At April’s London edition of Solar & Storage Live, the Xtra team interviewed LIVOLTEK’s Head of Europe, Amy Liu.
Amy discussed three opportunities the UK solar market has the opportunity to take advantage of this year, why LIVOLTEK attends shows like Solar & Storage Live, and the conversations she was looking forward to having.
Interview with Amy Liu, Head of Europe for LIVOLTEK
“This is what we were seeing: [ways] to combine and manage your home load to make it a really smart home. This is the next opportunity for the UK market: combining hardware and software.”
Xtra: What are three major opportunities for the UK solar market in the next 12 months?
Amy: As the Livoltek brand entered the UK market two years [ago], we started from residential and have now also expanded into the commercial sector.
The three opportunities in the UK market for the next 12 months include battery storage. It’s being driven towards some common trends, such as demand and it’s also driven by energy prices. This is the first opportunity we are seeing for the coming year.
The second opportunity I’m seeing here is about home energy management. There are a lot of hardware suppliers in this market as more and more families now have solar panels, battery storage, heat pumps, and EV charging.
A single EV charge is seven kilowatts: this is probably a big amount of the home load. So as more and more families have more home load, they can choose and manage the home load that’s combined with a smart tariff. A lot of energy companies now have dynamic tariffs and smart tariffs.
This is what we were seeing: [ways] to combine and manage your home load to make it a really smart home. This is the next opportunity for the UK market: combining hardware and software.
Because we’re mostly for the residential sector, we’re thinking about PV on new buildings. During this exhibition, we‘re speaking to a lot of developing companies. It will likely become a new trend for new buildings and homes because everybody wants to be modelling them from the beginning. This is a new opportunity for the PV of new buildings and new homes.
Xtra: What conversations are you excited to have at Solar & Storage Live London?
Amy: As a manufacturer, we are excited to speak to our partners. The first in that category are the distributors. We are excited to speak to our distributor partners and see what they are looking for in us as a manufacturer to add value to their businesses.
The second category is installers as ‘final players’ in this industry, as part of a supply chain that approaches any user, no matter a residential end-user or commercial end user, for the final step.
We want to know what they care about, so we’ll talk to them about their needs and then go back to our factory to discuss what we need to design. [We also discuss] what provides value to this market and this industry.
Another category is energy companies, who have been significant players in the industry this year – [we want to know] what do they really care about? For chargers and battery storage, they are interactive and deal with the network.
How do energy companies play a significant role in this industry? They can provide renewable energy of all kinds. They can also set new regulations because of [how they are] interacting with their network and with the grid.
Those are the three conversations we want to have [at the show].
Xtra: Why is it important to be at Solar & Storage Live London, and why are these events so significant?
Amy: The first thing to focus on is networking. Especially [for us as] we have our local team and our Chinese team here. Our existing partners said networking is important and so did our new friends at the show.
The second thing is about trends. Everybody sees this industry [as one where we] share information with competitors, our partners, organisations, associations, and companies, about new regulations and what’s new coming to this industry. We should have more knowledge and information exchange – it’s quite important.
Additionally, this is a unique event for our brand, which is a good channel to build our brand awareness on – which is why we attend here. I’m the first batch to reserve (a place) at this show here in London. London is a very big city, which makes it a good place for information exchange.
Xtra: Can you run us through some hot topics facing the solar market at the moment?
Amy: The first thing (to focus on) is the marketing trends. I see, compared to last year, much more of the marketing diversion, i.e. the transition from residential to commercial.
A second insight is competition. We often find too very many similar hardware products in this industry, which gave me an idea: How should we build our computers in this industry and this market? We have similar hardware, so how can we provide our software, computers, and services and still market to our industry.
