The clock was ticking mercilessly
Supply and demand!
While in 2021 – partly due to the pandemic – we had to make every effort to fully readjust our Brusol sales team's schedules, in 2022, we could barely keep up with demand for our free Brusol solar panels. Each week we saw over 100 contracts being signed in our showroom or during technical visits. The number of office and installation teams was scaled up so that our customers did not have to wait (too) long for their installation files to be prepared, or for their actual installations to be booked in. Priority was given not to those who shouted the loudest, but to those who were in the greatest need of our energy solution. Managing Brusol turned into a real numbers game, including the number of projects at every stage of the entire administrative and technical process, in order to keep waiting times down for our customers. In the end, 2022 proved a record year, with over 10 MW of residential installations to our name.
"Mission accomplished: deadline met".
Deadline: 31 December 2022, 11.59 pm
In the autumn of 2022, Brussels Minister for Energy Alain Maron announced that the award rate for green energy certificates would go down for any installation inspected starting 1 January 2023.
This also signalled the end of free solar panels and free electricity in the Brussels-Capital Region. During various brainstorming sessions, our teams laid the foundation for a new paying model for Brussels – essentially an adapted version of our Flemish EnergyHome model. Our Brussels households will continue to make ridiculous savings on their energy bills, but will pay a flat rate for the electricity they can consume locally after a certain period.
Before rolling out this new model, it was all hands on deck to get all the already built installations inspected in time. After all, time was really against us: the installations had to be inspected before the clock struck midnight on 31 December to be included as part of the more favourable system. It became a race against the clock, as in Flanders there was also a rush on inspection agencies due to a change in the regulations.
From October 2022, six full-time inspectors were reserved at a rate of ten inspections per day, with the Brusol inspections team celebrating Christmas at the office just to deal with all the last-minute changes, e.g. customers who were not at home when the inspector came by, along with others who wished to change their inspection date. On 30 December, we closed the year and totted up the results. The outcome? With around 20 exceptions (predominantly customers overseas for an extended period), all Brusol installations were successfully inspected! But now the real work begins: convincing the Brussels market, after years of free energy, to adopt a new, paying model.
Editing: Justin Noyez
With the collaboration of: Michèle Adams, Thomas Dauwe, Koen Decourt, Sander Wille, Klaas Michielssens, Maqsud Bilal, Laurens De Greef, Laurien Godfroid
Design and styling: Ilse Maes
Publisher responsible: Maarten Michielssens
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