The award-winning Queens Quay Heat Pump Energy Centre is providing low-carbon heating to the first phases of the £250m Clydebank-based development and members of West Dunbartonshire Council, Vital Energi and Star Renewables recently gathered to celebrate the achievement at an official opening. The opening is a particularly timely showcase of
Sick days cost UK businesses around £77 billion in lost productivity each year, equating to roughly 30 days of absence per employee1. Poor or unmaintained ventilation can cause ‘sick building syndrome’ in employees and could lead to longer periods of staff absence and potential operational disruptions too. In a bid
Following recent revelations that UK’s home gas boilers emit twice as much CO2 as all power stations, the construction sector is being urged to accelerate the switch to greener heating solutions such as CO2 heat pumps, which have been described as ‘the future of green heating in the UK’. The
The future carbon economy will present major challenges and opportunities for M & E companies over the next 10 years with the need to deliver innovative design solutions for new and existing buildings, according to Julian McCamphill, Operations Director of Dowds Group. There is already considerable pressure for change, but
Mitsubishi Electric has provided a medical practice in South London with three commercial Ecodan air source heat pumps to deliver renewable heating and year-round comfort. The owners of Paxton Green Group Practice needed a heating solution that would future-proof the building by reducing both heating bills and carbon emissions, to
Ventilation specialists Soler & Palau Ventilation UK (S&P UK) has launched an intelligent wireless carbon dioxide monitor as part of a new range of indoor air quality sensors designed to help businesses, education and healthcare settings manage poor air quality levels and lower Covid infection risks. S&P UK’s new AirSens
Airthings, the global leader in indoor air quality solutions for consumers, businesses, and today professionals, has announced a new product addition to its portfolio: View CO₂ for Business. The new battery-operated, wireless sensor will empower schools and offices everywhere to take charge of its air quality by warning when carbon
Sales and hire equipment specialist MHM Group has worked in partnership with its customer Illumin8, to provide an eco-friendly lighting solution for Anglesey’s Holyhead lorry port. Holyhead is the UK’s second largest roll-on/roll-off ferry port, sees more than 400,000 freight lorries crossing the Irish Sea every year. The new temporary
Teachers know that many of the most important factors affecting children’s performance are invisible. Tiredness, stress, hunger: these all have a significant impact on pupils’ productivity and their ability to learn. But there’s another significant factor that most educators (and employers, for that matter) rarely consider. This is the most
Robin Whitehead appointed new chief executive to oversee operations Ambitious plans to recruit 200+ employees and increase annual turnover to £175 million Company set to open a new operation in Africa to support business expansion Boulting has rebranded as BGEN as part of the company’s ambitious growth plans. The specialist,
The award-winning Queens Quay Heat Pump Energy Centre is providing low-carbon heating to the first phases of the £250m Clydebank-based development and members of West Dunbartonshire Council, Vital Energi and Star Renewables recently gathered to celebrate the achievement at an official opening. The opening is a particularly timely showcase of Scottish innovation as world leaders are set to gather in Glasgow for the COP26 United Nations Conference. The £20m project, which was delivered by Vital Energi on behalf of West Dunbartonshire Council will provide heating and hot water to the 23-hectare Queens Quay development which includes plans for 1,200 homes, businesses and public buildings. The initial phase connects Aurora House, the Titan Enterprise Centre, Clydebank Leisure Centre and care home, Queens Quay House. At full build out the project will deliver circa 5,705 tonnes of CO2 reduction per year due to grid decarbonisation. Scott Lutton, Vital Energi’s Operations Director – North & Scotland said, “With COP26 fast approaching it is timely that we showcase the local authorities who have successfully delivered initiatives to meet their carbon targets and are an inspiration to others. West Dunbartonshire Council have shown that it is possible to, not only deliver large carbon reduction by harnessing renewable technology, but that this heat can be delivered at a more affordable price. “One of the truly exciting things about this development is that it will continue to grow over multiple phases, increasing in scale, becoming more efficient and allowing more people, businesses and organisations to access low-carbon heat.” The energy centre houses two 2.65MW water source heat pumps which extract water from the River Clyde at a rate of 125 litres per second and use the latent heat to produce heating and hot water for the development via a 5km district heating network. Councillor Iain McLaren, Convener of Infrastructure, Regeneration and Economic Development, said: “I am extremely proud to officially open the West Dunbartonshire Energy Centre. This ambitious project has been many years in the making and it’s a pleasure to see