A Nottingham Science City Publication

Profiling ten companies in Nottinghamshire’s

growing environmental technology sector
GREEN –TECH INTRO
INTRO
Ten ground-breaking companies
creating a greener future
This publication by Nottingham Science City
is an attempt to give a snapshot of the size and
breadth of Nottinghamshire’s ‘green-technology’
business sector.
It takes in companies which are manufacturing
or providing unique products in the relatively new
related areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency
and low carbon technologies. Breaking these down
further, the sector could be defined as including
companies working in building technologies, energy
management, carbon capture and storage, alternative
fuels, alternative fuel vehicles, photovoltaics,
geothermal energy, wind power, biomass, wave and
tidal and hydroelectric power.
A broader definition of ‘environmental goods and
services’ would also include companies working
in areas such as renewable energy installation and
consultation, waste recycling, land contamination and
pollution control. However, these fall outside of the
remit of this publication.
To date, the few consultants’ reports on the potential
of Nottinghamshire’s green-tech sector have been
positive. But they stopped short of actually identifying
related businesses and talking to them, finding out
who runs them and what their expectations are. This
publication, which should be
04
regarded as a detailed sequel
NOTTINGHAM SCIENCE CITY NEWS, VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES
INSIDE
FUTURE LAB 03
to an article on the green-tech
sector in the summer 2009
MEDIPARK NEWS LATEST
BABY BOOM 10
INTERVIEW WITH DR SIMON FISHEL
MAD SCIENCE 14
issue of Nottingham Science
City’s magazine Wavelength,
FROM IRAQ TO THE CLASSROOM
is intended to help remedy
the gap in knowledge and
GOING
provide a basic reference for
GREEN stakeholders, decision-makers
NEW ‘GREEN-TECH’ TECHNOLOGIES
SET FOR BIG BUSINESS and investors – or in fact
anyone who has a business
interest in the coming low carbon age.
Key to the UK’s policy on renewable energy and
the ‘green economy’ are two recent linked papers
from central Government – the UK Renewable
Energy Strategy, and a more tactical document called
the Low Carbon Transition Plan. The latter sets
out Government policy until 2020 in areas such as
renewable energy and carbon abatement, building
more efficient homes, developing a smart grid, cutting
greenhouse gas emissions from transport and farming
and helping the UK become a global leader in ‘green
industries.’ This last aim depends on some big figures,
such as £120m being made available for offshore wind
development and £60m for marine energy.
More by coincidence than design, all of the
businesses profiled in this publication could be placed
into one or more of the above categories. Renewable
Energy – RomaxWind, Monsal, Alkane, 4energy,
more efficient homes – LEDinlight, Blue Planet;
smart grid – OuterArc; cutting greenhouse gas from
transport and/or farming – Promethean Particles,
Phoenix Fuels, Hardstaff Haulage. Whatever their
specific expertise, all can be regarded as part of the
UK’s, and Nottinghamshire’s, burgeoning green
industry sector.
We say by coincidence, rather than some neat
design, because the green technology businesses
already operating in Nottingham and the county
happen to span a wide spectrum of business types
– from hi-tech start-ups working via the internet to
big established companies designing and supplying
heavy machinery; and from crop-growing farms to
companies where the staff wear white coats in labs.
This breadth is surely a strength. And the sector
is undoubtedly set to grow, buoyed in some cases by
product development grants and loans and, in other
cases, by venture capital investment. Meanwhile,
in the background there is a volatile energy market,
rising energy prices and the weight of national and
GREEN-TECH COMPANIES ARE THRIVING IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
international climate change legislation aimed squarely
at driving down greenhouse gas emissions. But let’s
not forget that none of these companies are charities
– they’re in business to make a profit, based on
900,000 people
already work
in the UK’s low
carbon sector
anticipated demand for their products from individuals
and businesses who want to cut their energy bills,
reduce their carbon emissions or feel they must fight
the good fight to return the planet to climate stability.
At this point it is worth saying that those two words
‘climate change’ are now heard so often together
that their actual meaning is in grave danger of losing
their impact. So it is worth reminding ourselves that,
in essence, runaway climate change would mean a
dangerously unstable world for every living creature
on it. Or as the maverick planetary scientist James
Lovelock wrote, “If we fail to take care of the Earth,
it surely will take care of itself by making us no
longer welcome.”
How big can the local green-tech sector grow? And
how fast will growth happen? The newest national
forecasts have been made by the Departments of
Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) and Energy and
Climate Change. A July 2009 report, The UK Low
Carbon Industrial Strategy, notes that almost 900,000
people already work in the UK’s low carbon sector,
including manufacturing, supply chains, consultancies
and specialist venture capital. The value placed on this
1 Promethean Particles
2 Blue Planet
3 Romax
4 Alkane Energy
5 Hardstaff Haulage
6
7
LED in Light
Phoenix Fuels
8 Outer Arc
9 Monsal
10 4energy
sector is £106bn; it is expected to ride out the current
recession by growing by at least 4% per annum until
2014/2015, employing over 1 million people, many in
skilled jobs.
1 2 4
An earlier central Government report published
in 2009, Low Carbon and Environmental Goods
and Services: an industry analysis, says: “If the UK
environmental employment baseline level grows in line
with projected annual growth rates then, potentially, an
additional 400,000 jobs could be created over the next
eight years ‐ representing a 45% increase on today’s
level.....For the public sector, supporting the Emerging
Low Carbon and Renewable Energy sectors will be
supporting industries that have good growth potential
and a comparatively high level of manufacturing activity,
providing potentially high levels of employment.” 3
There is no official forecast for the green economy
on a county-by-county basis. But the same report
quoted above put the value of the sector at around
£7bn in 2007/08. Total employment was around
60,000 people. These figures put the region ahead of
6
5 7
Wales, Northern Ireland and North East England.
However, measuring percentage growth in the sector
between 2006/07 and 2007/08, the East Midlands was
roughly in line with all other regions, suggesting that
the low carbon transition is taking place at an equal
pace across the country.
Another reason for optimism is that the region’s
universities, and the University of Nottingham in
particular, already have leading expertise in many
of the low carbon areas of research which have been
identified by Government as keys to future growth.
These include green chemistry, low energy buildings
and Carbon Capture and Storage. The University of
Nottingham’s research income for energy technologies
alone is currently around £30m.
In summary, taking into account official figures, and
Nottingham Science City’s own research, it is clear that
there is a growing low-carbon, or ‘green-tech’ sector,
in Nottinghamshire. Encouraged by the success of
the city’s biotech and pharmaceutical sector, debate is
now taking place as to what can be done to encourage
further growth towards the green economy. But can we
8 9 10
put a date on when the ‘low carbon age’ will arrive?
At the time of writing the Department of Business
Innovation & Skills was reporting a survey of business
leaders in which 43% believed that ‘clean tech’ would
be the UK’s biggest growth area from 2020 onwards.
This sector received by far the biggest vote, ahead of
science and technology, and media and entertainment.
Mark Patterson
Nottingham Science City, September 2009

