now why do solar companies want [00:06:01] Speaker 1: to work with you guys it seems like um from a consumer's point of view they'd be like oh they're [00:06:05] Speaker 2: just adding a layer of fat to the process yeah well the because it's hard it's hard to find customers like if you put yourself into the shoes of a solar installer you know and you're in a market and you're trying to grow you got to find customers and that process is complicated you got to do google ads you got to do facebook ads and if you're a rooftop construction installation company you might not be the best at digital marketing and um you may not do that so well so then your cost you know kind of to get a customer even to talk to you is might be really expensive on top of that you have to have a really good process because it's so competitive you got to be able to call contact text be flexible and have a really good staff to do that that's also an expensive process so all those things add up to a pretty big cost when someone when you do talk to a local guy again like i said out of a thirty thousand dollar system you may be paying ten thousand dollars just for that person to find you we actually do help a lot of our installers grow their business in a more contained way because they they know they're going to get projects that go through they know that the customers that do sign up are understand they're not getting sold through some like you know door-to-door rep who's saying whatever they need to to sign a contract and um and we hold ourselves to a really high standard of ethics and we you know we we only train the best uh the best kind of consultants and we and you have to go through a pretty rigorous process to even have access to a specific market you need to know the utilities the net metering contracts the governments the actual you need to be able to cite where the actual specific net metering you [00:07:36] Speaker 1: know rules and regulations are and they're coming from one thing i really like about you guys is that you are geeks and that you admit it i make it a point when i go to events to talk to different solar companies and usually the reps are friendly but they don't always know everything they're probably in a pretty quick training period and so they know their key points to talk about but when you get into like the minutia and the geeky stuff you know the srex and this and that you get a lot of blank stairs or you got a lot of well i'll get back to you on that um whereas you guys deal with this every day and so chances are you're gonna you're gonna have the answers or be able to get those answers [00:08:08] Speaker 2: really quickly yeah and i think it all comes from our dna right like our company was um you know we got founded three you know 2016 but that's not when we started working in solar right we had uh you know we're sort of from a um a company called um pure energies that we exited so we were part of the founding executive team and that company was exited to energy energy at the time who you know at the time was trying to go solar bought a bunch of solar companies we were one of them and that was great and we actually had another company called one block off the grid which was pretty um got a lot of accolades for being a kind of a similar type of service sort of like a groupon is how it was marketed back in the day of solar packaging people together and trying to negotiate better deals with installers to get you know better cost per watt for buying systems because of that we actually like we have experience working with solar city you know we were one of their largest channel sales organizations in the past uh you know we have a bit of solar city dna a bit of sunrun dna a bit of you know every company some of them are around now some of them are no longer around now when we're talking [00:09:10] Speaker 1: about all these different acronyms srex stuff like that for people watching right now who aren't maybe into solar yet there might be like oh my god this is one reason why i don't want to do it because there's just too many things i'll have to learn is that true like do you have to become a super expert before you can even call you guys or can i just call you and be like i i want solar [00:09:26] Speaker 3: but i don't know anything there's a certain level of education we apply to the client depending on what kind of situation if we already know that they made it clear that they only want a zero down option and they want something simple i just want to save a little money on electricity bill so we'll just naturally help them gravitate towards like a lease more like a ppr and um but when they make the intentions that they want to make a purchase and either through us finance getting financing for them or they're purchasing it up front then we get into a little more we're kind of forced to go into a little higher level education so um like i mentioned before um three hours prior to this web interview i was helping a client illinois compare a solar lease and a solar loan and because she was considering a solar loan we had to i had to bring up a conversation about the asprac program in illinois and um after the asprac conversation she realized that it kind of like the iceberg of solar information got deeper and now she has a lot more to absorb so originally i left that out because she was only considering a lease at first and i left it out as for a good reason for her to not complicate things and um and then when she's like we made this says you want to go to a loan i'm like okay before we can apply for a loan we need to have a conversation about how the asracs and the federal incentives work for you and after that she learned a lot but she also felt intimidated right because there's a lot more information kind of like hit her so now she needs time to digest that and essentially more scheduled phone calls with me and um in the end result she's she's a happy here client