the system up and running, providing low-carbon heat energy to so many buildings already, and with the capability of expansion throughout Clydebank. “As the world turns its eyes to the West of Scotland for COP26, and we work to agree action to try and halt the climate emergency, we are determined to do our part. This system, alongside a number of other steps taken by the Council, will help us achieve our goal to be net zero by 2045 and lead the way in tackling the climate emergency.” The network was designed to accommodate further growth, with the potential to expand beyond Queens Quay over several phases. The network has been future-proofed, and pipework has been installed to supply the forthcoming Health Centre, West College Scotland, the first 140 flats and retail units currently on site, all other homes planned for the site as well as Clydebank Library and Clydebank Town Hall. Future plans also include connections to the Golden Jubilee Hospital, Clyde Shopping Centre Dalmuir Flats, and into the town centre. Councillor Daniel Lennie, West Dunbartonshire Energy LLP Board member, said: “This fantastic system is already heating so many public buildings from the leisure centre to the care home, with the potential to expand to the Golden Jubilee and beyond. “It makes me so proud that as a Council we are showing our commitment to our net zero mission, especially because we are using our shipbuilding heritage and the Clyde – our most famous resource – to do so. “As well as taking these steps to tackle the climate emergency, we are also addressing fuel poverty for our communities and I’m sure Clydebank will see the benefits of the system for years to come.”
Sick days cost UK businesses around £77 billion in lost productivity each year, equating to roughly 30 days of absence per employee1. Poor or unmaintained ventilation can cause ‘sick building syndrome’ in employees and could lead to longer periods of staff absence and potential operational disruptions too. In a bid to tackle this very real issue, Plasma Clean, trusted pioneers in innovative and affordable infection prevention solutions, has partnered with global tech company Airthings to deliver life changing air quality technology to protect the UK’s workforce. This significant partnership between two leading providers of air quality technology can provide advantageous benefits for offices as well as health and leisure facilities and schools. Studies show these include long term cost savings, over 60 percent better cognitive performance and a 30 percent decrease in headaches and respiratory issues1. Indoor air has been found to be over five times more polluted than outdoor air in the UK2. The impact of this is acute and has been directly linked to asthma, anxiety, lack of concentration, lower productivity and the increased spread of infectious diseases. The industry leading businesses have joined forces with the aim of helping everyone to breathe better air. Utilising Airthings’ highest grade air quality sensors, Plasma Clean will be able to monitor CO2, temperature, humidity, radon, VOCs, pressure, light and virus risk – all in real time. The battery-operated and wireless sensors can be placed in any building and indoor air quality with advanced cloud analytics is monitored through the comprehensive Airthings Dashboard via desktop. Plasma Clean, which has been dedicated to improving indoor air quality for the last 13 years, will analyse the data collected to produce a detailed report complete with a range of recommended solutions for any identified inefficiencies. The recommendations give clients options to take the next step to neutralise bacteria and virus cells in the air, and ensure continuous disinfection. Steve Keogh, CEO of Plasma Clean, explained, “We are thrilled to be announcing our partnership with Airthings, which will help to deliver life changing technology to offices, leisure and health facilities and schools across the country. “Without the proper ventilation systems in place, an office full of people can quickly increase the amount of harmful gases in the air and dramatically reduce the indoor air quality, impacting negatively on cognitive function.” Airthings works with major brands and businesses to deliver affordable and innovative technology solutions to improve indoor air quality on a global scale. Airthings has sold more than 300,000 monitors worldwide with its premium product range. Oyvind Birkenes, CEO of Airthings commented, “We’re so excited to be working with a like-minded company such as Plasma Clean. Our collaborative approach allows us to use the very best technology to analyse indoor air quality and deliver a solution to help protect people long term. Together we are dedicated to helping everyone breathe better air.” To find out more about Plasma Clean’s infection control range, visit: www.plasma-clean.com