GREEN –TECH #1
Promethean
Particles
Tiny particles, making big steps
As Dr Ed Lester remarks, there’s nothing like a
bit of business pressure to get the pulse racing.
And as technical director of a small but growing
nano-technology company called Promethean
Particles, he’s seen a share.
But the episode Lester refers to specifically is
the day he and his colleagues at the University of
Nottingham first switched on the new test reactor
to produce nano-materials on an industrial scale.
By industrial, he means up to 1 ton of the miniscule
material per year, compared with the few grams that
they’d produced so far in a small experimental rig.
The test reactor was turned on that morning. And
by pure coincidence, later that very day Lester was
due to meet venture capitalists Lachesis to obtain
investment for the company he wanted to set up
using the same reactor.
“We switched the rig on literally at the eleventh
hour – 11am - and put the first commercial product
through, then drove over to Leicester University for
this interview to say we’d run it successfully,” he says.
The timing was crucial because Lachesis wanted
to know if the technology was indeed scalable for
industry. There’s nothing like a bit of pressure.”
The big new reactor worked; Lachesis approved
the funding; and today Promethean Particles is on
its second round of funding, using the investment
finance to expand its lab facilities at BioCity and add
a handful of employees to the original team of three.
With former BASF boss Barry Stickings CBE on
the team, the company also has a highly experienced
and well-connected figure from international chemicals
acting as chairman and figurehead to help steer the
business through the next few vital years of growth.
In September 2009 Promethean’s achievements
were recognised when the company won the
‘Innovation Achieved’ award at the Lord Stafford
Awards, set up to celebrate collaboration between
businesses and universities. The judges said they were
nano technology is changing the way the world works
the outputs
are particles
around one
billionth of a
metre in size
impressed by the company’s ability to use complex
technology to create commercial opportunities.
Uses for the company’s nanomaterials are likely
to include applications in the next generation of
transport developments and greener energy systems
including more efficient solar cells.
As a university spin-out, Promethean Particles
is perhaps typical. The idea started with Lester’s
research into new ways of producing nanomaterials
in the University of Nottingham’s Department of
Chemical and Environmental Engineering, where he
works as an Associate Professor.
In 2004, he performed an experiment with a small
reactor which demonstrated an improved method of
producing nanomaterials in solution. Lester, believing
had a potential commercial application on his hands,
sought advice on patenting.
“I went along to the university and had a chat with
a guy called business development manager Trevor
Farren in the Chemistry Department and said,
‘we’ve got this process, it works, we think it’s quite
significant.’ He’d worked in the commercial sector
already and immediately saw the potential for the
technology, and persuaded the university that is was
worth protecting. The European patent has now been
granted around the design.”
The process Lester’s patented reactor uses is called
continuous hydrothermal synthesis (“a term that
sounds more complicated than it is – it’s just fancy
plumbing really,” says Lester).
In essence, the inputs are superheated hot water
and dissolved metal salts while the outputs are
particles around one billionth of a metre in size. The
key magical quality of such nano-particles is their
increased surface exposure; this is what makes them
so useful in industrial processes (all functionality
is enhanced when more surface area is exposed).
It is also why nano-tech is usually described as an
enabling technology.
“People don’t pop down to their local High Street
pharmacy to buy some nano-technology,” says
1
believe their work is ultimately validated by beneficial
practical applications such as these.
He adds: “Some academics in the UK
are concerned about the whole concept of
Lester. “But they might buy sunscreen or toothpaste commercialisation of research. But I feel that
that may have nano-particles in it.” universities are a broad church where blue skies
Using hot water (that can be recycled), and no research can exist alongside problem solving work
hazardous solvents, Promethean Particles’ nano aimed at more immediate issues. Universities have
production method is safe and environmentally many functions and activities but all of these should
benign. And its products are set to be used in be beneficial to society. That’s not just the production
green technology applications requiring precision of graduates – it can also be the full delivery of
engineering and improved components. Several of cutting edge technology which meet the demands of
the company’s clients are large well known brands in the 21st century.”
the market place. But Lester can’t reveal too much
at present. Images: Dr Ed Lester
“Because of the effect of small size in nano-particles, (Marlow Photography/Nottingham Science City)
you get enhanced electrical and insulating properties.
So we’re working on materials with one particular
client that will go into cars, bought by a lot of people
in Britain, that will be greener and so on. Whilst
American car manufacturers are being criticised for
inefficient production practices and poor technology
uptake, there are other manufacturers that are looking
decades into the future. They’re not just thinking
about how to make cars for 2015; they’re looking at
technologies for 2035.”
Another application could be in higher quality
photovoltaic units, which will need to convert sunlight
into energy more efficiently if they are to become
more viable and affordable.
Lester is one of the breed of academics who

