Talking New Energy: How do investors and their portfolio clients really work together - Hometree & L&G

[00:00:01.820] - Jon Slowe

Welcome to Talking New Energy, a podcast from LCP Delta. I'm Jon Slowe.

[00:00:07.690] - Charmaine Coutinho

And I'm Charmaine Coutinho. Together, we're exploring how the energy transition is unfolding across Europe through conversations with guests at the leading edge.

[00:00:19.210] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Hi everyone, and welcome to today's podcast. I'm Charmaine Coutinho, and I'm very pleased to be here today with Hometree and Legal & General. Now, for many of you in the energy sector, you'll probably know that October and November is conference season across Europe. It's been really exciting for me, and I know a number of my colleagues to watch the enthusiasm and the energy piling into the energy transition. Our team have been all over Europe, including our own summit in Berlin a couple of months ago. However, one event I went to a bit more locally to me was run by an accelerator. I live in Cambridge, and that accelerator had the tagline, which I thought was super interesting, of We believe entrepreneurs will change the trajectory of the climate emergency, which I thought was a… It's a lovely way of trying to encourage people to start up their own businesses. Today, we're really excited to be talking about one of the key challenges in the energy transition, that is how to scale a new energy company and how you navigate through the move from those early adopter customers to the mainstream, and that whole crossing the chasm thing that we talk about so often. 

[00:01:20.130] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Home decarbonisation, particularly heating, as one example, is one of the biggest challenges we face in decarbonising, especially in Europe. We're very pleased to be focusing on the home energy market at least to start with. We're very lucky to welcome a new energy company, Hometree, and one of their investors, Legal & General (L&G) Group, onto the podcast today. Now, we don't often get to have a company and their backer in the same room on the podcast, so it should be a really interesting conversation. 

[00:01:45.620] - Charmaine Coutinho 

2023 was a big year for home energy asset sales. Some of the stats that we put out in the last couple of years, they showed it was a real peak. That's changed in 2024 a little bit. But what we do see generally is the energy crisis impacting retail prices and affordability and the increase to focus on residential customers installing assets in their own home still rising. The time is changing a little bit now, but integrating those assets together is the next key challenge. We're going to talk a little bit about that, but also in the wider context. I'm going to give a quick introduction or ask my guests today to introduce themselves. 

[00:02:24.160] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Simon, who is the CEO of Hometree. Do you want to give a introduction to yourself and about Hometree? 

[00:02:30.960] - Simon Phelen 

Great. Well, hello, Charmaine. And thanks again for having us on the podcast. As you said, I'm the founder and CEO of a business called Hometree. We're a UK residential energy services business. We operate across three divisions. We have a renewable installation division for domestic properties, primarily focusing on heat pump, solar battery, and EV charging infrastructure. And that business is a buy and build, where we're acquiring the leading regional SME installers across the UK and integrating them into the Hometree Group. We then have a point-of-sale financing business where we offer long tenor leases and loans to homeowners, financing those assets, five to 25 year time frame. And we're really pleased earlier this year to complete first ever UK Securitisation deal, a 300 million raise from Barclays and CPBIB to help us fund the growth of that exciting business as more consumers seek to fund the upfront CapEx of these assets. Our last and most established division is our home cover or home emergency insurance business, where we are the number four player now in the UK market for ensuring critical infrastructure like heating, plumbing, drains, home electrics, where we have a national network of 5,000 engineers that can get out to homes in a couple of hours when people have faults. 

[00:03:59.730] - Simon Phelen 

So, we like to say that our business is a whole lifecycle energy services business. We can install the hardware assets, we can finance and own the assets, and in life, we can serve as a maintain them and hopefully drive synergies between those three parts of our business. 

[00:04:14.540] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Thank you, I think those three elements that you will hear LCP Delta talking about a lot. It's really important to think how that customer gets that asset in the home and how they can be helped to manage it and look after it. That's great. Thank you. Parminder, please do the same. 