Following recent revelations that UK’s home gas boilers emit twice as much CO2 as all power stations, the construction sector is being urged to accelerate the switch to greener heating solutions such as CO2 heat pumps, which have been described as ‘the future of green heating in the UK’. The government’s target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028 is an encouraging step but Tim Rook, Chief Markets Officer at Clade Engineering, a leading designer and manufacturer of CO2 heat pumps, is concerned that the UK is a long way off the pace from hitting that target. “Burning natural gas has historically been a cheap, reliable and relatively safe way to heat buildings in this country. But as this study shows, things are going to have to change if we have any hope of reaching Net Zero. CO2 heat pumps are the future of green heating in the UK – they are more efficient, cleaner and have a lower total cost of ownership than gas boilers,” explains Tim. “We need to step up – and that’s going to take more awareness and more clamour across the construction, facilities management, property investment and property management industries,” suggests Tim. The recent energy price crisis adds further weight to this argument and has been caused by several long, medium and short-term factors coming into play at the same time. It’s been coming down the tracks for a while, and touches on a couple of things that Clade Engineering consider extremely important – the decarbonisation and security of Britain’s energy supply. “Installing a heat pump is one of the best things a business can do to decarbonise, and it’s fairly straightforward if engineered correctly. A heat pump will deliver a 60 to 80% carbon reduction and when used for cooling too it’ll do even better. If plugged into a digital platform to optimise performance and provide grid flexibility services it will be able to deliver even more carbon reductions and cost savings. “For the good of the planet, we need to pull our collective fingers out,” says Tim.
The future carbon economy will present major challenges and opportunities for M & E companies over the next 10 years with the need to deliver innovative design solutions for new and existing buildings, according to Julian McCamphill, Operations Director of Dowds Group. There is already considerable pressure for change, but while most building manufacturers and suppliers are looking at delivering better energy saving performance across product ranges, the onus will be more and more on M&E contractors and designers to be more proactive in terms of reducing carbon footprints to meet Government targets. As these targets alter and become more complex, this in turn will mean the need for new initiatives to provide even greater investment to attract highly trained staff to join the industry, especially graduates who will need to see construction as a more attractive career option. For companies such as Dowds Group, the challenge already exists to deliver increasingly complex projects involving BIM, new technologies and much more. These are already being incorporated into all new contracts – a typical example is the planned major refurbishment of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in south London operated by the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. The project is worth around £30 million. More than half of that total will be spent on delivering the M&E. Work has already started for Dowds to accurately design and agree cost on every aspect of the project prior to contractors going into the hospital at beginning of 2022, with the contract expected to be finished the following year. “Attention to detail, health and safety matched by an emphasis on delivering quality at all times is important for every type of contract,” said Julian Camphill, “and this particularly applies to work in hospitals and in our opinion will increasingly become more challenging.” “That attention to detail relates to everything we do – right down to knowing that when an operative flicks a switch, everyone is totally aware of what is on the end of that and every other circuit. It could be a patient on life support, power to a critical operating theatre – it is that important.” “Equally, we have to be aware that we are not only designing and installing infrastructure that meets today’s needs, it also has to be fit for purpose for the next 20 years or more and be capable of delivering Government carbon targets and changing patient needs.” Dowds, working from their head office in Belfast for more than 40 years, has an enviable reputation for delivering quality healthcare projects in Northern Ireland. This expertise has been transferred to London where the company is now regarded as one of the fastest growing of its kind across the capital and the rest of the UK. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital which was built in the 1950s and later modernised in the 1990s under a PFI agreement is in urgent need of refurbishment and modernisation to bring the building up to modern standards. Dowds, who will be working closely with the NHS Trust to ensure minimum disruption to staff and patients throughout the refurbishment, will be responsible for upgrading all of the electrical infrastructure. They will further upgrade the facilities for medical gas supplies such as oxygen, the climate control and all the other M&E areas across the site. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is the latest in a growing number of healthcare success stories for Dowds, which include just about every major hospital in Northern Ireland together with scheme at Addenbrookes, Merseyside, Newcastle, Reading and many other parts of the country. With NHS Trusts probably under more pressure than ever before due to Covid and expanding waiting lists, the focus is now firmly on the M&E sector to deliver 21st Century facilities – that’s the challenge for companies like Dowds – and they are up to it.