GREEN –TECH #2
BLUE
PLANET
Solar power gets a DIY makeover
Like most good business ideas, Blue Planet
Buildings came to Derick Wilson in one of
those ‘why has nobody thought of that before?’
moments.
2007: cyclone Gonu struck the coast of Oman in
the Gulf, leaving dozens dead and causing 20,000
people to be evacuated inland. In the UK, Derick,
a globe-trotting consultant with a background in
engineering and renewable energy, was asked if
he could source 4000 Portakabins to be used as
temporary homes for the evacuated Omanis, who
were living in tents in the desert.
Derick could find Portakabins galore; and he
sourced flat pack buildings, but neither were
satisfactory solutions. So Derick’s home-grown
answer was to design simple modular building units
that could be assembled in minutes by anybody.
What’s more, they would be self-sufficient in power,
with electricity provided by solar panels on the roofs
and walls. Blue Planet Buildings was born.
“Having spent some years working in renewable
energy, particularly solar, I couldn’t understand why
nobody had come up with a flat pack building that
was solar powered,” said Derick. “You put it together
and it powered itself – it made perfect sense to me. I
spoke to patent attorneys and immediately whacked a
patent on a modular building that was designed to be
put together by non-skilled people, fully engineered,
like a big Lego set, but solar powered. That’s now
gone through with 23 patent claims on it and we’re
adding a second set.”
In September the company went up for the
Sustainability category of the 2009 Lord Stafford
Awards, which recognises successful collaborations
between businesses and universities. Derick, who
lives in Kimberley, didn’t win the top prize but the
nomination itself generated valuable publicity. This
had his phone ringing with calls from potential
customers including a mine operator looking to set
up hundreds of modules in the Australian outback.
Meanwhile, Derick has just completed his first
commercial Blue Planet contract, building a 350sq
metre classroom unit at the Hucknall National School
complete with roof solar panels. Each of the panels
has a peak production of 320 watts, giving the three
classrooms an energy potential of 38kWh (kilowatt
hours, the standard electricity unit). Derick calculates
that the unit will generate more electricity than it uses
in a year, boosted by the summer months when the
unit will be closed but passively producing power
in conditions of maximum daylight. As a result, the
school has arranged to sell its electricity to the grid
and buy back what it needs. This will result in an
income stream of £12-15,000 per year to the school.
With his first commercial project completed,
Blue Planet Buildings is now looking for a factory
which can produce its solar-powered units en masse.
The business, which has received a £155,000
development grant from Emda, should employ 10-12
people in pre-assembly work over the next year. But
it’s Like a
big Lego set,
but solar
powered
although Derick’s modular buildings were originally
devised in response to the needs of aid agencies
following global disasters, his immediate focus is on
orthodox commercial applications.
“I had to look at it from a commercial point of
view, which is ‘where does this fit which will show a
good commercial return?’” he said. “So I looked at
the commercial modular building market and found
that we compared favourably on cost – we’re not that
much more expensive than an ordinary commercial
Portakabin, but the benefits are enormous. So we
looked at schools, offices, temporary site offices, but
without losing sight of the disaster recovery aspect.”
With six years in the British army behind him, and
years spent in sales and then business consultancy
2 3
(“I bounced around the world, match-making, but
always for somebody else”), Derick is no eco-warrior.
But he’s very comfortable with renewable energy and
social responsibility.
“We all have a responsibility; we’re burning energy
at a rate we can’t sustain any more so we have to
rethink things. If someone turns a light on at the
school in Hucknall, you can see on a board how
much energy you’re using; if you turn it off, same
effect. If one child goes home and turns one lightbulb
off, it’s had an effect. That’s how I see lots of little
steps making a difference.”
Image: Derick Wilson with flexible solar panel
(Mark Patterson/Nottingham Science City)
GREEN –TECH #3
ROMAX
The wind of change
To all those who are troubled by the growing
number of wind turbines in the British
countryside, RomaxWIND’s Suzi McCracken
has this to say: “We all accept there have to be
some compromises if we want to continue to
live and consume energy in the way that we have
been used to without negatively affecting our
environment.  Perhaps having to see wind farms
occasionally is one of those compromises?”
Just so: despite headline-making defeats for some
major wind farm proposals in the UK in recent
years, the big story is that wind power is making a
steadily increasing contribution to global electricity
supply. Stimulated over the past decade by increasing
government backing in the form of subsidies and
policy, wind energy is now experiencing explosive
growth with an average global growth rate over the
past five years of 24.8%. 
In the UK, and especially across Europe, the driver
behind wind energy is meeting tough renewable
energy targets. Britain ’s own ambitious aim is to
produce 30% of its electricity from renewable sources
by 2020 and it has been suggested that over the next
decade the UK will need to deploy an additional
30,000 MW from wind power alone.
Outside Europe, in China and the USA especially,
the wind power industry has also seen explosive
growth. And it is within this burgeoning industry that
the Nottingham-based Romax Technology and its
RomaxWIND division have flourished.   for key turbine components such as the gearbox and
Headquartered at offices on Nottingham Science
Park, Romax Technology was founded 20 years
ago by leading bearings expert Dr Peter Poon
MBE. Providing technical solutions and unique
software for the development of efficient mechanical
drive trains and gearboxes, the company has
traditionally worked in the automotive, rail, marine
and aerospace industries. A global business, Romax
works across a range of markets from its ten offices
and experience in designing these systems. This
interaction with regional supply chains also affords
us a good knowledge of the industry and allows us to
feed new manufacturers into what is a very restricted
supply chain. ”
However, Romax’s turbine engineering expertise
could soon be in evidence in Britain – or rather in
the seas around it, thanks to a project to design a
large deepwater offshore wind turbine. Romax has
been selected to be a partner in Project Deepwater
Turbine, an R&D consortium funded by the Energy
Technologies Institute (ETI), based at Loughborough
University Science Park . The project was one of four
announced by the ETI as part of a £1.1 billion fund
and is aimed at supporting the achievement of the
UK ’s renewable energy targets.
Project Deepwater Turbine aims to design
and determine the feasibility and potential of an
integrated solution for a 5MW floating offshore
wind turbine for use at depths of 30-300 metres.
wind energy
now accounts
for nearly
50% of
Romax’s total
revenue
and can count major multinationals such as Ford,
General Motors and Toyota among its clients. This
The project holds many technical challenges for the
consortium due to the size of the turbine and the
global profile has been recognized by Romax’s
success in twice winning the Queen’s Award for
complicated effects of the floating platform.  Romax
will provide an assessment of the drivetrain concept
Enterprise in International Trade.
But given Dr Poon’s interest in environmental
issues and the rapid growth of the wind energy
and detailed lifecycle analysis of the gearbox.
Romax is also involved in a separate £5m ETI
project to monitor wind turbines, which could lead to
industry, the company soon looked to a new arena in a reduction in the cost of generating electricity from
which to work: improving the mechanical reliability of offshore wind farms.
wind turbines.
With its expertise in industrial transmissions and Images: Wind farms at land and sea
drive trains, a new division of Romax began working (Romax)
with turbine manufacturers to produce new designs
bearings. That was five years ago, and wind energy
now accounts for nearly 50% of Romax’s total revenue.
“We find that a large quantity of our work takes
place in markets that have a strong manufacturing
base, like China, Korea and India,“ said Suzi
McCracken, business development executive at
Romax.  “We work frequently with manufacturers
wanting to design and develop their own wind turbine
components, where we can offer our knowledge
 4
GREEN –TECH #4

