On 6 May 2026, at Doltone House in Sydney, Nicole Bilman was named runner-up for Emerging Leader of the Year at the Smart Energy Council Excellence Awards. The category recognises individuals shaping the next generation of Australia’s renewable energy industry, judged by an independent panel from a national field of nominees.
Nicole flew the flag for Western Australia on the national stage.
TLDR
- The Emerging Leader category is judged by an independent panel from Australia's peak renewable energy body, against five published criteria covering career, leadership, and sector impact. It is not a popularity vote. A runner-up placement is a top-two national finish against a national field.
- The recognition reflects the operational record that customers actually experience. Tesla Premium Certified Installer status held every consecutive year from 2022 through 2026. SolarQuotes Legendary status held three years running. ISO 9001 quality, ISO 14001 environment, and ISO 45001 safety.
- On the same night, the business was also a national finalist for Smart Employer of the Year. We did not place as runner-up or winner in that category. Two independent finalist placements at one national ceremony, judged by the same panel, is the part that matters here.
In April, we wrote that the Emerging Leader nomination was recognition for someone who built a leadership career inside an existing business, role by role, over five and a half years. Administration Manager on 6 July 2020. Overseeing manufacturer relationships by 2022. Leading the ISO certification programme through Bureau Veritas by 2024. Chief Executive Officer on 2 February 2026.
A runner-up placement nationally, judged on those same criteria, is the resolution to that story. Not the only resolution we wanted, but a genuine one.
The recognition considers
The Smart Energy Council’s published criteria for the category cover five things: when the nominee’s career in renewable energy began, their professional background, how they demonstrate leadership in the industry, the impact of that leadership on the sustainable energy sector, and what winning would mean to them.
This is leadership recognition, not a popularity vote. It’s judged against a written brief by an independent panel from Australia’s peak independent body for the renewable energy industry. There is no audience tally, no public ballot, no marketing-spend influence. It is one of a small number of awards in this industry where the outcome is genuinely about the work.
Most importantly, Nicole’s journey identifies a pathway for success for anyone working in any aspect of the sustainable energy industry to reach the top role through determination and perseverance.
Image (Left to Right): David McElrea, Derek McKercher, Nicole Bilman, John Grimmes.
Relevance to our customers
It is fair to ask why a solar customer should pay attention to who leads the company on their roof.
The honest answer is that most installation problems in this industry are leadership problems before they are technical problems. Training shortcuts during a demand surge. Financial decisions that prioritise margin over accountability. Customer service that scales by hiring rather than by building systems. Audit failures that get hidden rather than addressed. All of those are decisions made above the installer level.
The Emerging Leader category specifically measures the impact of leadership on the sector. For us, that translates into the operational record customers actually experience:
- Tesla Premium Certified Premium Certified Installer status held every consecutive year from 2022 through 2026
- Sigenergy Gold Installer status, the inaugural Gold tier in WA
- SolarQuotes Legendary status held three years running
- Bureau Veritas Certified ISO 9001 quality, ISO 14001 environment, and ISO 45001 safety
- NETCC Approved Seller, renewed through to May 2027
Those are not marketing figures. They are the credentials and benchmarks that come up for review on a fixed cadence, and they require documented evidence to maintain. The Emerging Leader recognition is, in part, recognition that those numbers held during a period when many in the industry’s did not.
If you are weighing up who to engage for a residential solar and battery upgrade, a commercial rooftop system, or an EV charger install, the question we would invite you to ask of any provider is straightforward. Who runs the business, what is their tenure in the industry, and what does the operational record actually look like when you cross-check it against independent sources?
For PSW Energy, those answers are public. They are also the answers that an independent national panel just weighed when shortlisting Nicole against the rest of the country.
Nicole's team PSW
Leadership awards land on one name, but the operational record they reflect is built by the team. The Bureau Veritas audits are passed by the people who do the work to a documented standard every day. The Tesla satisfaction score is held by the installers, electricians, designers, and customer service team who attend every job. The audit pass rate is held by the in-house quality team. The 80 per cent in-house ratio exists because the people on payroll choose to stay.
The runner-up is shared with the people who actually do the work.
The Smart Employer finalist placement
On the same night, in the same room, the business was also a national finalist for Smart Employer of the Year. Different category, different criteria. Smart Employer of the Year recognises the workplace and culture behind a renewable energy business, judged against how the team is trained, retained, and supported. It is the category that sits closest to the day-to-day experience of being a PSW employee.
We did not place as runner-up and we did not take the category home. We were named a finalist, alongside companies drawn from a national field, and that is the part worth being straight about with our team and with our customers.
For a 50-plus person business operating out of Bibra Lake and Neerabup, in the same year the company sat in the Emerging Leader shortlist with Nicole, being recognised on the same night as a national Smart Employer finalist is a meaningful acknowledgement. It is also useful externally. Customers asking who actually does the work on their system can look at two independent finalist placements, both judged by the same panel against published criteria, and draw their own conclusions about how the business runs.
Finalist status is not the headline a marketing team would write. It is the honest one, and it is the right one to share with the people who earned it.
The recognition is the resolution to one year. The work the category measures, leadership impact on the sustainable energy sector, continues into the next one. Nicole’s first full year as CEO covers a period when Western Australia’s grid rules were rewritten, the residential battery market shifted under the federal Cheaper Home Batteries programme, and commercial customers moved from solar-only to solar-plus-storage as the default specification.
Extended references:
Smart Energy Council: Smart Energy Excellence Awards 2026 Celebrates Industry Leaders at Gala Dinner in Sydney ›
McKercher Corporation: Emerging Leader of the Year, 2026 Smart Energy Council Awards ›
Perth Solar Warehouse: PSW CEO named Emerging Leader runner-up at the 2026 Smart Energy Council Awards ›