[00:04:30.950] - Parminder Tanday 

Yeah, sure. Hey, guys, I'm Parminder Tanday. I'm an investment manager at Legal & General. We're one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor. My focus is on private markets investments, particularly related to clean energy and the climate transition. We've invested in businesses and projects that are well positioned to grow and become more valuable as we transition to a low-carbon economy. We try and combine our knowledge and insight across different technologies and infrastructure with hands-on experience as an active investor. This helps us identify the right opportunities to support high potential clean energy and climate transition solutions, but also deliver robust returns for our investors. 

[00:05:21.590] - Charmaine Coutinho 

That's great. Thank you. We're going to be chatting to Simon and Parminder about the evolution of Hometree, but also on a more wider basis, how they're looking to address some of the key the measures of the market, the energy market season scaling, which is always really interesting. I came from a background where the research that was doing LCP Delta was poking into people's business models and looking at how they go from effectively pilot projects to being all encompassing BMOF. I'm pretty excited about this one. Of course, we'll look into the Talking New Energy crystal ball. Let's get started. Simon, maybe a bit of background for everyone on the call who's familiar with Hometree. Can you tell me why you set up Hometree and what you're trying to do that you think is a bit different to other companies? 

[00:06:08.820] - Simon Phelen 

Sure. My background had been in private equity and was involved in some deals in the UK home improvement market and saw the opportunity that was coming down the line, primarily at the time from solar. But as we were going to shift from this centralised to distributed energy model, that that was going to create the need for a new type of services business that could help homeowners on that journey. Now, if you think traditionally, there have been utilities like Centrica British Gas that have had big services arms, British Gas Services, which instals traditionally boilers and service maintains them. It's been a big part of Centrica for a long time, but more as a legacy or an output of the fact that they had this history as the gas monopoly. Most other utilities have either tried and failed to build services, businesses, or candidly have stuck to the retail tariff model. The way the model is now moving, of course, you've got players that are needing to stay in that tariff space, moving towards flexibility, virtual power plants (VPPs). But our strong sense was that the requirements to be a winner in the services side of the business was going to heavily skew towards being heavily focused on installers, engineers, building the tools and technology around them, and using them as distribution for getting these products, the financing, etc, into the home. 

[00:07:35.050] - Simon Phelen 

So, I found that the business really would have view that Hometree never wants to go and become a challenger supply enter. We're very much focused with that services, the DNA at our core, the engineer or the installer base at our core. And we always thought that the part of the value chain that we could really add value to was, how are the assets going to get installed? How are they going to get financed? And how do we overcome this upfront CapEx It's a big cost burden for a lot of homeowners? But then in life as well, how can we make sure that they get service maintained? Because for a homeowner, shifting to a new technology that you don't know a lot about, it's not just about helping them overcoming the cost burden. It's also about giving them the peace of mind that if it doesn't work, somebody is going to be there to help get them back up and working again. So, more than happy to dig into lessons learned, but really, it was that key insight that I felt the traditional utilities, whilst they own customer relationships, in most cases, I didn't feel they were best positioned to really win as the market needs moved towards a more of a services orientation and have built a pure play services business that can hopefully be one of the winners in Europe in that space. 

[00:08:45.730] - Charmaine Coutinho 

I think that is interesting because it's the focus purely on the installers and the services for people in the home and not becoming a retail supplier, which I don't know why anyone would want to become a retail supplier currently, or actually even the last five years. That's quite specific, the problem you were trying to solve is these assets need to get into people's homes, but retail suppliers, the people with the primary consumer relationship at the moment, don't have those skillsets. They won't be the people to have those skillsets. Is that right? Is that right? 

[00:09:12.800] - Simon Phelen 

Yeah, look, we think that... Look, if you step back and say 2024, residential decarbonisation, it's in a slightly different place from, and you can ask for Minder in a moment, but for equity investors, it was maybe two years ago. Two years ago, there was a lot of equity investment going into pure play, instal businesses, direct to consumer installation businesses. We do not believe that that model, candidly, is likely to be a winning model. I mean, if you look at a Sunrun in the US, the stock hasn't been a great performer for a long time because CAC is really hard in this business. If you need to acquire that customer relationship on a one in 15, one in 20 year hardware replacement, you're just playing the Google game like everyone else. You don't have a sustainable competitive advantage. In one way, the utilities have a real role to play in that they own consumer relationships. They can help inform and educate around the need to transition to these technologies. In most cases, however, we don't believe that they're best placed to actually go and build this services capability themselves, because at the core, installing, financing, service, and maintaining this technology is a fundamentally different business than being a retailer of a commodity where you don't own the actual pipes. 