Alkane
Energy
Turning methane green

The global debate about mitigating climate

change usually revolves around carbon dioxide
emissions and reducing one’s ‘carbon footprint.’
But as every budding science pupil knows,
methane, CH4, is a far more potent atmospheric
greenhouse gas.
With a warming effect much greater than CO2,
methane’s sources include natural gas fields, decaying
organic waste, the natural work of intestinal bacteria
– thank you cows – and coal seams. And even though
most of the UK’s deep mines are now closed, it is
estimated that at least 300,000 tonnes of methane is
seeping into the atmosphere from them.
But yesterday’s underground hazard is now a
potential new energy resource, and it is the market for
Coal Mine Methane (CCM) in which Alkane Energy
plc is a growing player.
Based in Edwinstowe, Alkane is a ‘gas-to-power’
business currently operating at seven former UK
coal mines – five in Nottinghamshire and the others
in West Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Alkane’s modular
extraction plants capture the methane at the sites and
supply it as gas or convert it into electricity, which is
sold to the grid. In 2008, Alkane Energy’s extracted
CCM produced 20MW of electricity, the equivalent
of saving well over 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
A note in the corporate responsibility section

yesterday’s underground hazard is today’s energy resource

of Alkane Energy’s 2008 Annual Report read:
“The fundamental nature of our business is
environmentally positive. Methane is 23 times more
potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. By
the capture and utilisation of methane we make an
important contribution towards mitigating climate
change directly by the displacement of fossil fuel
power generation. The Group derives the whole of
its revenue from the utilisation of environmental
technology.”
Environmentally positive, yes, and also good news
for shareholders. Alkane’s pre-tax profit in 2008 was
£1.94m, up 128% on 2007. Interim financial results
for the first half of 2009, announced on September
16, reported “strong cash generation” with revenue
up 9% to £2.85m.
Like most energy suppliers, Alkane has benefited
from recent high energy prices. The average
selling price was £48 per megawatt in 2008 and
was expected to be around £60 per megawatt
hour in 2009, dropping to £50 in 2010. Stability
has been provided by using forward electricity
pricing contracts.
Expansion is now taking place and the company
invested £4.7m in its operations in the first six
months of 2009. The company has a 2% share of
the overall gas-to-power market and is looking to
increase this in the short to medium term, with new
sites in the pipeline opening into the start of 2010.
The medium-term target is to achieve an electricity
producing capacity of 50MW. The investment
necessary for this growth has been partly funded by the Government’s Department of Energy and Work at this was expected to be completed in the Images: Alkane Energy plc
the sale of an interest in a German subsidiary, Pro2, Climate Change. second half of 2009. Another local abandoned (John Houlihan)
which is expected to generate £6.6m.
Speaking in March, chief executive Neill O’Brien tapping the “We will continue to research this sector to
seek good investment opportunities,” says the
mine, Shirebrook, will have capacity for 1.9MW.
The current Nottinghamshire operations are at
said: “We are currently building two new sites at
Blidworth in Notts and Newmarket in Yorkshire, methane company. “We envisage that our in-house gas to
power expertise and our ability to react quickly to
Mansfield, Bevercotes, Sherwood and Warsop.
Most of Alkane Energy’s project supply chain is
which will take us to ten sites. We are now looking
to open three to four sites a year for the next three has involved proposals will enable us to broaden our product
offering in the coming years. The most likely areas
outsourced, a factor which, says the company, helps
maintains its competitiveness.
to four years. We are talking about 20 to 24 sites.
Potentially, our largest is in South Wales at Tower drilling for us to expand are those where we have core
skills around gas handling and small scale power
Colliery which closed last year.”
Alkane, which is chaired by international oil a 450m generation facilities.”
One of the newer coal mine sites, Bilsthorpe in
executive John Lander, is confident that the UK
gas-to-power market will grow within the context
of a growing renewables sector, supported by
borehole north Nottinghamshire, will have a 4.5MW capacity.
Here, tapping the methane has involved drilling a
450m borehole to reach an underground roadway.
 5 6
GREEN –TECH #5 GREEN –TECH #6

Hardstaff led
Haulage in light
The dual fuel drivers Lighting the way to the future