Mitsubishi Electric has provided a medical practice in South London with three commercial Ecodan air source heat pumps to deliver renewable heating and year-round comfort. The owners of Paxton Green Group Practice needed a heating solution that would future-proof the building by reducing both heating bills and carbon emissions, to replace the existing gas boilers. Ecodan CAHV monobloc air source heat pumps from Mitsubishi Electric were chosen due to their ability to lower running costs and carbon emissions. Patients and staff can now benefit from cost-effective, renewable heating while also enjoying modern levels of comfort. The heat pumps were installed to deliver 116kW of heat to the building, replacing the two commercial gas boilers. The CAHV models operate in a cascade system, meaning they are able to continually match the heating but only consume the power needed to keep the practice comfortable, whatever the weather. Andy Booth, Project Manager for Opus Air Conditioning, which installed the system said: “One of the things that amazed me was how quickly the CAHV units heated the water in the tank. We picked up water temperatures of 70 degrees in less than 30 minutes.” Opus specialises in the design, supply, installation, service and maintenance of boilers and heating systems, along with heat pumps, air conditioning and ventilation systems. This was the first Ecodan CAHV installation that Opus had carried out and they will be looking at promoting the use of air source heat pumps on future projects. Owing to the practice being a vaccination centre for its local community, the heat pumps had to be installed and the old systems removed in close partnership with the practice and its opening times. “The team had to be completely flexible so that we could get in around the working hours of the vaccination centre,” added Andy. Heat pumps are low maintenance and able to produce an average of three kilowatts of heating for every kilowatt of electricity consumed. The practice can now provide a high quality healthcare service for patients whilst also delivering high levels of comfort. For more details on the Ecodan CAHV, visit: ecodan.co.uk
Ventilation specialists Soler & Palau Ventilation UK (S&P UK) has launched an intelligent wireless carbon dioxide monitor as part of a new range of indoor air quality sensors designed to help businesses, education and healthcare settings manage poor air quality levels and lower Covid infection risks. S&P UK’s new AirSens range monitors ambient indoor air quality and sends a signal to ventilation systems to increase airflow rates if a spike is detected in one of three parameters: carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compound (VOC) or relative humidity (RH). AirSens comes in three versions: AirSens CO2, AirSens VOC and AirSens RH. A traffic light LED system indicates the air quality level: green (good), orange (medium) and red (poor). The Government said in new Covid guidance this month that CO2 monitors should be used in a range of sectors and settings to help identify poorly ventilated indoor areas, take action to maximise fresh air, and reduce the risk of airborne transmission of diseases. Lee Page, Sales Director at S&P UK, said: “We have released our AirSens range of indoor air quality (IAQ) sensors to help businesses, schools and colleges, as well as homeowners, to easily identify and take action over inadequate levels of IAQ – which is no longer just a buzzword. This will also lower the risk of spreading airborne diseases like Covid.” The AirSens CO2 monitor can be adapted to fit any space due to its wireless technology and is designed for indoor areas where occupancy rates can change frequently. The Health and Safety Executive has stated CO2 values in indoor areas should be at least 800ppm (parts per million) and not exceed 1500ppm. The AirSens CO2 monitor has a range of 450-2000ppm and has an in-built demand-controlled ventilation. Lee added: “Usually CO2 monitors need to be wired back to the main air handling unit or fan – requiring additional wiring, time and effort, and costs. “However, the AirSens CO2 monitor has the rare intelligent ability to connect to a main sensor in the hub and wirelessly access the display within