Reading-based Enviromena is developing and constructs renewable energy projects in the UK and Italy. Across Britain alone, by next year it intends its portfolio to exceed 500 MW.

The firm prides itself on recruiting staff from outside the renewables sector, offering opportunities for people to diversify their skills.

Now the company is launching an apprenticeship programme which it hopes will attract a new wave of talent keen to get involved in an exciting and emerging sector.

First up is a role within the developer’s finance department.  It will combine on-the-job training at Enviromena’s head office in Grazeley, Reading, offering study to secure a Level 3 AAT Accountancy Diploma. Tuition will be delivered by accountancy training provider First Intuition in Reading.

“This is a great opportunity for a hard-working problem solver who is interested in business and finance to start a rewarding career in accountancy” said James Armitage, the firm’s financial controller.

“Enviromena is growing rapidly and this is a very exciting time to join the renewables industry. The successful candidate will study for a professional qualification while gaining hands-on work experience in our fast-paced business.”

The firm’s senior finance officials will support the apprentice’s development, in a role offering exposure to a wide range of areas within the finance function.

The apprenticeship is expected to last 18 months. Enviromena offers competitive pay, 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays.  On achieving AAT Level 3, the right candidate would be supported with AAT Level 4 study.

Applicants will need a minimum of 5 GCSEs at grade C/4 or above, including Maths and English, and preferably three A-Levels at grades A to C. Good team players, they should have strong written and verbal communication skills, great attention to detail and be highly motivated.

“With students completing their exams soon and thinking of their next move, I’d highly recommend this opportunity to anyone looking to build a career in finance. There has never been a better time to join the clean energy industry and be part of its incredible growth trajectory,” said James.

A full job description is here. Applicants are invited to email their CV and a few details about why they would like to work with Enviromena.   Email those documents to ukfinance@Enviromena.com.   The closing date is 30 June 2024.

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Through its Electricity Market Reform Settlement (EMRS) division, Elexon will now administer a levy to fund the government’s nuclear Regulated Asset Base (RAB) approach.

Nuclear advocates say the industry’s expansion is critical if Britain is to reach Net Zero by 2050.

Last month power ministry D-ESNZ authorised a change to the Balancing and Settlements Code, which administers regulated payments made between licensed suppliers.  From 29 February, EMRS can for the first time perform the new role of RAB settlement services provider to Britain’s nuclear generators.

The change is authorised by the Nuclear Regulated Asset Base Model (Revenue Collection) Regulations, which came into force in March last year. A new direction widened cross-subsidy powers, allowing nuke developers such as EdF to receive funding from all licensed electricity suppliers, for purposes of funding new reactors.

RAB payments to relevant nuclear developers would be funded by all Britain’s licensed electricity suppliers.  Elexon’s EMRS was made responsible for delivering processes to calculate each supplier’s payments and collecting the funds they owe, according to each supplier’s market share.

Elexon’s EMRS will do so on behalf of a revenue collection counterparty, the Low Carbon Contracts Company (LCCC). The LCCC is an arms-length government agency, which will make the payments to the relevant nuclear companies.

Elexon chief executive Peter Stanley, said: “Elexon is a trusted, independent delivery partner for LCCC, government and Ofgem. We are pleased to be supporting the nuclear RAB scheme, which will play an important part in encouraging development of the low carbon generation GB needs to meet Net Zero.

“We have significant experience in delivering support schemes such as this, as since 2015 we have been successfully delivering similar functions to support suppliers’ funding of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) and Capacity Market schemes.”

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Three year old Tag claims 1GW of its total of just under 12GW of solar, wind and battery storage assets are either already operating or under construction.  Besides the UK, its projects span Portugal, Spain, France and Australia.

Its Lakeside battery and storage asset, the subject of the latest financing deal, is located in Selby, north Yorkshire, conveniently close to the Drax power station, pictured.  The device is rated at 100MW/200MWh.

Construction of the project began two months ago, with the associated energy park due to go fully live by mid-2024.

TagEnergy bought the storage project outright from developers RES in December 2021. At that time, it was TagEnergy’s fifth investment in Britain.

In its coal-burning years, Drax was notorious as Britain’s biggest single carbon-emitting plant.  Ceasing fossil fuel combustion entirely this April after 15 years of transition, four of Drax’s six furnaces now rank together as Britain’s biggest single generator of renewable energy, using its rated 2.6 MW capacity to pump out 14 TWhs every year by burning US-sourced wood pellets.

That controversial energy source prompted Professor Sir John Beddington, the government’s former chief scientific advisor, to call in April on the Drax Group to retract its repeated claims that biomass pellets are ‘carbon-neutral’.

Lenders Santander, Rabobank, and Triple Point compiled up to £70m of non-recourse debt on a fully merchant basis to get the Lakeside battery up and humming. Their deal does not address Capacity Market revenues.