The thousands of trucks and lorries that make
up the road haulage industry are an essential
component of Britain’s daily transport and
delivery system. But with HGVs still mostly
reliant on mineral diesel, road hauliers as
a whole are not usually associated with
environmental innovation.
Yet just 20 minutes drive from Nottingham, close
to Junction 24 of the M1, there is a long-established
business bucking the trend by powering most of its
HGV fleet on natural gas and the biogas that arises
naturally from landfill sites and rotting organic
waste – methane.
The Hardstaff Haulage Group, near the village of
Gotham, claims to be the UK’s only large haulier to
use renewable energy as a vehicle fuel source. Out
of a fleet of 120 vehicles, 90 use natural gas and
biomethane, derived from renewable sources, in dual
fuel engines that were designed and patented by
Hardstaff itself. According to Hardstaff, a dual fuel
HGV saves 20% on its CO2 emissions and fuel bills
compared with a conventional diesel vehicle.
In an industry hit by recession and ever rising
diesel prices, the use of reliable alternative fuels
therefore makes perfect business sense to Hardstaff’s
managing director Trevor Fletcher.
“Our lorry drivers are more heavily regulated
than airline pilots, yet we put up with extremely low
margins,” he said.
Trevor, whose great-great grandfather started the
Hardstaff haulage business back in 1861, readily
admits that his interest in dual fuel technology was
motivated by the wish to reduce costs. But with the
technology proven, he now sounds like a convert to
the environmental cause and talks readily of how gas
hits two agendas: emissions reduction and reliance on
imported crude oil.
With Hardstaff’s patented dual fuel technology
(OIGI – Oil Ignition Gas Injection) now being used
in Mercedes-Benz UK vehicles, the technology has
the solid backing of a major manufacturer.
The question may now arise, though, as to why
Hardstaff didn’t convert its haulage fleet to dual fuel
using existing technology?
The short answer is that no reliable dual fuel
engine has historically existed for HGVs. With some
experience of Caterpillar Engines’s work in this area,
Trevor and Hardstaff set about producing a new
engine that could power heavy vehicles. This, OIGI,
was produced in 2005 and was designed to be fitted
to vehicles made since 2002 and up to 2014.
The bus company Optare, which has installed
OIGI, quotes the cost of conversion to OIGI as
£20,000-£25,000 per bus. That is a substantial
capital investment. But in a press statement on the
deal, Optare said: “This is a strategically important
development for Optare, particularly given the current
background of growing environmental pressures,
rising fuel costs and increasing concern about fuel
sources and availability in the medium to long term.”
So why have many of Britain’s other hauliers not
taken up alternative fuels?
Trevor’s answer is that, in part, the UK is very slow
in recognising gas as a vehicle fuel compared to the
rest of Europe. Meanwhile, adoption of the fuel has
a dual fuel been marred by historic problems of gas price and a
start-stop system of Government technology grants.
HGV saves Then there is the haulage business itself. Ray
Engley, head of technical services at the Road
20% on its CO2 Haulage Association, admitted that dual fuel was
a proven technology. But he said the adoption of
emissions alternatives to diesel by hauliers would be a slow
process. “Modern diesel engines are highly efficient
and they are a known technology,” he added.
Said Trevor: “We’re humans and fear what we
don’t understand. And the majority of large operators
aren’t really too concerned about the price of diesel
Sven Goran-Ericsson isn’t the only Swede who’s
decided that Nottingham is an inspiring place to
live and work.
Months before the former England football
manager made his surprising move to Notts County,
three business partners came over from Sweden to
set up a new company designing and manufacturing
highly efficient LED lighting.
Now firmly established in Regent Street,
LEDInLight is tapping into the UK’s growing
appetite for greener, more energy-efficient products.
At present the small business offers three LED
products, all of which use 80% less energy than
conventional lighting products and are made from
recycled materials. One of the products, their
major innovation on which a patent is pending, is a
powerful 100w bulb that produces no heat and which
takes ‘long-lasting’ to new limits.
“It has this long life-length - up to 100,000 hours,”
said managing director Eva Ottosson. “If you get one
when you’re born you don’t have to change it until
you’re 50.”
Although still in the start-up stage, Eva and her
colleagues Chris Ingfeldt and Tom Larrson anticipate
that they will move into profit early in 2010 and
then see rapid growth. This should mean increasing
employment of technical and admin staff.
As Chris pointed out: “It’s not just ourselves who
are employing people – it’s our partners we were
working with as a result of our business.”
However, it won’t pass unnoticed that when the
three Swedes set up the business in October 2008,
million people. There’s this huge country with
loads of forest and water. But I realised we didn’t
Meanwhile, the company is working alongside
researchers to explore the installation of LEDs in the
the UK was already deep into the current recession.
Yet, as counterintuitive as it may sound, Eva
have any market there. Also, in England, when you
mention ‘carbon footprint’, almost everyone knows
eco-houses on the Creative Energy Homes project
run by the University of Nottingham’s School of the
believes that now is precisely the right time for an
environmental products company to be starting up.
And she points out that capturing a small fraction of
what you’re talking about. When you come home
to Sweden and say ‘carbon footprint’, people say
Built Environment.
With all their products, LedinLight is concerned
about recyclability and ‘lifecycle perspective’, or
the 2.5bn European light bulb market would be very accountability of the components that go into them.
good business.
“When the recession started everyone was LED products, The honeycomb structure in the ceiling panel is
made of recycled plastic bottles, for example; and

because we have a fuel escalator. When we form
a contract we base it around the price of diesel.
When the price of diesel goes up we pass it on to
the customer. So those who want an easy life aren’t
bothered about the price of diesel. “
Yet with a gas fuel supply infrastructure in place
at key points around England for its fleet, Hardstaff
Haulage is now a supplier of gas as well as a user
and a supplier of patented dual fuel technology.
Meanwhile, Trevor Fletcher nurtures dreams for a
wider take-up of methane-burning engines and the
cascade of environmental benefits this would bring.
saying ‘how dare you do this?’,” she said. ” But
when a recession starts there is always something
that explodes. Because the money is out there and
the investors want to invest. Last time there was a
recession it was biotech; everyone put their money
into biotech. Before that it was computers. This time
it’s clean-tech.”
But why, given Sweden’s reputation for expertise
in areas such as environmental architecture, choose
Nottingham?
The first answer is that the Swedes were already
familiar with Nottingham from their previous work
all of which
broken LED fluorescent lights can also be safely
recycled as they do not contain toxic mercury gas as
conventional tubes do.
use 80% less Eva added: “We are doing this because we believe
in it. The main reasons are not, as someone told me,
energy than to be awfully rich – because at the end of the day you
can only eat until you’re full up. We want to make a
conventional good living but we also want to work with products
that are environmentally-friendly and have a positive
lighting impact on the climate.”