the desired space. This provides a simple, reassuring and cost-effective solution for many businesses and people. “The entire AirSens range reduces components, simplifies installation and increases savings while providing a minimalist design which can be easily integrated in different ambientes. “They all have a wireless version, meaning they can be retrofitted very easily and quickly. They also come with a low speed and high speed as standard as well as a Building Management System (BMS) capability, making it easy to control ventilation.” The AirSens VOC is designed for places with sporadic changes to the accumulation of substances derived from odours such as alcohols, ketones and organic acids. The AirSens RH is most efficient in highly humid areas such as bathrooms. S&P UK Ventilation Systems is the UK subsidiary of leading global manufacturer Soler and Palau, and is the sole UK distributor of commercial, industrial and residential fans and ventilation systems. Operating nationally, S&P UK is a leading fan, air movement and ventilation systems provider offering over 10,000 products along with technical sales support and consultancy. It is a subsidiary of Spanish owned S&P Group, whose global operations span over 90 countries and includes major R&D centres in Europe, Singapore, USA and Brazil. For more information, visit S&P UK’s new website: www.solerpalau.co.uk
Airthings, the global leader in indoor air quality solutions for consumers, businesses, and today professionals, has announced a new product addition to its portfolio: View CO₂ for Business. The new battery-operated, wireless sensor will empower schools and offices everywhere to take charge of its air quality by warning when carbon dioxide (CO₂) exceeds recommended levels and indoor air quality deteriorates. View CO₂ for Business combines easily with the rest of the products in the Airthings for Business solution, which lets schools and workplaces monitor, visualise and control its indoor air quality remotely to ensure a safe and healthy environment. The launch of View CO₂ is particularly timely following a recent announcement from Gavin Williamson who has pledged all education settings will be provided with carbon dioxide monitors from September, backed by £25 million in government funding, allowing staff to quickly identify where ventilation needs to be improved. Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles and is important in preventing the spread of Covid-19. The new monitors will enable staff to act quickly where ventilation is poor and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working. The government has also launched a trial of air purifiers in 30 schools in Bradford, which is designed to assess the technology in education settings and whether it could reduce the risk of transmission. High CO₂ levels can increase the risk of airborne virus transmission and cause lower productivity, drowsiness, headaches, and loss of concentration. Since our bodies expel CO₂ when we breathe out, the levels can rise quickly in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation. For that reason, measuring CO₂ levels serves as a good indicator of indoor air quality and how well a ventilation system is working. Monitoring humidity and temperature indoors is also important as both conditions correlate with virus transmission. In addition to carbon dioxide, the new View CO₂ for Business also measures temperature, humidity, virus risk, noise, and light. The Virus Risk Indicator fuses data from Airthings core sensors into an algorithm to calculate the risk of airborne virus spread in an indoor space. The capability helps schools and offices understand their indoor air quality and how it contributes to spreading airborne viruses, providing personalised insights to minimise the risk. The optional CO2 Alert feature lets anyone know when a room needs a breather by visually alerting them through a red LED light on the product when CO2 levels get too high. View CO2 for Business makes monitoring CO2 accessible for any school, office, or commercial building. Quick and easy installation, totally wireless sensors, user-friendly dashboard, and easy reporting ensure that anyone can take control of the indoor air quality.