The deal gives the lending trio leeway to incorporate further assets into its funding structure.

As Lakeside’s funding arrangements are nailed down, TagEnergy has named Tesla, Habitat Energy and the site’s initial developer RES as its project partners.

As engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, Tesla will provide the device’s Megapack 2XL lithium-ion batteries. Habitat Energy will optimise the installation, and manage its routes to market. RES has been engaged to manage the asset.

TagEnergy CEO Franck Woitiez greeted the deal: “Securing a single non-recourse debt package without a revenue floor is testament to the value our innovative approach to financing offers the market. We’re excited to now move to the next stage of the project to accelerate the energy transition.”

Mark Cumbo, Santander UK’s director of specialised and project finance said: “Santander UK is delighted to have once again supported TagEnergy with funding for the construction and operation of a new BESS asset and supporting the growth of their activities in the UK.

“The investment in BESS assets in the UK, like Lakeside, are a key enabler for the increasing penetration of renewable generation assets and the wider Net Zero transition.”

The debt was arranged by IDCM as financial advisor, with TLT serving as borrower legal advisor, Burges Salmon as lender legal advisor, Aurora Energy Research as energy analytics provider, Everoze as technical advisor, WTW as insurance advisor, Ester as hedge advisor and RSM as the model auditor.

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Britain’s state-backed trade guarantors UK Export Finance stood behind the Salfords, Redhill firm, as it sought to market the world’s first ever technology for distributed recycling of argon.

The inert gas, one of chemistry’s supposed noble fluids, is colourless, odourless, tasteless and non-flammable.  More interestingly argon is a brilliant catalyst, and thus critical to the manufacture of solar cells.

Cell makers use argon gas to purify silicon, the feedstock heated to produce ingots later sliced into cell wafers. Conventional processes use vast amounts of argon, with some producers needing to ship in many tankers of the gas every day for use only once.

GR2L positions its ArgonØ technique as a world’s first. The kit allows cell producers to recycle up to 95% of the argon they use.

Argon capture and re-use are boons too to other advanced manufacturing, such as microelectronics, 3D metals printing and heat-treating clever widgets for planes, satellites and rockets.

GR2L founder Rob Grant learned of a chance to supply his recycling know-how to backers of a vast PV panel factory, slated for construction in Gujarat, western India.

With yearly panel output planned to rise this decade to 2 GW, Mundra Solar Technology is to be located on the Mundra Solar Techno Park, a coastal development between Mumbai and Pakistan. Backers include Gujurat’s tax-exempt Special Economic Zone and port operators Adani.

To secure the order, the Surrey SME faced a financing conundrum. To seal the deal, it had guarantee to assure the buyer that it could deliver, a commitment likely to have meant putting cash on ice, via a surety deposit at its bank, Lloyds. But that would have drained off the development funds GR2L needed to equip a production line to deliver the very same order which it wanted to secure.

A £475,000 guarantee issued under UKEF’s Bond Support Scheme resolved the would-be exporter’s Catch 22. The bond offsets that part of GR2L deposit, allowing it to devote funds towards delivering for the Mundra venture.

Grant commented: “With brand-new argon creating up to a tonne of carbon dioxide for every tonne of produced gas, our cutting-edge recycling technology helps solar panel factories reduce their scope 3 CO₂ emissions.

“Building on our existing export successes, support from Lloyds and UKEF helped us to secure this latest opportunity and develop our established international presence. I look forward to commissioning our machinery by the end of 2023.”

Colin Walls, Lloyd’s regional director for trade & working capital, said: “GR2L is exactly the type of business we want to see thriving.

As a bank, it’s fantastic to see the exporting ambitions of this firm grow with the support which we can offer alongside UKEF’s through our Working Capital facility. Their contract with Mundra Solar Technology Ltd is testament to that.”

Prime minister Rishi Sunak was last weekend in Delhi with G20 heads of government. Brexit can be assumed to have no impact either in easing or obstructing GR2L’s deal.

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Energy managers are too bogged with compliance and admin at the expense of finding ways to ensure energy efficiency projects get off the ground and financed.

Meanwhile, a lack of data and standardisation is preventing otherwise viable projects from being bankable when presented to financiers.

The result is a yawning disconnect between thousands of stalled energy efficiency projects and billions of pounds in immobile private capital.

That disconnect leaves UK businesses wasting money and helps contribute to the very real risk that Britain will miss its legally binding 2020 targets, whose deadline falls on the next government’s watch.

Part of the problem is that there is no standard way of developing energy efficiency projects. If they cannot be standardised, making them bankable when presented to financiers is a tough ask.

But EnergyPro founder Steven Fawkes thinks that the UK may only be six months away from clearing that hurdle.

Fawkes outlined the need for better project data and standardisation in order to accelerate investment in energy efficiency this week at a PRASEG & APPGIE meeting.

