In this article
An award does not decide who should install your system. It is worth about one line of a decision that should turn on the design, the price and who answers the phone in year six. PSW Energy won the EUPD Research Installer Award in 2024 for the second year running, and the useful part is what EUPD actually measures.
The EUPD award record
- EUPD Research Installer Award 2024, second consecutive year, presented at Cargo Hall Southbank in Melbourne on 3 November 2024.
- EUPD scores customer satisfaction alongside installation criteria. It is a survey-and-audit award, not a volume count — which makes it a different signal from the Solaris volume rankings.
- Use it to check a company is not a sales front. Do not use it as evidence the quote in front of you is right.
Customer satisfaction and installation criteria
EUPD Research is a German market research firm that runs installer and brand studies across several countries. The installer award combines surveyed customer satisfaction with reportable installation criteria, so it is closer to a review-weighted audit than a leaderboard. That matters because most solar awards count kilowatts, and kilowatts tell you a company is busy rather than that anyone was happy afterwards.
The second consecutive award records customer satisfaction alongside installation activity across both years.
Recognition for online pricing
The 2024 citation was about buying solar without a lounge-room appointment: an online store with prices on it, system comparisons a person can read at their own pace, and a quote process that does not require three phone calls before anyone tells you a number.
That is a real difference in this market and it is also not for everyone. If you want someone at the kitchen table walking through it, a website with prices on it is not the answer, and we would rather you booked the appointment. The point of putting the numbers online is that nobody has to sit through a pitch to find out what a system costs.
The award presentation
The award was accepted in Melbourne by Nicole Bilman and Derek McKercher, with Daniel Fuchs of EUPD Research. Nicole has since been appointed Chief Executive Officer of PSW Energy and Perth Solar Warehouse, in February 2026. Derek founded the business and has worked in Western Australian electrification since 2004.
An earlier version of this page put Derek’s tenure at 25 years and the business at 20 in adjacent sentences. Both cannot be right: the business dates from 2004, which made it 20 years in 2024 and 22 now. It also misspelled Nicole’s surname. Both are corrected here.
Assessing a quote beyond awards
Use recognition to narrow a shortlist, then throw it away and look at the design. Ask what size system, worked out against what evening load, with what export limit on your street. A company that cannot show the working has not earned the job whatever is on its wall.
If you want that working done for your address, ask for a written price.
References: EUPD Research, Top Installer Award 2024 recipient list. McKercher Corporation, PSW brands at the EUPD Research Top Installer Awards 2024.