We are still of the opinion that there is a lot of money to be made by the company that nails a solar-plus-storage smart-home offering, sold as a service and installed professionally. The cost of such an offering makes it rather prohibitive as an upfront purchase, but the service model means that savings in electricity could be put towards the repayments or subscription fee. To this end, news from Smart Energy and Tesla show that the industry has taken another step towards such an offering. Smart Energy is a small Australian outfit that has had success with a sales model that lets customers pay for the complete installation using the savings that it generates. It is the most popular approach…