because she's more educated which in turns make solar much more successful because now when she spreads the word she's confident to have a conversation about other than going solar and saying i don't really know how it works this to [00:11:17] Speaker 1: me is what makes this so valuable because this is it can be a complicated world there's all these government incentives and there's all these regulations and permits and all this stuff so it is complicated but you guys are almost to me like a lawyer uh someone who's working on my behalf to to figure you know to walk me through and get the paperwork done and stuff like that so that i don't have to know you know be an expert at it on my own um and as opposed to a sales person who's like yeah it's gonna be great just sign here and so that's what i kind of gravitated to when i started learning about your company is that you are that middle ground which i think a lot of people really need they they know they want to go solar they they know that's what's right for the environment it's probably right for their pocketbook but at the same time they're like yeah but i gotta answer to my wife or to my husband you know i gotta make sure that everybody's happy here um and so they don't want to be finding out at the end of the process that they didn't understand something you're completely right some [00:12:08] Speaker 3: days i feel like i'm a real estate broker some days i feel like i'm a cpa and some days i feel like i'm a lawyer um sometimes i have my clients but he's a geek regardless yeah i'm a geek regardless one of my clients reach out to me about i have questions about the solar sellers warranty and we actually did a line-by-line breakdown of their warranty and the production guarantees if any um the product warranties um force majeure clauses and at that time i feel like a lawyer so i'm funny that you brought [00:12:36] Speaker 1: that up now if i'm watching right now and i am a commercial you know developer person uh so i've got you know bigger property whatever uh are you guys people i can reach out to yeah absolutely so we've [00:12:46] Speaker 2: um we're active helping commercial clients across all 50 states and about three provinces in canada we do again most the process is all remote at this point um which is which is great we do typically require like you know kind of tesla you to take some photos and participate in the you know discovery process if you will but that keeps us allowing us to use highly trained you know reps that can work across multiple markets and not just hoping that you you know your building is near a really good [00:13:13] Speaker 1: rep that knows what he's doing yeah the reason we want to partner with you guys is that we have the same end goal which is we want more people to go solar and there's so many blocks for people to go solar some are emotional some are you know just made up or whatever but like getting information seems i think we both agree is the best way for people to go solar because the more you learn the better informed you are as a consumer and the better chance you have of ultimately choosing solar and i guess to that to that end my last question would be if someone's watching now and they're like okay zach i i get it you want me to go solar these guys are the geeks to call maybe they want to know kind of what the process is going to be like so what's the typical process like if i'm calling you now i've got you know the average house somewhere and like i kind of want to know like time frame and and how is it going to work if i call you guys it's pretty straightforward so you'd fill out [00:14:03] Speaker 2: a little bit of information about your house online very quick little form we get that information if we're if we're actively servicing your area then we'll let you know if we're not and if we are then basically we'll give you a quick text or a call and an email to try to connect and answer typically a few quick questions about how you use power and and some of your goals for the project once that's done you'll connect to a consultant like lincoln who will be able to you know build a variety of custom quotes and assessments for the property schedule a over the phone and on the computer kind of digital screen sharing a remote assessment that process takes about 20 minutes typically can go for like two hours if you're really excited and want to ask a lot of questions so we typically block off a whole hour but expect it to be 20 minutes and then yeah some people at that point they feel comfortable they want to move forward we'll help them go forward with the paperwork and get things going other people want more time to think about it that's fine then we'll call them back when when it makes sense and we'll we'll try to help them do this analysis and figure out is it a good project for them and if it [00:15:00] Speaker 1: is what kind of solution should they go with and how does it feel when you finally go through that [00:15:04] Speaker 3: whole process and you get someone to sign up for solar generally at the end of an application and helping them do all the paperwork online they feel really relieved and excited and we and i think it's very important to let them know that we're not going anywhere we're literally a text email phone call away any way form you want to message me um if you want to schedule in a block off a time to actually talk me on the phone for a good good hour two hours four hours some of my clients have allocated four hours of their time to me and we talk about everything sometimes beyond solar um because when we tailor a solution for them we're really good to know them um sometimes i've had my clients say we're planning on being home for 12 years i'm like oh so your kid is like six years old you're like how'd you know that i'm like well kind of did the math you're probably going to sell the house when you go to when he goes to school i'm like yeah how'd you