[00:10:31.570] - Simon Phelen 

It really is a different DNA that's needed. One, you need to be very focused on hedging, and it's a balance sheet business, whereas our business is quite different to that. It's a services business, and of course, increasingly a consumer financing business. We very much think we can work in partnership with utilities rather than directly compete. 

[00:10:52.100] - Charmaine Coutinho 

I think it's a good point, especially about different types of businesses, right? So, your business is about people, fundamentally. People are probably that's a huge part. Let me pick up on that point you said about which you pointed towards for Perminda. Simon just touched upon the way the market has seen evolution. What made you think Hometree? You invested in Hometree last year, is that right? 

[00:11:19.610] - Parminder Tanday 

Two years ago, so December 2022. 

[00:11:22.640] - Charmaine Coutinho 

What made you think that was a... What led you to that decision? How have you seen the market around the similar space that Hometree plays in change? 

[00:11:31.740] - Parminder Tanday 

Yeah, I know. I mean, yeah. So, being big picture, being part of a major asset manager and climate transition investor means we can enter into diverse sectors and try and create scalable businesses, invest into innovative projects. We've always long held a view that electrification and energy efficiency will be a key driver of the energy transition. We've intentionally invested in both the supply side, so renewable impact, infrastructure, brought us to the demand-side as well, so EV charging, decarbonising homes, and the broader built environment. On that basis, based on that thesis, we, Hometree, just made a clear and attractive investment for us. We recognise a clear need for solutions like Hometree that help decarbonise properties and help electrify homes. The UK has some of the least energy a really efficient housing stock in Europe, and Hometree presented a great opportunity to tackle this problem. Like Simon said, when we first invested into Hometree, Hometree was mainly an established provider of home cover solutions in the UK, and we're seeking backing to expand into residential decarbonisation. It was this focus that Simon has already touched on around being a one-stop solution, almost package for end homeowners and consumers to provide a full-service decarbonisation solution from the installation, the financing, and the maintenance of renewable systems in the home. 

[00:13:14.500] - Parminder Tanday 

And that... That full-service package was really what sold us and it's really important because it reduces the complexity for the end energy consumer and also the cost for the end energy consumer as which directly helps with the consumer adoption of renewable systems like solar PV and heat pumps onto the home. You had the home cover base of customers, which is great, a nice foundation, nice cash flow business. But then the move into providing decarbonisation solutions is what really attracted us. Hometree was, at that point in time and at this point in time, one of the leaders in this space. 

[00:14:03.990] - Charmaine Coutinho 

How has that two-year journey gone? Because I think actually, we said having that established business, which was titled the consumers, so the home energy services and insurance business. But then seeing this pathway through to a decarbonisation piece where you can see it coming down the line, it's important. As you said, mentioned about our UK housing stock is badly insulated. There's a lot of decarbonisation tools or solutions. How's that last two years ago? Because obviously the rest of the external markets, everyone is going to go up and down supply chain issues, our role within the rest of the European supply chain, but also people disposable income and things like that. How have you managed to weather that journey? 

[00:14:52.880] - Parminder Tanday 

Yes, I mean, Simon, I'd say the journey's gone really well, so far. I think Hometree has grown exponentially, they've really helped people upgrade their homes and adopt energy-efficient hardware. We personally believe the business has really simplified the process for residents to help them choose the right low-carbon heating or power option plan for their home. I think coming back to the point on some energy model is not working as well, I think Hometree is really different here because it's diversified across three different business models. That's really helped them weather the storm. If one market's down, it doesn't necessarily mean the other business line will be down as well. You've got diversification there, which provides real protection to the business. We've really been impressed with Hometree's ability, led by Simon and the team he's built to forge new partnerships as well. For example, the UK installer strategy he just talked about. We've been very impressed there. I think we've also, as a board and as a company, we scaled Hometree to the point where it started attracting other private investors in different types of capital. For example, now as a backing of other large institutional investors like Barclays, CPPIB, and BlackRock, which is really great. 

