Ben
Co-founder · DirectorSparky for seven years across industrial, commercial, and residential. Now designs and builds the Solar Scout site that connects Kiwi homeowners with vetted installers.
About Us
Like any good business startup memoir, this one starts with two mates from the same high school. In 2018, Ben’s mum and dad paid $17,000 to put solar on their roof. By month three, the installer had been back four times for multiple issues. Then they went under. Solar Scout was built so it wouldn’t happen again.
There were three problems.
The chimney shaded two panels.
Two panels in shadow was all it took to knock out half the array. String-wired panels are like Christmas lights, one in shade drags the whole line down.
Our in-house solar analysis engine maps your roof from aerial data and scores every section for shading from trees, chimneys, and neighbours. You see which panels would sit in shade before anyone quotes.
Two panels in shadow was all it took to knock out half the array. String-wired panels are like Christmas lights, one in shade drags the whole line down.
The wrong-sized system halves the savings.
A system sized without looking at your usage generates into an empty house. Surplus sells back to the grid at a quarter of retail, so payback can stretch from twelve years to twenty.
Our 20+ question quiz captures your actual power bill, hot water type, when you use power, and your EV plans. You see the real payback years for your home before anyone quotes.
A system sized without looking at your usage generates into an empty house. Surplus sells back to the grid at a quarter of retail, so payback can stretch from twelve years to twenty.
The warranty dies with the installer.
When a solar company folds, your ten-year workmanship warranty folds with it. Every fault from then on is out of your pocket, plus a new installer to sort the paperwork.
Every installer on Solar Scout passes a 6-point check. SEANZ membership, EWRB registration, Master Electricians certification, 3+ years solar experience, verified references, and a 5-year minimum workmanship warranty. Shaky ones don't make it on.
When a solar company folds, your ten-year workmanship warranty folds with it. Every fault from then on is out of your pocket, plus a new installer to sort the paperwork.
It shouldn’t have happened to them.
The tech to stop all three already existed in 2018. Aerial imagery could model a roof down to the panel. Proper algorithms could price the real payback from a household’s actual usage and export rate. Serious installer vetting could weed out the shaky operators long before they quoted. Nobody had bothered to put it all in one place.
So I got to work.
And joined forces with a high school mate of mine, Harnill.
I couldn’t pull this off alone. Roof modelling needed someone who really knew aerial imagery. Harnill did. He’d been selling AI-powered site monitoring camera systems across NZ.
I grabbed him for a coffee and walked him through the idea. He quit that week. Same kind of tech, pointed at NZ rooftops.
Harnill Hylan
Co-founder · DirectorHas looked at more roofs from above than most pilots. Now turns satellite imagery into the numbers behind every Solar Scout report.
And so
So we started Solar Scout.
The kind of thing I wished my parents had in 2018.
How we work now
Four things we won’t budge on.
Every installer is vetted.
EWRB registered, Master Electricians certified, fully insured, three years minimum on solar. If they don't pass, they don't get your number.
Real LiDAR, not guesswork.
Real aerial LiDAR models your specific roof. Every pitch, every shading object, every panel placed where the sun actually hits. No suburban averages.
Free for homeowners. Always.
You never pay us. Installers pay a small fee for the opportunity to win your business. So they're paid to compete on quality, not just on price.
100% NZ owned and built.
Auckland-based, NZ-owned. Built for Kiwi homes, your distributor's rates, your EDB's export limits. Not a global service squeezed into New Zealand.
Just the start
The story we’re trying not to write again.
Every quote we run, every installer we vet, every roof we model, that story is the one we’re trying not to write again.
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