Sales and hire equipment specialist MHM Group has worked in partnership with its customer Illumin8, to provide an eco-friendly lighting solution for Anglesey’s Holyhead lorry port. Holyhead is the UK’s second largest roll-on/roll-off ferry port, sees more than 400,000 freight lorries crossing the Irish Sea every year. The new temporary truck park enables customs, market surveillance and other checks for the passage to and from Ireland. In designing the lorry park, diesel-powered 9m lighting towers would have traditionally been used but in line with green government initiatives an eco-friendlier solution was sought. “The use of solar battery-powered tower lights can save considerable sums on fuel and repair costs, as well as tons of CO2e compared with standard diesel models. We always pursue the use of renewables to power our equipment, and so we were ready to take on the challenge of lighting a lorry park of this size to meet the government’s drive on sustainable business,” said Brad Ireland, Group Sales Director at Port Talbot based MHM Group. “Over the last two years, we have seen a big increase in our clients’ willingness to change to greener products. This is being driven by a greater understanding of climate change and of people wanting to make a contribution to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.” MHM Group, which has depots all across the UK, has developed a portable 5.5m solar streetlight model that offers zero carbon emissions. Designed with lorry parks and walkways in mind, the new model includes dusk to dawn sensors and movement detectors for safety and improved surveillance. “It has been incredibly rewarding to see the impact our solar battery lighting towers have had in Anglesey. We aim to help businesses all over the UK achieve sustainable goals including zero emission, lower running costs and reduced noise and we hope that this project will begin a new wave of large-scale facilities like these taking on greener and more efficient practices. Here at MHM Group we specialise in the hire to hire market. We do not work directly with contractors or end customers, so it was great to work on this with Illumin8 to find a great solution for their customers’ needs,” added Brad. In partnership with its hire customer Illumin8, MHM Group initially provided 24 lighting towers units, but due to their benefits a further 20 have been delivered on site to provide a well-lit, noise free and clean environment for lorry drivers. “We are always striving to find new and innovate ways of working here at Illumin8, particularly when it comes to reducing our impact on the environment. Collaborating with MHM Group on the Holyhead truck park project has been a brilliant experience and we’re very proud to have found a green, energy-efficient solution for what is set to be a huge platform for the UK trade industry,” concluded Neil Fenwick of Illumin8.
Teachers know that many of the most important factors affecting children’s performance are invisible. Tiredness, stress, hunger: these all have a significant impact on pupils’ productivity and their ability to learn. But there’s another significant factor that most educators (and employers, for that matter) rarely consider. This is the most invisible element of all: the air that we breathe. But since the beginning of the pandemic, air quality in schools has been under the microscope. Yet as important as it is to reduce infections through better ventilation, this crisis presents a golden opportunity to improve concentration and performance, not just for school pupils but for every worker. Breathing new life into classrooms The annual “back to school” in September is always a stressful time for teachers, children and parents, but this year will be like no other. Everyone knows that packing children into classrooms significantly increases the risk of Covid transmission, which is why school and government leaders are quite rightly prioritising ventilation. Clean air technology has a stunning effect on reducing transmission. One school was able to capture 99.97% of airborne pathogens by implementing our air disinfection, filtration, isolation and monitoring technology. But this is an opportunity to do much more than prevent children catching Covid, as crucial as that is. The link between air quality and long-term health complications has been known for many years. The reduction in air pollution has been one of the great public health successes of the last century. What’s far less appreciated is the effect that poor air quality has on students’ productivity and concentration. Recent research has found that creating and maintaining a standard for air quality can improve productivity by 11%, and can even have a measurable effect on pupils’ strategic thinking and exam scores. In fact, one study found that spending a few hundred pounds on air filtration systems has been shown to raise test scores by the same amount as cutting class sizes by a third. By improving air quality, we can literally breathe new life into classrooms, with huge advantages for pupils and, longer term, for the growth of the UK economy. Schools can teach business a lesson It’s not just children who benefit from breathing purer air; adults experience similar performance and productivity gains from improvements to air quality. There are certainly many industries that can take a lesson from schools and