[00:16:14.620] - Parminder Tanday 

It's really nice to see the growth of Hometree and the development of the business. As investors, we try to adopt a genuine partnership approach with our portfolio companies and support them through their multiple phases of growth. You can see… Seeing Hometree forge new key partnerships and attract new investment has been a really great example of investor and company collaboration. The journey has gone well. It's been a good journey.  

[00:16:41.320] - Charmaine Coutinho 

It's interesting. For those of our listeners who I'm not familiar with how funding and things like, we've got a couple of podcasts on it, but it could be best described as successful businesses with a good financial backer will, if they're successful, they'll attract more financing and that can enable that company to do that scale up pathway. But it's a really interesting dynamic to look into. If anyone doesn't understand much about it, I'd really encourage people to go and dig around that. Great. Okay, so, Simon, we talked a bit about the home treat, offer evolution. What's the uptake you're seeing in the market for the services you've talked about? I personally have a very, very strong interest in the installer market and your approach of looking at consolidating those regional models is one that I thought someone should be doing or has been doing for a while in the UK. But what uptake are you seeing on some of the other services at the moment? 

[00:17:41.150] - Simon Phelen 

Yeah. Look, it's not a secret that the residential sector has had a turbulent 2024. There was a lot of pull forward in demand, post-Ukraine, in particular for technologies like solar and across Europe, residential solar and heat pump markets are experiencing particularly tough years. UK hasn't been sheltered from that. Solar is down in the UK this year in the residential setting. But heat pumps are actually experiencing quite a strong year, albeit from, as we know in the UK, a really low base. But at least that is positive. The key point on the installation side, Charmaine, is this challenge of CAC. What we've seen is that these brand plays that go into direct to consumer, they hit a certain point where the marginal CAC to keep on growing just explodes exponentially and it blows out the unit economics. And so, our sense is that one needs to find a really solid business model that can continue to scale. And for us, that is backing regional word of mouth driven businesses, keeping them locally branded, keeping local management teams in place. We're seeing good adoption in those businesses. Solar, as I said, is a bit down. Heat pump is having a good year, but the real challenge we have in the UK is the spark gap, the differential between the cost of electricity and gas. 

[00:19:05.620] - Simon Phelen 

We will need to address that if we really want to see the adoption of something like heat pump moving forward. However, one of the real bright spots is the growth in our financing business. We've long held a view that, okay, the upfront installation is a complex model. We want to get into that. We want to try and improve that model for consumers. Took us a long time to land on the right business model, which, as we said, is this roll up. But now that we're doing that, we're finding that one of the most important ways to enhance our offerings, improve conversion rates for these local businesses, is by offering appropriate financing that can finance the asset over the lifetime of its useful life. And so, we have taken a model that has been really successful in the US, helping to grow the residential renewable market. That is primarily offering long tenor leases and loans. So, five to 25 year loans with a really low cost of capital. Now, people might say, who are listening, well, I can go down to my banking, I can get a home improvement loan, I got it from my windows before my kitchen. 

[00:20:12.910] - Simon Phelen 

The energy infrastructure is quite a unique asset class in that when you're financing your kitchen, you might be able to get a five year, 10 year loan at 12%, 15%, whatever APR. The energy asset class is very different because actually what you're doing is the assets you're putting in are actually reducing your monthly energy outgoings, your electricity bill. And so, in a way, you can think about it as a consumer is not adding more debt to their balance sheet. They're just offsetting a part of their monthly outgoings with financing for a period of time to fund this energy reducing hardware. So, we think it's a really interesting asset class. And that's why the capital markets, the Barclays, the CPBIBs, the Legal & Generals of the world view financing these assets is quite an attractive category. But the challenge in the residential setting is that unlike a big nuclear or a wind farm, etc, the scale of the projects is really subscale. They're 10,000, 20,000. And so, somebody needs to play a middleman role to take enough of those volume of projects together to the financiers to unlock their capital. And so, that's really the role that we're playing today, where we are financing the whole of the market, so third-party installers, utilities. 

