Solar start-up warms to global expansion

Smart Energy has embarked on a global expansion plan after growning revenue to more than $40 million this financial year.

Smart Energy executives Beau Savage, Elliot Hayes and Jasper Boyschau

Smart Energy describes itself as Australia's fastest-growing solar, storage and energy services start-up, and the Byron Bay-based company is now embarking on a global expansion as demand for renewable energy builds.

Co-founder Elliot Hayes told The Australian his company had grown revenue to surpass $40 million this financial year, and was now opening its first offshore office in the UK in the next month, with plans for a New Zealand launch in 2020 and a US ­office to follow after that. They'll join existing offices in Sydney, Byron Bay, Wollongong, Newcastle, Gosford, Melbourne and Perth.

“I started work in the south of England selling solar,” he said. “It was a hard sell but I remember my mum moaning about bills so I ­decided to stick it out because the idea that I could help other families save money felt good. I did that for four years and then came to Australia to do some travel and realised how big the country is and the abundance of sun here.

“When I got here I was working in energy sales and was saving people money but it wasn’t a game-changer. One day on the job a man came out of his house in Dubbo and asked if I was the ‘energy man’ and said, ‘I’ve got this bill here for four grand and I can’t pay it’. I looked at the bill and it was $4000 in credit. The retailer owed him $4000. I looked at the bill and saw his solar system had been feeding back to the grid. That was the light-bulb moment for me, I knew straight away that I wanted to move into solar.”

Mr Hayes said he and co-founder Beau Savage started the company selling solar systems from a warehouse in Byron Bay.

“We had one palette of solar panels and an air bed,” he said. “We slept there at night and worked from there during the day. We made a pact to only work with premium products. We had everything quality-checked and worked with recommended installers in the area. We sold our first system, and from there we grew it from two to 20, to 50 and now over 150 installs a week. We now have more than 50 support staff, digital remote monitoring and audit checks, 24-hour engineer support available and thousands of happy customers.”