By Kate Monson

If you read the first blog in this series you probably won’t be surprised to hear that Good Energy customer and generator, Dave Caister, didn’t come across his first solar panel on the roof of a house. “I was hanging out with a mate in Sierra Leone in 1987 and we met a Dutch medical team who had a clinic out in the bush with solar powered vaccine fridges. I thought it was brilliant and I’ve been fascinated ever since.”

But despite being an electrician by trade he didn’t have anything to do with them again until 1997; and this was when he was charged with installing solar panels on Rockall in the North Atlantic as part of a Greenpeace campaign against deep water drilling. “We set up an eco-pod on Rockall and had solar panels on the boat to illustrate the power of renewables.” His partner on the project was Martin Cotterell – founder of leading PV company Sundog Energy and one time installer of solar panels on John Prescotts’s roof as part of a Greenpeace action to demonstrate how easy it is to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of homes.

“Martin is the main man,” says Dave. “Back in 1995 when he set up Sundog there was no money in it but he followed his heart and is now a market leader in the industry. Martin sits on all these committees and is a really respected chap. And I remember him when he was a man in a van!”

“I really wanted to get involved at the time too but I just couldn’t make it be a viable part of my business, particularly with me travelling all over the world with work. That was until the Feed-in Tariffs were introduced. That made a huge difference and I installed an 875W system on my house so it could be assessed by the regulating body and I could become a certified PV installer.” Dave recently expanded his system to 3kW.

“I’ve been a Good Energy installer partner for a few years and they’ve been really helpful. I sometimes struggle with the paperwork and ensuring I’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s but Good Energy have made it really easy and are always friendly, which is just what you want, particularly if you’re a smaller installer like me. It’s also great for the customers as it provides that extra level of accreditation and support. Solar panels are the new double glazing and every man and his dog seem to have jumped in on the installer action. And I would make a guess that not all of them are that good. I advise all my customers to do their research and speak to other people who have already had renewable technologies installed.

The industry can be quite complex, but having an organisation like Good Energy behind me and my customers really helps.”

If you’d like to find out about Good Energy’s recommended installers or would like to become an installer partner head to our website.

Our Generate section is packed full of information, from helping you to assess your renewable energy resources and where you can find the best installer to financing the project and earning money from the energy you produce with our Feed-in Tariff services and Power Purchase Agreements.