[00:21:33.120] - Simon Phelen 

And that is the business we're seeing the most explosive growth right now. Since we launched that business last year, early this year, we've really seen that growing exponentially, and that's a business we continue to see so. And finally, we... 

[00:21:49.210] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Sorry, go for it, if you finish. 

[00:21:51.210] - Simon Phelen 

We also just think that the OEM services, so you can get the asset installed, we can help you with that, you can get it financed. In-life consumers, what we're finding, also really do want a peace of mind to know that the 10, 20K that they've spent is not going to be left hanging if they have no heating, no hot water, if their electric stopped working. So, we think that that whole peace of mind wrapper is really important because the industry too long has almost dealt with these installations more as projects. It's one and done. Whereas owning that consumer lifetime is really candidly, both we think valuable to the consumer, but is the essence of our business model. Our business model is not just about once off revenue streams. It's about creating an annuity-like model and monetising that whole lifecycle at the I heard we're in the home. 

[00:22:46.250] - Charmaine Coutinho 

I can see why financiers are interested in what you guys are doing. You've made a couple of really interesting points, one which is around the asset category, the home energy assets in a really interesting asset category. Sorry, different use of the word asset. It's for two different purposes. But for financiers, because it does create, it's slightly different. It's slightly annoying because it's a small scale, so you need that volume, and you need someone to take on the risk of putting that volume together with all these lots of little projects. That's, I suppose, where Hometree's role really plays. But just your last point about those long-term relationships, actually. You're right. When we were doing research in this area, actually, a couple of investors were interested in companies which were looking at what we were talking about as an Energy-as-a-Service business model for domestic customers. Actually, the interest was, oh, there is a long-term relationship, there's an ongoing relationship, and there's a regular relationship. Actually, that's how you create a really good strong customer link, but also, you're continuing to get revenue all through that time period. The idea is that you will continue to do that in the future. 

[00:23:51.690] - Charmaine Coutinho 

I can see that being very… I can see why there is a lot of explosion of interest in that area. Going back to your point you said about customer acquisition costs and how that's the tricky thing. I think that was something we've also seen in the market where we're going to some supply chain conferences and things like that, where actually the focus is really on how do we get the scale and the delivery volumes in. So, installations, local installations has been one part of the solution. So, that's interesting. Do you have any perspective as an investor in Hometree, specifically, but also just generally at other energy companies that are trying to support the residential customer. 

[00:24:37.220] - Parminder Tanday 

Yeah, sure. I can talk about Hometree and other energy companies without saying too much. I can high-level talk about it. Maybe do a seamless plug for some of the portfolio companies we're already invested in. 

[00:24:51.040] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Yes, please do. 

[00:24:52.700] - Parminder Tanday 

I echo basically everything that Simon has just said there. I think we're particularly interested to see our Hometree's business flywheel will continue to drive synergies across its three business lines. The installation... 

[00:25:10.690] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Yeah, tell me about what the business flywheel is. 

[00:25:13.540] - Parminder Tanday 

Hometree's business as Simon says, has got three separate business lines, installation, financing, and home cover businesses. Effectively, you can sell, cross-sell products between each of those three lines to provide a one-stop solution for the home consumer. So, your consumer can come to you and get a solar PV panel installed, can get financing on that solar PV panel, and then an ongoing maintenance package as well on that PV system all through home tree. That's the as well. The really important thing and the key thing to making decarbonisation for homes work, we believe, just to reduce the complexity, reduce the cost, and increase that consumer adoption. It's really important for Hometree's trajectory and also to provide that compelling customer value proposition to support the full lifecycle of a sustainable home. I think talking about that one-stop package, it fundamentally just all goes back down to the customer and the importance of making it easy for them. Right now, Hometree continues to achieve strong customer review scores, which is really important. In this market, you need to be a trusted long-term partner to the end energy consumer. The flywheel is really important to Hometree's strategy and vision. 