know i'm like i've been doing this for so that's an example oh it's [00:16:03] Speaker 2: it's it's exactly it's crazy you look at a power bill and you'll be like oh how was that vacation in april and they're like what how did you are you are you talking like oh i you know i know that you have their christmas lights on in january and you don't you know like i know what kind of you know it's like i can figure out just by looking at sort of it's uh your power consumption you know how how long you keep the christmas lights up you know that gives us an idea of is this gonna you're gonna make a decision quick you're gonna kind of procrastinate a bit and finally do it once uh right before the incentive goes away right but uh i think people are really excited at the end of the day um but at the same time it does it's it's not a like we're not coming out there tomorrow to install the panels it's kind of like getting excited for a road trip and then you're kind of sitting in the car for a while so i think the trick is to to make sure that people have a good you know road trip basically through the process until they get to their final destination because really exciting to sign up and you know know you're going to save money but then you know if you get you know you want to make sure you have a good kind of experience on the way to getting um to that sort of end point of having the system installed and saving your money and finally getting that bill where you're like yes you know like see i saved money and and and i can believe it you know and i think that's where people just they're they're they're skeptical until until they see the the dollars at the end of the day that's so true and i think [00:17:18] Speaker 1: that's why neighborhoods tend to go solar by street by street because it seems too good to be true until you remember that the sun comes out yeah like once you put those two things together yeah because you had asked me about my experience and um i remember this feeling of like excited you sign the papers then there's the waiting till they put it on then there's the waiting two months for the damn national grid it take it it took you two months hey you're oh yeah they wait till the last day in our area and like recently i have a 9k system and i wanted to add another you know couple k to it and they're like nope you you're maxed out and i'm like but i've got three electric cars and they're like sorry yeah um so yeah the grids don't they don't seem to want to um go solar that much and i think that's probably because they know their days are numbered when more and more houses do yeah um but yeah to that point about being a geek i became a geek about solar once they were on the roof and i could see the numbers every day and i could see you know oh my gosh i made this much today and you could start to be like well i think tomorrow yeah 20 more you know yeah you do geek out about it and then just every day there's this this part that doesn't go into the equation which is you just feel good like every day that you have solar you're like i'm part of the solution now you know it just feels it's different than than recycling or these other things which [00:18:32] Speaker 2: are great and important for the world important for the environment like when you put a solar panel system on the top of a residential house that system is is there it's it's it's like projecting to everyone that it's possible it works you know it does make sense you're not a crazy lunatic you know you you thought through it and it still makes sense and it doesn't you know a lot of maybe we don't get everybody and maybe some people are you know diehards this doesn't make sense it's not going to work but we know that their kids are going to see it and go hey you know i know it's possible and i think that's where you know it has a really big impact on um on really changing the way people think about renewable technology because it's literally in your face you have to deal with it you can't not you know deal with climate change because you know everyone around you is putting solar panels up and you're the one guy on this street that doesn't have it like that that's what we want that's how we want people to feel we want them to feel like they they need to do it and hopefully their house is a good fit for it but i think that's that's like a different like societal benefit of rooftop solar that people don't think about um and everyone's very focused on their own sort of savings and their own benefit and that's great but you know it does have a big impact on just neighborhoods and um and people's perception [00:19:43] Speaker 3: of how we interact with the world you know some of our clients want solar panels on the front of the roof to make a statement oh yeah i really respect them on that and uh it just makes me happy helping them it really really enforces me to do a really good job for them to make sure it's such a smooth [00:19:59] Speaker 1: solar project for them and it's so easy well thank you so much lincoln and marcus for taking the time today to talk to me um just just to show our viewers it took us a couple weeks just to get this interview because you guys are so darn busy with your customers like you said you spend a lot of time with them to make sure they've got the right information and that's why i'm excited to be partnering with you guys because you are genuinely out there for the right reasons trying to get people to put solar on the roof that fits their needs which is fantastic so thank you so much for what you guys thanks so much for watching now you know we work hard to bring you videos about things that we think you'll find useful but we need to know from you what you want to see so leave your comments below also don't forget to go over to our patreon page where for as little as a buck a month you can watch our patreon bonus story every week on tesla time news thanks again we'll see you soon