Green Energy Grows

Local Renewables firm Renew Green Energy experiences massive growth in last 12 months

Galashiels based company Renew Green Energy has doubled its staff numbers in the last 12 months and recorded a five-fold rise in turnover over the same period and has further growth plans for 2015 and beyond.

Having installed renewable technologies exclusively for the Scandinavian home company fjordhus for over 10 years, in 2010 Craig Richardson and Brian Middleton decided to offer their services direct to customers to install renewable energy solutions for homes and businesses across the Scottish Borders, central Scotland and Northern England. Today the company is now one of the largest renewable energy companies in the Southern Scotland, fantastic news for a local business.

Since the creation of Renew Green Energy Ltd, it has experienced rapid growth as demand for the biomass boilers, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies, and air source and ground source heating pumps, mechanical and heat recovery solutions, with these technologies moving from a niche position to the mainstream market on both the home, commercial, services and agricultural markets.

This growth has been in part due to the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and the on-going Feed -In-Tariffs which promotes the use of sustainable power generation and offers incentives to customers to help get these systems set up. The growth has also been supported by an increase in the home building market, small and medium sized business latching on to the opportunities and a more general increase in awareness of the benefits that these technologies offer.

As a result, Renew Green Energy’s staff numbers have doubled in the last 12 months as has the number of experienced subcontractors who work exclusively with Renew Green Energy.

Renew Green Energy co-founder, Brian Middleton, said: “Renewable energy is no longer a fringe technology and we are seeing huge demand for sustainable solutions from commercial and domestic customers across Southern Scotland and Northern England.

“Interest in renewable technologies from both the domestic and commercial market is at an all time high. This is in part driven from Government based grants and incentives such as the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-In-Tariffs which means the installations are become paid for over a number of years, and for the right solution can provide a regular income. The technologies have become more mainstream and less costly, and with many customers are concerned about the pollutants in the atmosphere, these technologies we offer are very environmentally friendly and collectively across the UK will prevent millions of tonnes of carbon being placed into the atmosphere each year.

“We know that customers want locally based installers, and those with proven experience, and offer a range of options. As such we install a number of different technologies where suitability will vary based on the customer need / property type and a number of other factors. This has meant we have experienced huge growth in all aspects and all technologies. We are always seeking to recruit both full time staff across the business and extend our relationship with more experienced contractors to work exclusively with us to help us meet demand for our services. Specifically we’re always looking for experienced heating engineers and experienced plumbers and electrians, and ideally those that have worked with renewable technologies. We can train enthusiastic people who are aren’t frightened of innovative new concepts or hard work.”

Dave Young from Galashiels has worked for the company for three years. He said: “We have seen a phenomenal rise in demand from customers since I started at Renew Green Energy. This really is a fast-growing industry, it’s fun, exciting and rewarding. If you have experience in this industry you have excellent career prospects and ideally suited to those from traditional heating / plumbing work and skilled electricians to work in the sustainable energy sector. Each day is different and each job offers new challenges and working with our customers, it means we also do our bit for the environment.”