[00:26:46.320] - Parminder Tanday 

That one-stop solution. To provide a compelling customer value proposition to support the full lifecycle of a sustainable home. Hometree's package, it all fundamentally goes back to the customer and the importance of making it easy for them, the end energy consumer. Right now, Hometree continues to achieve strong customer view scores, which is really important, especially in the product they're providing. It's really important to be a trusted long-term partner to the end consumer. What Hometree does, and will continue and hopefully continues to do so, is help the end consumer decarbonise their home at the right time at the pace that is right for them, along with the expert guidance along the way on the decarbonisation journey. I think you asked me about other energy companies. There's a lot of... There's been a lot of focus in the sector on the supply-side of the energy transition, so grid scale renewables generation. A lot of investment has flutter into that side of the market. I think it's really important that... And it's starting to happen is that attention is stepped up on investment to demand side, so helping consumers and businesses decarbonise and manage their own energy requirements. 

[00:28:10.730] - Parminder Tanday 

That posed a real opportunity for investment. Over time, we've seen solutions emerge to address a range of challenges relating to home heating and energy, from innovative low-carbon energy infrastructure to larger-scale retrofit solutions. So, going back to the It's a shameless plug that I was talking about, we've invested in two companies, one being Kensa. Kensa, a UK leading ground source heat pump manufacturer and installer. So, that they aim to install 50,000 ground source heat pumps a year by 2030. L&G has provided an investment to support that goal. We've also partnered with Cero Group. Cero, they combine their innovative retrofit solution and technology alongside the real estate expertise to help social housing providers understand and improve their energy efficiency of their housing stock. The climate transition, it presents a huge global investment opportunity with potential to deliver strong returns, particularly in the private markets. Investing in solutions in this space will not only reduce emissions but provide superior products and services for consumers as well. 

[00:29:36.350] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Well, what is really interesting what you just said. I'm not in your investment portfolio meetings, obviously, but that focus on companies that are helping the customer, and even just raising it like helping the customer is a really good barometer for people to think about how is this company actually helping the customer? Is what this company is doing actually making it easier or more affordable for them. It's quite a simple but useful sense check, really, because I think something you can often forget is we're doing this for the reasons for the company. The company thinks it's a good idea, but actually, is it actually helping the customer? Okay, I'm going to go into last because we're running out time a little bit. Our crystal ball question, which we always have. So, Parminder and Simon, where do you think, where do you hope the decarbonisation of residential homes, and maybe actually beyond home energy, so building energy will be in 2030. Perhaps maybe even Simon, where do you hope Hometree will play a role in? I'll ask you first, Simon. 

[00:30:42.140] - Simon Phelen 

Absolutely. Look, we see that the market is never going to be just up and to the ride. It will remain a turbulent market. There'll be better years, there'll be worse years, interest rates, all of these macro factors have an impact. But fundamentally, we're clearly very strong believers in the in the strong secular tailwind that is going to push the adoption of residential renewables. And we think by 2030, the adoption rates will be significantly up. We think that's both true and Through government measures, but also just through consumer pull. We think that increasingly you will see financing playing a part of the market. We think that as you move out of the early adopter model to consumers who maybe have less cash on hand to invest in assets that pay off over 15, 20, 25 years, that the market will move towards a more financed-led model, which obviously is quite different to how the traditional energy model has been, but we think will be fundamental because the consumer balance sheet doesn't have the capital needed to fund this. And that capital exists. But as I said, you need to build the bridge between the capital markets and the home. 

[00:31:57.020] - Simon Phelen 

And that's really the role that we see Hometree playing. And then, we also think that the winning models, we believe now, are starting to show their heads. We think Octopus is clearly the type of utility that can clearly be a winning model in this residential decarbonisation space. How many other Octopuses’ in terms of big utilities are there? Who knows? I'm sure there will be some. But the alternative, we don't think, will be the direct-to-consumer installer. You call it Energy-as-a-Service. We think about it as pure play energy services businesses like Hometree that have multiple routes to market, really have lots of recurring revenue. Businesses that are very focused on once off, fit and forget. I think it's fine. You can build a small business there, but I don't think you're going to build pan-European players. But we do also think that outside of the Octopus Play, there will be these pure-play services businesses that maybe look more like financing or insurance-type businesses, but also have that on the ground capability. And we really think that Hometree can be a market leader across Europe in that model. Our model has not been or our evolution has not been all genius. 

