Graduate Trainee: Rotation

Across the different areas of the business there are a variety of activities you may be involved in. Here is a selection of some of them.

• Purchasing and Stock Control

  Since most of our business comes from supplying complete kits for installations, and installers work to tight deadlines involving prearranged labour and scaffolding, it’s vital to have good stock levels across hundreds of components. We source products from dozens of manufacturers in the UK, Europe and China and price negotiations are a key part of staying competitive. Managing diverse lead times and the impact on prices of global supply and demand are some of the challenges faced in stock management.

• Marketing, Web Content Management and Business Development

  There are several thousand installation companies still active in the UK, and we need to make sure they are all aware of our strengths as a supplier. By far the best way is to have a friendly conversation with a decision-maker, so making calls is always the most successful route to getting new business. We also try to keep customers up to date with prices, new products etc. via email newsletters and occasional mailshots. We have put some effort recently into improving our online ordering, and the website is now a fast and easy way of buying from us. But the more traffic we drive to our site, the more important it is that the content there is useful, looks good and is well-written and engaging (not to mention performing well in searches), so editing that content is also an important part of our overall marketing efforts. Ensuring we are active on social media is also important - LinkedIn in particular is a useful communication channel for us. Press releases, banner advertising and trade shows are all further potential areas to involve you as part of the Marketing function.   

• Warehouse Operations and Logistics

  We currently have two warehouses, with the main one adjoining our offices and another, larger outsourced one where we store pallets of solar panels. Since most installers buy panels in quantities smaller than full pallets, we transfer pallets from the off-site warehouse to the on-site one to be split down, and repacked with the rest of the kit components. Orders can frequently include 20-30 products, and hundreds of components and need to be picked and packed without error. There are multiple ways for orders to leave, including a national haulier for pallets, sameday van courier for local jobs, parcel couriers and Royal Mail for smaller items, and collection by customers themselves. After determining the most cost-effective way of sending the orders, everything needs booking, labelling and loading correctly, and there is often some tracking required on behalf of customers if things go wrong.

  Orders keep coming in throughout the day, so it is a challenge to stay on top of everything that needs processing in time for the various couriers to collect.

  We also have inbound goods arriving most days, which need checking in and putting away. This can include large deliveries of truck-loads of solar panels, battery storage systems or mounting hardware.

• Solar PV System Design : Grid-Tied, Off-Grid and Battery Storage

  There are various things to consider when designing solar and storage systems. Off-grid systems will need to be designed based on the power needed for what the customer’s trying to run, but also taking into consideration things like the space they have available, their budget, compatibility with system components they already have and what voltage they want to run at, whether there’s another power source e.g. a generator, and so on. The batteries to choose will be affected by the conditions the batteries will face, and how much maintenance the customer prefers to do. Panels, inverter chargers, cabling and batteries also all need to be sized relative to each other. As such, off-grid systems need designing via in-depth discussion with the customer.

  For grid-connected systems, the considerations are similar, although more standardised. There are certain limitations imposed by connnection to the grid, whether single phase or three phase, and our software helps installers to size systems correctly – panels are wired in series as strings which need to be within the current and voltage parameters an inverter can accommodate, and isolating switches also need to be sized accordingly. The solar array needs to fit on the roof it’s going on (we have panels of various sizes) and we have mounting systems to suit different roof types. Panels are available in different outputs, and with various features – fully black ones are especially popular.

  Battery storage systems also need carefully sizing to a customer’s needs, and we sell multiple types including AC-coupled and DC-coupled systems suitable for retro-fitting to existing arrays, and hybrid systems which incorporate a PV inverter and are ideal for installation with new PV systems.

  Although sizing systems is ultimately the installer’s responsibility, they will ask our advice and opinions on what to supply. Having a good understanding of the basics means we can offer a helpful service, and keep customers coming back to us.

• Market Analysis: New Product Lines

  The renewables market continues to develop - in recent years EV chargers have been an important addition to the range, and we are constantly looking for exciting products and technologies that complement our existing range. Increasingly,  these involve decarbonising other forms of energy in the home, such as space heating and water heating, or integrating overall house energy management under a smart system. Researching this area would be a useful project.