Image: Eva Ottosson

Images: Trevor Fletcher (above) and
(left) a Hardstaff driver filling up with gas
(Marlow Photography/Nottingham Science City)
on European projects. They pick out Nottingham
City Council for particular praise in helping them
settle in the city.
The second answer is that the UK is a much larger
market than Sweden.
“While Sweden has the technology - we’re good
at clean-tech technology – we don’t have any
market,” said Eva. “It’s too small. We are just nine
(Marlow Photography/Nottingham Science City)
‘what’s that?’ That’s the fact. “
Local strengths have also played a major role in
LedinLight’s manufacturing choices. The company’s
LED tubes, for example, are being produced by
lighting manufacturer Relux in Derby, which markets
under the name Greentube. The Swedes are keen to
retain manufacturing in the Midlands.
 7
GREEN –TECH #7

Phoenix
Fuels
Sowing the seeds of future energy

Farmer Jon Hammond scoops up a handful of
small black seeds from the large pile at his feet.
They’re the useful product from rapeseed plants,
Brassica campestris, and Jon is still surprised by
how much energy each of the seeds contains.
“Between 30 to 35% of each tiny seed can be
extracted as oil when you crush them,” he says. “I’ve
been farming for years but I still can’t get over that.”
This oil volume means that each tonne of yellow
rapeseed grown in a farmer’s field produces 300-
350 litres of oil, and oil that has a high energy value.
Increase the tonnage and you can see the potential
of rapeseed oil to be a renewable, low carbon
replacement for mineral oil.
So could British farms become a realistic source
of fuel?
Farm-produced fuel crops have the advantage of
being regularly available as annually harvested crops.
And like wood biomass also grown for fuel, crop oils
are a low-carbon resource, taking carbon dioxide out
of the atmosphere and putting oxygen in as part of
their natural growth process.
Growing crops-for-fuel is certainly an option for
and provenance are all things that come and go
within the consumer’s ideals. But the green agenda
isn‘t going away quickly.”
One result of this environmental direction was
the setting up of Phoenix Fuels in 2006 and the
production of high-energy briquettes for the
domestic market. These are produced from the solid
“expeller” left over from crushed rapeseed.
But the main product was pure vegetable oil,
produced from the rapeseed using specialist
equipment purchased from Western Europe. Initially
the oil was converted to biodiesel and used to power
the packing business’s haulage fleet. However, the
falling price of mineral oil in late 2008 meant that
even their home-made biodiesel became uneconomic
and forced Jon and co-director Colin Bower to
rethink their plans. industrial production of biofuels produces more
Now, the pure vegetable oil is used to run a carbon than is saved when they are used as fuel
500kVA electricity generator to power the vegetable in vehicle engines. And secondly, devoting land to
packing plant, a small fleet of converted farm growing new biofuel crops can mean taking land
vehicles and part of the Hammond Produce road out of food production in a world where millions
of people are starving. Furthermore, abroad, land
important for conservation has also been cleared to

farmers such as Jon Hammond, who already has four
years experience creating and marketing rapeseed fuel
products through a company called Phoenix Fuels.
Jon’s own family farm, at Redhill, Arnold, covers
1700 acres, producing vegetables for a successful
processing and packing business. However, in 2003,
the business expanded and is now part of a
co-operative of eight farms growing crops across
17,000 acres between Nottingham, Newark and
Doncaster. The consolidated business sells under
the banner Sherwood Produce.
The ‘green’ side of the business grew out of the
desire to find a niche in the market, the target being
to make Sherwood Produce the lowest-carbon
producer and supplier of vegetables in the UK.
“The group has always farmed in a responsible
way, helping to enhance the natural environment
but we needed to find something that stood us
apart from the rest of the market place, and felt the
green agenda wasn’t going to be a fad,” says Jon.
“’Organic’ is quite lifestyle driven. Values like local
30 to 35%
of each tiny
seed can be
extracted
as oil
haulage fleet. This makes a 60% carbon saving over
the use of mineral oil. According to the National
Farmers Union, it has been estimated that one
field in 10 planted with oilseed rape would provide
enough fuel to run the rest of an arable farm
But the other option for the rapeseed oil, and one
that Phoenix Fuels is examining, is its commercial
supply to new public sector buildings and projects
that are legally obliged to have low carbon
footprints. According to Defra, there are “significant
opportunities” to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions
by supplying fuel from renewable sources for
Combined Heat and Power plants. Almost a third
of the UK’s total energy consumption comes from
space and process heating – yet only 1% of this
energy comes from renewables.
However, any observer of the way that nations
have struggled to find oil replacements knows how
the arguments in favour of biofuels – or ‘agrofuels’
- have collapsed in recent years. Once regarded as
a universal low-carbon substitute for mineral oil,
biofuels – whether maize, soyabeans, miscanthus,
palm oil or other plants – have since been heavily
criticised for two main reasons. One is that the
grow biofuel crops.
In Britain, the biofuel industry is still relatively small,
with a handful of industrial plants dotted around the
country producing biodiesel and bioethanol from
crops such as wheat, rapeseed and sugar beet. The
framework for the domestic market for transport
biofuel was created by the Renewable Transport Fuels
Can farms become a source for fuel?
Obligation in April 2008. But following concern about
the environmental impact of biofuel production, the
obligation on the UK’s larger fossil fuel suppliers to
include a proportion of biofuels in their transport fuel
was reduced - from 3.25% in 2009/10, growing to 5%
in 2014/15 and beyond.
However, at Phoenix Fuels, Jon is aware of the
criticism for biofuels and points out that he is
interested in producing fuel oil only for British
supply, using crops that are fully traceable. Neither
is he taking land out of food production to grow
rapeseed for fuel. Around 10% of the land he helps
farm is used for rapeseed and any expansion of the
crop will come from a “realignment” of existing
commercial crops. Furthermore, he will be using
land that was previously devoted to set-aside. Defra
ended the set-aside scheme in 2007 but such land
had already been proving important for rapeseed,
which is classed as an industrial crop.
“We’re soaking up land that wouldn’t be growing
anything,” says Jon. “Three years ago we still had
set-aside and that land has recently come back into
production. But we’re not suddenly consuming 8%
more food in the UK. If anything we’re consuming
less. Neither are we involved in the argument about
planting palm oil trees in tropical forests; this is a
British-only model, a local product for a local market.”
However all this may affect the public perception
of farming, Jon Hammond is a 4th generation
farmer and is confident that his business will remain
anchored in land and crop-growing. It’s what he
knows best, and selling a portion of his crops for
heating and electricity, rather than food, won’t, he
says, change the essential nature of farming.
He adds: “We have a genuine opportunity to help
reduce carbon emission now using existing first and
second generation technology. We appreciate there
are improvements and brand new technologies in
the pipeline, but waiting for these to come to the
fore will not help to reduce carbon emission now. We
need the government and the consumer to embrace
what we have and get involved with low carbon
activity wherever possible.”
Images: Opposite – Pellets made of the waste from crushed
rapeseed (left) and farmer Jon Hammond (top)
This page – Phoenix Fuels co-director Colin Bower with rapeseed
oil (above) and with the seed from rapeseed plants (left)
(all pictures Marlow Photography/Nottingham Science City)

