27 October 2025
An interview style-feature with Tom Kemsley, Scotland Manager and Director at Midsummer Energy
What’s driving Midsummer’s investment and activity in Scotland?
The decision really goes back to 2022. The industry was rapidly expanding as post-pandemic recovery combined with higher energy costs due to the invasion of Ukraine. This surge in demand wasn’t without its challenges and things were pretty hectic! Stock was hard to get, and sending kit back out the door to meet demand was just as challenging. But it meant there was plenty of appetite for opening another distribution hub.
Our Cambridge base was well established, so looking further north made sense. Scotland has historically punched above its weight on renewables adoption, both on end user appetite and government policy. There may also have been a slight Scottish bias in the leadership, with both myself and our MD originally from Scotland!
We found a rough-around-the-edges site in Glasgow, but it had the right bones. So we went all in, making some significant improvements to the building, investing in a new roof with 270kW of solar, and adding a sales team to work alongside the warehouse team. We have really committed to the long term here.
How are tools like Easy PV and Heatpunk helping local installers?
Our software has always been a huge part of Midsummer. In essence, just trying to make designing, quoting and buying systems (hopefully from us!) as straightforward as possible. The tools are great and constantly evolving, meaning installers can spend a bit less time in front of a computer screen or filling out paperwork and more time on the job.
What are the key challenges or opportunities in the Scottish market?
Broadly, the pressures are similar to those across the UK, but there are a few differences. The ECO market is pretty strong here so changes to available funding have a big impact. There are plenty of quirks like the use of sarking board and there is always the tougher
weather to account for.
Personally I think there is incredible potential out there for commercial rooftop, a space that I think is underestimated at policy level. However there are challenges here too such as the requirement for a statement of works for grid connection at a much lower threshold
compared to England (200kW vs 5MW).
Like the rest of the UK things are super competitive at all levels of the industry right now, which has things on a bit of a knife edge between driving innovation and efficiency versus a race to the bottom with a quick and dirty approach gaining an advantage.
How does Midsummer collaborate with partners to accelerate deployment?
A really important part of what we do is working to understand our customers, their preferences on kit and the requirements of each job. A key part of this is working closely with our suppliers to make sure we have all options covered. I guess the other really important area is our logistics partnerships. We’ll always (quite rightly) be measured on how efficiently we get kit to our customers, so ensuring we have the right courier partners, including a growing fleet of our own, is vital.
What sets Midsummer apart?
That’s a tough one, with so many wholesalers in the market now and each having their strengths. I’ve already mentioned our software which will always be big. But a former colleague used to describe us as ‘small enough to care, big enough to cope’, which was
slightly tongue in cheek but captured something. We try to be flexible where we can and take care of every order like a small local wholesaler should, but also with the range of kit, reach and knowledge of a bigger player. It’s not always easy, doing things at scale requires a few more rules than I’d like! But I think it’s a good thing to aim for.
Lastly, and at risk of sounding a bit high and mighty…a lot of the people at Midsummer, particularly in senior management, are genuinely motivated by climate action and that’s how they ended up in the industry. Especially when the going gets tough, having that extra shared drive makes a difference.
What’s next for Midsummer in Scotland / What message to the wider community?
We really want to continue building on relationships with local installers. When we set up in Scotland we were so busy looking after existing customers, we didn’t reach out enough locally. But when customers can collect kit, or take delivery from a Midsummer vehicle, or
just pop in for a chat, that really helps build a solid working relationship.
In terms of focus areas, we are seeing more and more crossover between solar and heat pump installers. With the grid now over 50% green, decarbonising the heating network is the next big task and heat pumps are central to that. Homeowners increasingly want a single
joined-up solution, and we want to be a partner that helps installers deliver that.
Author: Tom Kemsley
Midsummer is one of the UK’s leading wholesale distributors of renewable energy systems; solar PV, battery storage, EV charging, off-grid systems and renewable heat products. Voted the UK’s BEST renewables distributor in 2020 and 2022, and listed in Cambridgeshire’s top 100 privately-owned companies in 2023 and 2024. Midsummer’s bespoke software, Easy PV, has been developed to help solar installers master the complex process of project design, optimisation of solar energy set-up and one-step full kit purchase. For heat installers, our Heatpünk software provides cutting-edge cloud-based solutions for designing and specifying all elements of a heat pump install.