COVID-19

Letter from BPS CEO-Mikey Heinz

With the world focused on COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) and how to slow it’s spread, we want to make sure we stay aligned with our Partners on how we are handling this situation and what our current plans are. As you all know, things are changing rapidly and we are in uncharted territory so EVERYTHING is subject to change. Fortunately, as far as OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has defined, our job category is very “Low Risk” as it relates to contracting and/or spreading the virus. Here is their classification- “Those that do not require contact with people known to be, or suspected of being, infected, no close contact with (i.e. within 6 feet) of the general public. Workers in this category have minimal occupational contact with the public and other coworkers.” For additional information on COVID-19, please visit https://www.cdc.gov/.

Although this is the case, we are still trying to do everything we can to keep our team safe and minimize the spread of COVID-19. At the same time, one of the most pressing issues this situation presents is the certain economic impact it is going to have. Many companies have announced layoffs and millions of people are going without paychecks due to closures and cancellations. We want to do everything possible to provide an opportunity for our team to stay safe, keep their paychecks, and even open up more hours if people want or need to make up for other losses, and possibly to hedge against future uncertainty.

To be more specific and how it may or may not impact you, here is a breakdown of what we are doing and any potential concerns we see by function/department-

1. Support Desk- We’re trying not to change much here and the goal is to keep the same hours and level of support. We have rearranged our physical layout to create more separation as well as working on ways to allow more folks to work from home without sacrificing quality control and support level. Our greatest risk that we are trying to avoid is having a high number of people call in sick at the same time, spreading us critically thin. The good news is that we have measures in place to backfill if this does happen but it is still a risk/ situation we would like to avoid.
2. Site Survey- We have put together a training for all our surveyors/field employees on how to interact with customers properly in order to keep themselves and the customer safe. This would involve standard “social distancing” such as not shaking hands, keeping gloves and face masks on when appropriate, keeping distance from the customer and any personal items, and minimizing time in a home or eliminating it all together if possible. We will also be taking our own internal sanitization and cleaning efforts very seriously. This would include cleaning of tools, vehicles and the local warehouses frequently to ensure we aren't leaving any room for exposure. Also, we are working with them to open up more slots/ windows so they can work more hours if they want to as well as getting creative with the time slots to allow them to work around child care and other added personal responsibilities while still getting surveys done. Overall, we believe we will maintain the same level of availability here and may open up options that could work better for some customers. There could be some limitations and concerns regarding the government shutting down some areas that could impact us but nothing we are aware of yet.
3. Design and Proposal Review- We do not foresee any impact here as our Design Team already works remotely so they will continue business as usual and our proposal review team has the ability to work remotely if needed but is currently working in the office. The only thing that may happen here is less consistent phone support but moving jobs along and getting things done should remain efficient.
4. Account Management- this is similar to the support desk where we have modified their workspace to create distance and are still planning on standard support levels. We are also working on more work from home options if things get worse and have a solution but needing to ensure consistent support and quality control. Impact here could be longer hold and/or response times as we have seen an increase in people calling in sick but we will continue to work on minimizing impact here. We are also working on scripts for the team to help instill more confidence in the customers that we are taking the proper precautions before sending anyone to their home.
5. Permitting- this is the wild card we do not have a great sense for yet. We have been notified of a couple of AHJ’s that are shutting down now but still getting clarity on exactly what functions are shutting down and what are still going to remain open. There are many areas that have moved to online or email submittals and we are hoping these ones will continue to operate as these could be areas we focus on short term. Another thing we are working on is a possible waiver we can get for the customer explaining that we are confident in what we are building and explain how many permits and inspections we have already passed in their area. This waiver would basically say that we are going to install without having the permit due to the circumstances and there will be additional delays to completing the system due to having to go through the full permitting process. We have not nailed this down yet but just explaining one option we are working on here as a contingency.
6. Equipment/Material- we are fortunate that we had come up with a Safe-Harbor strategy with Sunrun that helped retain the full value of the ITC on their projects and the way this is possible is by having bought all the material before the end of 2019. This means that we have some huge stock of panels in some markets and SolarEdge inverters in others. We are also actively working on ensuring we have enough of all parts for the next few months to minimize any other impact here. We are certain that supply chains will be impacted and there is no way we can stock enough to be 100% good here but we feel confident that we have the control on the main items we need that are specific to solar and have many options and leverage on all the other items. There could be some scenarios where we may install mostly but have some back-ordered part we would have to return with around inspection time.
7. Installs- same as our site surveyors, we are training all crews on proper precautions to take to keep them and the customers safe. A good thing here is we always have an “exclusion zone” where we perform work and instruct the customer to not enter that zone for their safety. This will now extend to their safety from falling objects and electrical risks, as well as keeping them the right distance for our installers and them to be safe. We are also working with the team to accommodate their changing schedules and allowing our team to open up more slots to make up for any possible downtime or even just more slots overall. We do not see installs being a bottleneck for us in any market currently, unless there are more strict limitations about what we can and can’t do in certain areas.
8. Inspection- similar to permitting, we are unsure on the service level from the AHJ’s at this point. We have to assume there are going to be some additional delays and total shut downs but we deal with this every year around the holidays. Our plan is to stay on top of it and make sure we are aware of anything that changes and update any customers impacted by this as early on as possible. Also, we will look to do something like permitting to set the right expectations with the customer if we know ahead of time (at the point of install scheduling ideal) that there may be additional delays.
9. Utility Delays- this is another wild card but a little less likely than the AHJ as the utility is considered an essential service. There may be some that reduce the support for solar interconnection and/or even hold up some applications. We do not have much clarity on this yet but are staying very close. Impact here may be similar to permitting where if we start running into issues getting pre-approvals, we will work on setting the right expectations and ensure the customer knows there could be additional delays if we go to install. There could also be more delays than normal on PTO and setting new meters (where applicable). The one thing that will very likely be impacted are RMA/GMA’s and any MPU’s that require utility coordination will take longer than normal. Hard to estimate the impact now but as we do get more details, we will build this into our communication to you all and the customers.
10. Ground Mounts/Re-Roofs/MPUs/Additional Work- these may become even more difficult to get done as there is so much more work that goes into them and we have more dependencies out of our control (AHJ’s, Utilities, Sub-Contractors). We will do our best to stay on top of all of these and keep pushing them forward but want to be transparent that there may be some additional delays on these projects specifically. In certain areas there will not be much impact but others it could be some significant delays. As with everything else, we will provide more details as it becomes clearer.

We believe strongly that this will be a turning point in our industry and also in the broader economy. We are fully committed to working with all of you to make the best of the situation and remain as flexible as possible with the priority always on keeping our employees and customers as safe as possible. These are trying times and the strong will thrive and part of that strength we feel we have is with our partnerships with you all. We will continue to update you all as we learn more or have more meaningful detail to share and stay committed to working through all of this together!

Mikey Heinz

CEO - Bright Planet Solar