GREEN –TECH #8
outer
arc
Welcome to the Carbon Cup
As an ambitious 30-something entrepreneur,
all Ben Randal wants is for his energy-saving
applications to be used all over the globe.
And he’s already got a slogan to sell them: ‘Saving
the World Just Became a Competition.’
The company Randal founded in Nottingham,
OuterArc, is pioneering the development of a
package of building power metering and software
applications that encourage the integration of energy
use measurement with social networking sites. Titled
‘The Carbon Cup’, one app encourages individuals
and even entire work places to display their energy
consumption on sites such as Facebook, effectively
competing against each other to reduce energy use
while winning points and kudos as rewards.
The idea behind the development is simple:
people are more inclined to reduce their energy
consumption when they can see how much energy
they are using. Then, by putting their energy use on
public display via popular sites such as Facebook or
Twitter, energy reduction becomes integrated into
their every day lives.
As Randal explained: “Our punchline is that
OuterArc wants to make the world a more energy
efficient place to live. We attempt to weave energy
into people’s every day lives so it becomes visible
and engages us all. And really, that’s the premise of
everything we do –it has to work with people at a
consumer level, whether you’re an energy manager,
a business or a utility.”
Points mean
prizes for
how you’re
doing in the
Carbon Cup.
Two concepts are key to the Carbon Cup’s
popularity: ease of use, and competition.
Regarding the first, Randal continued: “We know
that if we give people applications which means they
have to log on they don’t do it. How many things
do you have to log onto each day? It’s annoying.
And we don’t want to add to that annoyance. So
we started thinking about other ways of engaging
people. We thought, ‘where do people usually go?’
Well, we’re the younger generation, so this doesn’t
cover everyone, but younger people use social
networking. 200m people use Facebook, 40m
people on the planet now use Linkedin. Facebook is
a channel and our notion is ‘why isn’t that a way of
seeing what your building is doing?’”
As for competition: “The very base of the premise
is that you can collaborate, or compete, with your
neighbours in things like your meter reading, or
energy bills. At its simplest, you can put in your
meter readings and you will get points for that. You
get points for saving and points for saying what you
are doing to save energy.”
And points mean?
“Points mean prizes for how you’re doing in the
Carbon Cup. The incentive is firstly people will get
points and virtual badges in areas like Facebook.
Where we want to take it further is talking to utilities
and vendors sponsoring these competitions and
provide prizes such as iPods. There are loads of
ways to incentivise this.“
Revenue generation will stem from the purchase of
OuterArc’s energy metering packages; customers will
be able buy basic metering systems but pay more to
upgrade to more sophisticated packages.
It may be obvious now that Randal is a garrulous
speaker and bubbling with enthusiasm. It’s hardly a
surprise to learn that he once had his ambitions set on
the tough competitive arena of professional tennis.
But after university and working in software
development, he set up OuterArc in 2006 and
moved into BioCity the following year, focusing
on energy software. The company now employs
nine people and has “bootstrapped” itself most
of the way with its own cash. EMDA awarded the
8 9
company a £170,000 grant in 2008.
Today, the Carbon Cup is one of OuterArc’s suite
of energy measurement and efficiency applications.
But while Randal’s belief in the Carbon Cup is
infectious, does he think it’s got the right stuff for
mass acceptance?
“My answer is a brazen yes,” he replies. “My head
says that if it doesn’t become world-wide, my hedge
is that there are utilities showing interest world-wide
right now and saying, ‘we would like to buy a solution
like yours which we want to give to our customers.’
That’s the hedge. The utopian dream is that we can
get something like a Facebook; if not we’ve still got a
card to play that will generate revenue.”
Image: Ben Randal
(Marlow Photography/Nottingham Science City)
GREEN –TECH #9
monsal
Waste not want not
April 2010 is the target date for full operation of a
flagship processing plant in Scotland that will turn
30,000 tonnes of food waste into green electricity
and fertiliser each year. The Deerdykes biowaste
plant, in Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, is one of
the UK’s new generation of large-scale anaerobic
digestion facilities enabling waste from thousands
of households – potato peelings, used teabags,
meat bones and the like - to be diverted from
landfill and converted into renewable energy.
The Nottinghamshire connection? Deerdykes is
designed and built by Monsal, a growing waste and
water technology business based on Ransom Wood
Business Park, near Mansfield. The company has
also won contracts to design and build Anaerobic
Digestion (AD) plants for Anglian Water, the largest
of which, Great Billing, in Northamptonshire, will
produce 4.2MW of electricity from ‘biogas’ – the
methane captured from organic waste. In summary,
with European legislation and domestic concern
focusing on the environmental implications of all
waste streams, Monsal has intelligently positioned
itself to be the UK’s biggest name in the waste-to-
green power technology.
has 40m tonnes of organic waste with no treatment
The UK
infrastructure. The business opportunity is to provide
technology, services and infrastructure to treat waste.
It is an obvious growth area because there’s a lot
processes more food waste than sewage and our technology and
supply chain can be easily expanded into this sector.”
1.4m tonnes Until recently local authorities in Britain have
usually claimed that building AD plants was not
of sewage possible because they could not deal with unwanted
materials in food waste. Those objections are now
sludge mostly redundant with the state-of-the-art digestion
technology , which can even screen out food packaging
and chunks of garden rubble. One of the authorities
examining AD is Nottingham City Council, which
Everybody who lives anywhere near a landfill site
knows that rotting organic waste produces methane,
These are big numbers and the business opportunity
is also big. There needs to be changes in attitude and
commissioned a feasibility study.
But why has the UK been so slow in this area of
a potent greenhouse gas. But captured at source and
streamed into a Combined Heat and Power unit, the
gas can be converted into electricity and used on site
investment incentives have to be in place, but there’s
15 to 20 years of growth ahead.”
Started in 1995, Monsal is a leading supplier of
waste management?
“The legislative and financial drivers weren’t there,”
says Cumiskey. “It was easy and more cost effective to
or be exported to the grid. process equipment to the water treatment industry. dispose of organic waste in a landfill. What’s changed
Several nations have forged ahead of Britain Cumiskey, a chartered chemical engineer, joined is the European directive stopping organics going
in recycling food waste. In San Francisco, for four years later and began to diversify the company’s into landfill. The other factor is that the Government
example, the city’s domestic and restaurant food expertise because he could see opportunities in waste has incentivised building digester plants so that you
waste is converted into compost which helps management. Strategic investment from Matrix now get extra credits for creating power out of AD.
fertilise the state’s famous vineyards. But the UK is Private Equity Partners was obtained and new It’s encouraged us to build new infrastructure for the
finally catching up and Monsal expects to expand waste-to-energy technology acquired from Germany. waste sector. “
significantly over the next few years as waste-to- Today, Monsal remains the largest specialist AD
biogas energy plays a larger part in the nation’s supplier to the water treatment industry in the UK, Image: Monsal MD Aidan Cumiskey (above)
energy strategy. but a combination of market expertise, technological and twin biowaste mixers (left)
(Monsal)
“We’re at the start of a change in the UK which advances and new opportunities from legislation
is going to see waste as a resource,” says Aidan means it is also becoming a leader in the new biogas to
Cumiskey, Monsal’s managing director. “Before, energy market.
organic waste was disposed of in landfill. Now we For Cumiskey, the sums are simple. “The UK
think of the UK’s 40m tonnes of organic waste that processes 1.4m tonnes of sewage sludge and has
could be converted into 4,000MW of electricity. 250 major centres to do that. The waste industry
 10
GREEN –TECH #10

