Opinion4 May 20266 min read

Why complexity is the real enemy of the energy transition

The technology is ready, the customer is willing and regulation is moving forward. What holds adoption back is the number of steps between wanting and having.

Yusuf Bahadir Turhan

Founder · instantTech

Adoption isn’t lost on price

It’s comfortable to think the energy transition is slow for economic reasons. In many cases the brake is more mundane: the customer doesn’t know who to call, what they’ll be charged or how long it will take. The decision isn’t rejected, it’s postponed.

That postponement is invisible in sales statistics, but it’s where most of the demand is lost. Nobody records the projects that never started because getting three quotes was too much work.

Every intermediary adds uncertainty

A traditional installation involves the salesperson, an installation rep, an installer who visits, an administrator who quotes and someone who files the legalisation. Each actor is reasonable on their own; added up, they create weeks of waiting and a different message at every step.

The complexity isn’t in any of the parts: it’s in the joints between them. That’s where lead times slip, prices contradict each other and the feeling that installing is complicated appears.

Simplifying isn’t dropping rigour

Cutting steps doesn’t mean running fewer checks, it means running them at the right moment. Most of the information needed to quote is already with the customer: which charger they want and how many metres there are between the panel and their parking space.

With those two variables a price can be closed and the technical verification left to the installation itself, where the installer is already on site. The rigour stays; what disappears is the unproductive wait.

Standardisation as a service

Standardisation has a bad name because it’s associated with rigidity, but in installation it’s the opposite: it’s what makes the same lead time and the same price possible in Barcelona and in Milan. Distance bands, an equipment catalogue and a single procedure mean the outcome doesn’t depend on who picks up the phone.

For the brand doing the selling, that consistency is what turns installation into something it can promise without fear. For the installer, it’s what lets them work without negotiating every job.

Fewer steps, more transition

If the energy transition depends on millions of household decisions, every point of friction removed is worth more than any campaign. A quote closed in four steps and an installation in 72 hours aren’t process improvements: they’re the difference between a customer who installs and one who leaves it for later.

Complexity isn’t fought with more admin, it’s fought with less surface area. That’s the job.