Tide turns for power groups in the north

By Andrew Bounds
Published: February 15 2009 17:31

Those looking for a silver lining in the clouds of recession tend to find it is a green one.
The north-west is no exception, with companies operating in the renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste markets among the few sectors not yet suffering a slump in orders.

“Of all the clusters of businesses in the region it is the environmental technology and services sector that is doing best,” says Rebecca Turner, head of knowledge management at Envirolink Northwest, a public body that represents and helps the sector.
There are about 5,100 such companies, including suppliers, that turn over £10.4bn ($14.9bn) annually and employ about 86,700 people. The north-west has the largest cluster outside London and the south-east in the UK with almost 10 per cent of the market.
“It is not yet so good at exporting,” Ms Turner said, with a 7 per cent share of UK exports. Envirolink has just participated in a big trade fair the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi to showcase the region’s expertise, and several local companies have leads to follow up.
One such is Luminanz, of Bolton, which makes light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These are seen as the future of lighting as they are much more efficient than neon or other conventional bulbs and do not need replacing.
However, at high intensity they can be too bright for the human eye. Luminanz has come up with solutions to this and has already signed contracts to light advertising hoardings at bus stops. It is also conducting trials with McDonald’s.
Joe Flanagan, sector leader for Energy and Environmental Technologies at the North-West Development Agency, says the breadth of the sector is an asset.
It is particularly strong in renewables, energy efficiency, recycling and waste management and water and wastewater treatment.
He said there was a danger of funding for small start-ups and big renewable energy projects drying up, but that the government’s plans to boost infrastructure spending to fight the recession could favour so called “green collar” jobs.
“We have not detected a major impact yet though major investment projects have slowed down a bit,” he said.
One possible casualty is a vast offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea, which would generate 2,000MW of power, equivalent to a giant fossil fuel power station.
The wind turbine market is a promising one, however. “We don’t have an indigenous manufacturer, so the key is providing parts and products to the German and Danish manufacturer,” Mr Flanagan said.
PPG Glass Fibre in Wigan has created a special fibreglass blend to make durable turbine blades. HMG Paints in Manchester provides hard-wearing paint for wind turbines.
Bendalls Engineering in Carlisle is at the forefront of designing turbines that use tidal power. It is testing a 1MW model in Belfast that has shown good results.
Liverpool University has surveyed the local tidal basins, such as the Mersey estuary, Morecambe Bay and Solway Firth, to determine how much power they could produce. While their range is not as large as the Severn bore, which has been capturing headlines, they could still generate significant amounts.
Peel Energy, part of the privately held developer, already has plans for a Mersey scheme. “We may well see tidal energy on the Mersey before the Severn,” Mr Flanagan said.
Any projects in Cumbria would need increased grid capacity. Traditionally, power generation has occurred in the Midlands and Yorkshire, where the coalfields were, but demand is growing fastest in the south.
There are many companies involved in electricity, such as smart metering, thanks to a legacy of the old nationalised electricity boards.
Their research centre at Capenhurst, near Chester, has been continued as EA Technology, a venture between Electricity North West, CE Electricity, Scottish and Southern and Scottish Power. They fund research and give out grants to promising projects.
The universities are also heavily involved. Manchester has one of only two high voltage testing facilities that are used by many companies to see how their products perform.
Lancaster established an environment centre in 2007. Mark A. Bacon, associate director of the centre, said: “The campus brings together one of the largest concentrations of environmental scientists in the UK, alongside government researchers from the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a research team from the Environment Agency and a growing number of commercial organisations, which are co-located in new accommodation.
“More than 20 companies now use the facility, ranging from large corporate organisations such as Mouchel [the engineering consultant] through to new high tech AIM-listed plant biotechnology firms such as Plant Impact and new incubating ventures.”
The sector grew by 4.6 per cent last year, faster than the economy as a whole, and a recent forecast in research commissioned by EnviroLink NW and the government predicted an increase of 45 per cent up to 2015.
This year would be tough, but “there is still growth, which is encouraging,” Ms Turner said.
Mr Flanagan said the sector had also tapped into an infinite resource: Britain’s crackpot inventors. He gets two or three people a month wanting to show him their low-energy devices.
“There are an army of people out there designing things in their garden sheds. We do back some after doing due diligence.
“That’s the beauty of the technology. It can be very simple,” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009