Electrical Connection Autumn 2015

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www. e l e c t r i c a l c o nn e c t i o n . c om . a u 41
same outcomes with less effort is crucial;
be it in design, purchasing, advertising, lead
costs or conversion ratio’s. This is where
microinverters can really help.
Need an easier design process for your
relatively unskilled sales people? Would you
really like to optimise the output of every
single system through product matching
but can’t afford the time? Microinverters
make it about as simple as it can be, with
their Lego-like configuration models and
intrinsic performance optimisation.
Sick of carrying a range of inverters to
suit your ever widening range of system
sizes? Ever been caught with old inverter
stock that didn’t suit the markets needs and
had to sell it below cost to clear it? Problem
solved with microinverters. One model,
perhaps two at most and you have a range
for almost every application.
Buying too many sales leads which
have shaded roofs? Seeing increasing
numbers of roofs that have multiple
orientations? Worried that your commission
incentivised sales gun might be
overlooking minor shading? That’s dead
money and a recipe for disappointment.
Microinverters will help.
The other way is to increase price. Few
can get away with simply ratcheting price
up without adding value, so tuning into
what customers really want and developing
offers loaded with benefits is essential.
Although we highlighted earlier that
microinverters are much closer to the price
of existing systems than was previously
the case, let’s assume there is a gap for a
moment. I ran a quick model comparing
three 3kW system types.
> A Tier 3 inverter/ module combo at
$1/W (net)
> A Tier 1 inverter/module combo at
$1.50/W (net)
> A Tier 1 micro inverter/module combo at
$1.73 (net)
Let’s assume you sell 500 3kW systems a
year at 25% gross margin and compare the
results. What you can see pretty quickly is that
(logically) if you sell higher priced systems
you’ll make more revenue and margin dollars.
But more importantly, you can also see that
if you sold almost 40% fewer microinverter
systems at that higher price, you would
make the same revenue and gross profit as
you would selling 500 crappy systems. For a
whole lot less effort. And you would generate
more energy for your customers.
In a nutshell I think microinverters
provide a really compelling business case
for clever solar retailers in a declining
market, full of crappy products.
Article originally appeared at
Reproduced
with permission.
Microinverters make a compelling
case for retailers in a declining
market, full of crappy products.
EMONA
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