[00:33:12.220] - Simon Phelen 

It's been a lot of mistakes, and we've learned the lessons of candidly having the wrong business model in a tough category. And so, it's taken us a long time to get the right model that we think can monetise a whole lifetime, not rely on just acquiring the customer to our own brands. That's an opportunity that the utilities perhaps have. We think a player like Hometree can really partner with many of the players who already own these customer relationships but don't have the services or the financing capability and build a really interesting business over the next couple of years. So 2030, we see the evolution a lot more advanced, and we also see, hopefully, that Hometree, we think will be quite a significant business at that point. 

[00:33:58.130] - Charmaine Coutinho 

So, I like the fact that you said. It would be the customer uptake will be more advanced, but it sounds like you're also looking for more competitors as well, Simon. I think we should have done a podcast or I should have asked your question about all the things you did wrong, but maybe that's for a different one. Perminda, tell me what you think of... You can agree with Simon, but you can also take it from a different macro perspective. 

[00:34:22.610] - Parminder Tanday 

Yeah, I think we've touched on it a few times now. For us, it just goes back to the consumer in the home. I think by 2030, we'd love to see more highly engaged consumers seeing real benefits from switching to electric solutions. Only in particular solutions that can offer superior service and comfort, independence, or less dependent on volatile fossil fuels, and just easier and more affordable ways to adopt the right new clean technology for there… I think it's important and hopefully we'll continue to see increase behind the metre generation, which Hometree is facilitating. That should definitely help ease pressure on the grid, which is already very constrained. It becomes a more cheaper, more efficient way for the grid to help manage its constraints and help with the decarbonisation and plans to reach net zero of the UK economy. I think, yeah, behind the major generation is in a good place. We've seen other innovations as well that have come to the market, which could be interesting by 2030. We've seen increased adoption of smart terraces, which should help reduce the ongoing operation of costs of renewable systems, which will help the end energy consumer of a lower bill. 

[00:36:00.770] - Parminder Tanday 

Smart Home controls and capabilities, they're becoming more popular. It gives energy consumer more oversight over their energy consumption and also some control of their energy usage. So, giving them that flexibility control over their own energy needs and demands. I think Simon mentioned it right at the beginning of the call, but virtual power plants, residential optimisers, they've come to market. And as behind the metre generation does continue to grow, it presents an opportunity for these platforms to manage and optimise these different assets to, a) provide energy bill savings to the consumer, but also to work with the grid and help manage costs for the grid from that perspective. There's some really interesting innovations that we've seen. I think, to summarise where we see Hometree in all of this, I think Hometree could be a real integral part to the energy transition and be the leading provider of one-stop shop consumer home decarbonisation solutions. It would be great to see more and more customers with gas boilers take up the opportunity to adopt new technology like solar PV batteries and heat pumps and go to Hometree to be that provider and solution for the home decarbonisation ambitions. 

[00:37:28.800] - Charmaine Coutinho 

I'm going to stop you at that point because I think this nice little segue and pitch for Hometree. So, thank you. I think that is... Thank you both for coming and sharing your thoughts. It's been really interesting. Simon and Parminder, you'll probably find them online, but if you have a look into both the portfolios around L&G, but also the Hometrees evolution, I think everyone will find that super interesting. All of our listeners, we hope we felt a bit of a very interesting disruption in the market and actually getting the perspective of how an investment perspective into this market. What really stood out for me was actually just coming back to increasing role of the customer. We talk about it quite a lot at LCP, but it's worth all saying in, no matter how much control, how much change they're going to experience over the next 2, 3, 5, 10 years, about the ways that that needs to be made easier and relevant to them. But anyway, that's all from me from now. As ever, we would always welcome opinions, replies, comments, ideas. You can find Jon Slowe or I on LinkedIn or email us, talkingnewenergy@lcp.com  

[00:38:41.330] - Charmaine Coutinho 

Thanks very much to my guests for today, and we'll see you next time. 

[00:38:47.550] - Jon Slowe

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[00:38:55.770] - Charmaine Coutinho

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