5 minute read
DOING BUSINESS WITH THE SUN
ALUMNUS IN FOCUS
A solar installer developing solar software for other solar installers? It is unseen in the solar business. Hervé Billiet accomplished it and casts himself as an authority in the growing sector. Who is this innovative and entrepreneurial engineer? What is his background and what drove him to Washington DC to pursue a career? A portrait.
The engineers who graduated from the then Group T university college in Leuven in 2006 are still known as the ‘golden generation’. They owe that title to a group of fifteen students who had the talent and guts to build Belgium’s first solar car and take it to Australia to compete in the World Solar Challenge, the unofficial world championship for self-built solar cars. One of the pioneers was Hervé Billiet, an Electromechanical Engineering student whose responsibilities included the technical design and construction of the solar racking system and the mechanical calculations of the structure supporting the solar panels. In between, he co-founded the Solar Olympics (now renamed Solar Olympiade), a national competition for high school students to develop creative applications on solar energy. Hervé also produced the bright idea of looking out for the follow-up after the first team had already started. In this way, he laid the foundations of what would become one of the Leuven Solar Team’s greatest assets: continuity.
What few inside and outside Group T would have thought possible happened. A year later, the team set off for Australia with the first Belgian solar car and finished in a more than deserving eleventh place. It marked the beginning of a success story that continues to this day and has since inspired other and new student teams and start-ups.
Love
Seventeen years later, we find Hervé back in Washington DC as co-founder and CEO of Ipsun Solar and Ipsun Sunvoy, not coincidentally both in the solar business. His passion for renewable energy may have remained, but things have changed quite a bit since 2006.
After his studies, Hervé joins Atlas Copco as an Energy Audit Engineer. A year later, he leaves for Huntsville (Alabama) to pursue an MBA. However, what drew him to the US was not this degree but rather love. He found it wonderfully in Beijing during Group T’s annual study trip to China. “In a busy market, I suddenly heard English talking. It turned out to be an American young lady from Huntsville. The spark immediately struck, and we decided to stay in touch. Since then, I kept looking forward to a moment to join her. In 2008, the time finally came.”
In Alabama, Hervé observes that there is 40% more sunshine than in Belgium, this gave him the idea to set up a solar panel business. “That turned out to be easier said than done,” Hervé continues. “To begin with, the population was not waiting for solar energy. On top of that came the monetary crisis but also inexperience on my part. I could do something about the latter, so I took an MBA course at the University of Alabama.”
Ipsun Solar
In 2010, Mr and Mrs Billiet move to Washington DC. Hervé was able to join Accenture as Strategy Consultant & System Integrator. Among other things, he advised the US Department of Energy on the technical assessment of renewable energy projects and provided account strategy and sales support to major clients such as the IMF and the World Bank. For the US Postal Service, he helped to develop a mobile strategy.
Six years later, Hervé and a friend from the US Department of Energy thought the time had come to do business on their own. Together, they set up Ipsun Solar. “We design, install and maintain solar energy systems for residential and commercial clients,” says Hervé. “You can think of us as to One-Stop-Shop for green tech including solar PV, electric car chargers, solar car points, solar awnings and home energy monitoring systems. We take care of everything from permitting and engineering to installation and maintenance.” What failed in Alabama is becoming a resounding success in Washington DC. Ipsun Solar now has sixty employees and more than 1,000 customers in the capital and the surrounding states of Virginia and Maryland. On the roof of the impressive Belgian embassy to the US are solar panels installed by Ipsun Solar.
Ipsun Sunvoy
Like any solar installer, Ipsun Solar struggled with customer and supplier data management. Hervé explains, “We counted over ten different platforms where we have to always enter the same information. If you sell three hundred systems a year and your employees need to enter the same data into ten platforms which takes them ten minutes each. That is almost 1 month of 24/7 in lost productivity just for repetitive work.”
In 2021, Hervé launched Ipsun Sunvoy, an app for solar installers. “It provides them with their own branded custom portal, referral management system and automation tool. Moreover, Sunvoy can bring their entire solar array fleet into one system, with a universal view that is filterable and sortable. Sunvoy is the missing piece of software we wished existed years ago.”
While Ipsun Solar operates in the local market, Sunvoy software knows no borders. Consequently, Hervé has started prospecting foreign markets. He is convinced that with the help of his software, solar installers worldwide will be able to concentrate more and better on their core business: promoting green energy and securing the future of the next generations. This was also the mission of the Leuven Solar Team 17 years ago. Hervé and with him other team members have made it their life’s work.
Yves Persoons