hospitals on improving air quality. Research among building decision-makers into what they are doing to ensure the health of occupants found that while healthcare organisations are, unsurprisingly, leading the way in implementing clean air technology, less than half of commercial real estate respondents have done so. This presents a major opportunity for the building and construction industry. The UK’s successful vaccination programme and general levels of Covid fatigue means that stressing the virus threat will only go so far. By moving the conversation on and stressing the measurable, bottom-line benefits to businesses, we can deliver a much more compelling message. Instead of fixing a problem, the industry will be positioning itself as partners in businesses’ future success. Setting new standards In truth, the building and construction sector needs a powerful message because existing regulations fall far short of what’s needed to improve workers’ wellbeing and productivity. Currently, the HSE Approved Code of Practice states fresh air should not fall below five to eight litres of air per second per occupant, while CIBSE’s guidance suggests that buildings should have a ventilation rate of ten litres. This is far too low: testing shows that even at the rate of 12 litres per person/second, CO2 levels can still remain high, leading to drowsiness and poor concentration. It’s also too low to remove particulate matter, which contributes to long-term health complications, while exacerbating allergies that can reduce productivity even further. Ideally, the minimum standard for ventilation should be doubled to 20 litres per second per person, and that really should be an absolute minimum. But these numbers are not absolute: ventilation requirements change according to how many people are in the building at any one time. This is another area where the construction industry can play an important educational role by setting improved standards based on occupancy and air quality metrics, rather than measuring ventilation alone. This has the additional benefit of ensuring that businesses are not over-ventilating their offices, which can be detrimental to their energy efficiency and heating costs. We constantly hear that the coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to “build back better”. On air quality we have a chance to make a measurable difference to millions of people’s health, happiness, and productivity. Let’s seize this opportunity to make workplaces fit for the future by tackling what’s been so easy to ignore for so long: the air on which all life depends.
Robin Whitehead appointed new chief executive to oversee operations Ambitious plans to recruit 200+ employees and increase annual turnover to £175 million Company set to open a new operation in Africa to support business expansion Boulting has rebranded as BGEN as part of the company’s ambitious growth plans. The specialist, multi-discipline engineering solutions business, has appointed a new chief executive to oversee plans which include a recruitment drive to support a significant planned increase in turnover, alongside the opening of a new operation in Africa as the company expands its global footprint. BGEN, with a mindset focussed on next generation engineering, has promoted Robin Whitehead from managing director of its Technology business unit to chief executive of the new operation. Robin began his career with East Midlands Electricity Board and has been in the engineering sector for more than 25 years. He has spent the last 18 years at Boulting where he has helped to significantly grow the size and remit of the technology business. “Robin’s appointment was the obvious choice,” says John Sugden, Executive Chair at BGEN. “Robin has an excellent affinity with employees and customers alike having started his career as an electrician, before joining the company in 2003 and working his way up through the business. The board has confidence that he will oversee the ambitious plans we have for the company over the next year and beyond.” The next 12 months will see BGEN go on a major recruitment drive, looking to expand its workforce from 860 to more than 1,000 employees, and hit an annual increased turnover in the region of £175 million*. The company is looking to recruit a number of positions, from mechanical engineers and electricians to design engineers and technical project managers, as the company continues to service its existing client base whilst expanding operations. September will see BGEN open its African operation in Lagos, Nigeria, focusing on continuing to serve BGEN’s global clients that are looking to maintain and grow their business in that continent. This expansion is on the back of decades of project delivery experience in Africa and will enable the company to grow its offering efficiently with local resources, backed by an experienced UK management team. “It’s an exciting time for the company, having recently been awarded a number of long-term frameworks in the utility sector which is testament to the quality of work we deliver”, comments Robin Whitehead. “While we’re proud of our heritage and will continue to serve those segments, we’re now working with customers in specialist sectors such as food, nuclear and pharmaceutical, on areas such as digitalisation and net zero emissions.” For further information, visit www.b-gen.co.uk.