He later told Energyst Media that the solution to the second half of the equation may not be too far off: The Investor Confidence Project should have its first set of protocols in market within the next six months.

Born out of the Environmental Defense Fund in the US, the Investor Confidence Project Europe recently secured a €2 million Horizon 2020 grant to develop a set of protocols that enable standardisation documents and processes for energy efficiency projects. That in turn makes them bankable for investors, which in turn should enable aggregation of projects to unlock vast pools of capital to flow into energy efficiency projects.

Fawkes said banks including ING are on board with the project, as is the Green Investment Bank, and he is confident that, while it has taken “three or four years to really gain traction in the US”, results in Europe should be more rapid.

While there is an “awful lot of interest in energy efficiency in the US, I think here the pressure is bigger to do something,” says Fawkes.

“I talk to more and more lenders and investors who would really like to do something,” he adds. High transaction costs and lack of standards is a real issue. “Because even if you are the Green Investment Bank, you can’t build scale around ad hoc processes. So we are being pulled really to accelerate the programme.”

What would further accelerate it is better data. Fawkes hopes more companies will open up project data so that energy savings can be verified and therefore de-risked.

Verification, alongside standardisation, would also allow an energy efficiency market to be created.

If energy efficiency can be properly measured, “then it becomes a resource you can buy like any other”, says Fawkes.

“At the moment we don’t think about it that way because we’ve always said ‘it’s too hard to measure’. People have to buy into the measurement and verification protocols [which already exist] and build understanding of them. But when you can do that you could end up with a scenario where somebody can come along and say ‘I will pay you for so many units of energy efficiency’, because there is a market.”

If that market can be created quickly enough, it might mean the UK could meet those 2020 goals without security of supply trumping decarbonisation and affordability. It would also mean thousands of energy managers could look up from compliance paperwork and reflect that at least their actual energy saving projects made it off the drawing board, past the boardroom, and onto the bottom line.

A full interview with Steve Fawkes will be published in the April/May print issue of Water, Energy & Environment.

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The European Commission has unveiled hugely ambitious plans to create sweeping changes across the European energy market, launching its Energy Union manifesto with integration, interconnection and energy efficiency at its heart.

The Commission is to pay special attention to increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and transport and help companies unlock financing to get projects over the line.

The Commission has long talked of Energy Union, but today formalised those plans, which, if implemented, could radically alter the structure of the energy market.

The package includes:

• new legislation to redesign and overhaul the electricity market
• ensuring more transparency in gas contracts
• substantially developing regional cooperation as an important step towards an integrated market, with a stronger regulated framework
• new legislation to ensure the supply for electricity and gas
• increased EU funding for energy efficiency or a new renewables energy package
• focusing European research and innovation energy strategy
• reporting annually on the ‘State of the Energy Union’

Many of the elements could take years, if not decades to implement, given disparate national policies and priorities.

At a regional level, plans to redesign the wholesale and retail markets, overhaul integration and interconnection, create smart ‘super grids’, make gas supply more transparent and impose a pan-European regulator over national energy markets are hugely ambitious, even individually.

However, the policy elements around energy efficiency should be less difficult to deliver.

According to the Commission, it is “necessary to fundamentally rethink energy efficiency and treat it as an energy source in its own right, representing the value of energy saved. As part of the market design review, the Commission will ensure that energy efficiency and demand side response can compete on equal terms with generation capacity… The Commission will, therefore, encourage Member States to give energy efficiency primary consideration in their policies.”

The Commission has also promised to make access to energy efficiency financing easier to companies and organisations in order to overcome one of the single biggest hurdles in delivering energy savings.

The Commission will develop a ‘Smart Financing for Smart Buildings’ initiative, facilitating access to existing financial instruments, and will outline a strategy to facilitate investment in heating and cooling.

The framework strategy document states:

“Actions by Member States, particularly at the local and regional levels, are needed to exploit the energy efficiency potential of buildings.

“Attracting investments at the scale needed remains a challenge, especially at the local level, mainly due to lack of awareness and expertise in small-scale financing. The Commission will support ways to simplify access to existing financing and offer ‘off-the-shelf’ financing templates for financial instruments to the European Structural and Investment Funds managing authorities and interested stakeholders, promote new financing schemes based on risk and revenue sharing, develop new financing techniques and support in terms of technical assistance.

“Financial support needs to be combined with technical support to help aggregate small-scale projects into larger programmes which can drive down transaction costs and attract the private sector at scale.”

The Commission also said it will review the Energy Efficiency and Energy Performance of Buildings Directives in a bid to create a framework that is fit for purpose in delivering energy efficiency in buildings.

The document also states that the Commission will draw up a district heating strategy, in a bid to unlock “huge efficiency gains”, and has indicated it sees energy from waste as a priority.

A digested breakdown of the Union plan is available here.

The full 21 page document, setting out proposals and timetables, is available here.

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