4energy
Cool customers

When Nottingham’s newest science park was

finally completed in summer 2008, the big
question was: who would be the first company
to move in?
No.1 Nottingham Science Park was the flagship
building in Blueprint’s £50m development and wore
its green credentials on its sleeve, from its ‘living’
brown roof to its eye-catching spotted biomass
boiler.  Yet, with a full-blown recession blowing
hard through the economy just as No.1 opened
for business, Blueprint’s management admitted
privately – and occasionally publicly – that the job of
signing up a keynote first tenant couldn’t have come
at a harder time.
But in March 2009 doubts turned to delight
when Blueprint announced that it had agreed terms,
and with a company that totally suited its target
science and technology client base. The tenant was
4energy, a growing local business that develops

The equipment
is currently
on line in the
UK, Ireland,
China, Holland,
Germany, Egypt,
and Portugal
and installs equipment to cool sensitive ICT and
telecommunications electronics such as radios and
computer servers, helping corporate customers
reduce their bills and carbon emissions. “We couldn’t
have written the script better,” said Blueprint’s
John Long at the time. “4energy is exactly the kind
of company we wanted to attract here – they’re a
technology company in a sector that’s going places.”
4energy was founded in July, 2005 and is now
based at two locations:  its original factory focussed
on the telecommunication sector, on the Debdale
Lane Industrial Estate at Keyworth, and its new office
space at No.1 Nottingham Science Park dedicated to level. 4energy’s expansion has already benefited
cooling large data centres. from investment from the Carbon Trust and venture
They have more than doubled their turnover each capital fund Catapult, plus an emda Research and
year since 2005 and employ over 50 people based at Development grant in ‘06 and ’07.
these two sites. Their equipment is currently on line
in the UK, Ireland, China, Holland, Germany, Egypt, Image: 4energy keeps its clients’ hardware cool
and Portugal with some of the largest operators in the (Mark Enstone/4energy)
World. These systems halve the current energy usage
from existing installed cooling systems.
4energy is one of just five Nottinghamshire
companies signed up to emda’s £4.3m High Growth
Programme, aimed at helping them grow to a new

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