Why do we need to pay attention to the “orphans of the manor”?

Anyone who works in the photovoltaic solar energy market has certainly heard of a case of a customer who was left without service because the reseller company closed.

Or do you know of cases of manufacturers and distributors who left the market. Or even, when making a sale and talking about the systems extended warranty, you received the question: but how will I know if the company will exist until then?

The client do not want Buy from a company that may not exist in the future. The market has been calling this phenomenon “orphans of the manor”. It is worrying that the market will lose customers and, above all, that people will lose confidence in the photovoltaic market as a whole.

The origin of the name lies in end customers, consumers, who are left without support, but the movement affects the entire chain, with resellers, distributors, manufacturers. One installation company it can also be orphaned by a manufacturer or distributor. This phenomenon of companies leaving the market over time has several reasons.

In between the main ones are the growth of competition, price wars, the sacrifice of profit margins, the increase in company liabilities and the difficulty in managing resources. And if we know that these are the main factors, what we should do for avoid them?

You “orphans of the manor” they are already more frequent in more mature markets. To give you an idea, between 2000 and 2016, 8,700 companies installed photovoltaic systems in the United States. But in 2016, only 2.9 thousand of these companies were still active.

I.e, in 16 years, the market lost two thirds of companies in the sector. In Australia at least 30% of systems are orphaned. In some cases, the installation was so poorly done that the customer could not find another company to take care of it.

Here in the Brazil, one third of reseller companies have only been on the market for a year. As our market is newer, we can observe what has been happening abroad to understand what could happen here.

The worrying fact is that our Technical Support at Ecori has already received calls from end customers who are without assistance. We had a recent discussion on this topic, in an MLPE Room, and many more cases emerged than we imagined in the comments.

Looking in more detail at the causes, the financial health of companies is the first warning sign to the risk of breakage. And, in most cases, the reduction in profit margins caused by price wars is the main factor for the bankruptcy.

When a company sells a system without considering at the margin everything that is necessary, and in some cases even due to its cost, it increases too much the risk. A lack of experience with business, and especially with finance, can lead to incorrect pricing.

Other factors of business failure are poor customer service, use of low quality equipment, legal actions, choice of suppliers (distributors and manufacturers) based solely on price and unpreparedness to be on the market.

The problem may also be in the installation. Many installers are not yet trained and qualified to work in the area. When the company sell maintenance for the customer, but is not prepared to execute it, ends up increasing its liabilities, with high costs after-sales.

Therefore, the Ecori invest heavy on training professionals, to make the market as a whole more healthy. We need to be concerned about this training It is training if we want a market with sustainable growth.

We have face-to-face training, roadshows, to the MLPE rooms, The Ecori Plus platform, and more recently we launched the Ecori Professional Certification, with a test administered by the Totum Institute.

It is up to the market to teach new professionals who are entering and also the end consumer, who knows little about photovoltaic systems. A responsibility and market quality for the future belongs to everyone.

And for those interested in adopting “solar orphans” consumers, the opportunities for corrective and preventive maintenance, such as periodic cleaning of modules, for example, can be very useful. interesting. It is only worth carrying out a good inspection of the system before pricing the service.