 | |  | | | Course attendees take a look at some of the green technology on display at BRE’s Innovation Park | |
Before the greenrush
 back
| 16 Dec 2009
If the Copenhagen Summit and the advent of Feed-in Tariffs have left you contemplating life as a renewable energy installer, you may be wondering about the best place to start. Ben Cronin asks if a one-day course at BRE’s Innovation Park will help contractors to take advantage of this burgeoning market.
It was a diverse group of people that turned up for BRE’s one-day introduction to renewable energy installation.
Of the 20 or so delegates that attended the course, there was a small number of electricians and plumbers, while the rest of the group appeared to be made up of consultants on fact-finding missions and people from other walks of life who were looking to change careers. The overriding impression was that they knew there was a growing market out there, but wanted to do some research before trying to take advantage of it.
The course, which takes place at BRE’s impressive Innovation Park in Watford, is broken down into business modules and technological modules, but it is the technological and practical parts of the course that would probably appeal most to building services contractors.
Those who already run their own electrical firms could therefore probably dispense with most of the first module, entitled 'Starting your own business' (provided by Viv Starkiss from the government’s Business Link service), but if there was a useful point to this part of the course it would have to be the emphasis on researching your market and finding out if the demand exists for green technology in your local area before starting out.
Seasoned managing directors would probably feel the same way about the session with an HMRC advisor that followed the first module – save for one delegate asking the immortal question as to whether the training day was tax-deductable – and
it wasn’t until mid-morning that the delegates really got to the meat of the course.
An overviewIt was at this point that Steve Pester from BRE gave an overview of the renewables market, and Feed-in Tariffs in particular, with the aim of helping those present to choose the type of technology that they would like to specialise in.
Thus it was interesting to find out that the consultation on Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) looks likely to recommend that the highest incentives will be paid to energy generated by Solar PV, with the lowest allocated to energy generated by biomass and biomass CHP (see table below). Pester explained that the scheme was designed to provide end-users with a 5-8% return on investment over 15-25 years which, given the current interest rates, doesn’t seem such a bad bet.
A lunch break followed by a tour of the Innovation Park and some examples of renewable technology afforded us a chance to speak with Bob Bullen of BB Electrical – one of the electricians on the course – and he was clear that it was the introduction of Feed-in Tariffs that had encouraged him to attend.
'I think once people hear that their friends are getting cheques in the post, that will be the point when green technology really takes off," he said.
Life as an installerThis didn’t seem to be too wide of the mark judging by the Q&A session that followed with an existing solar installer. Here, Jim Kenney of Chelsfield Solar talked about the challenges of installing solar PV and revealed that his company had seen a 50 per cent increase in enquiries and business in the lead up to FiTs.
Going by the number of questions he fielded, this was the most popular part of the course and this electrician turned specialised installer was keen to emphasise that the obstacles in green installation were not insurmountable.
"The two main problems are the fact that specifiers and clients are not really sure what they’re asking for, and fluctuations in exchange rates. Everything tends to be bought in from Spain, so you can quote for a job and six months later the currency has changed," he said.
"As with most businesses, there are concerns, but also opportunities for clued-up designers. We’ve also found that there are very few breakdowns, so you get very few call backs."
Overall we'd say this is precisely the sort of information that prospective installers would be looking to get out of the day, and at a reasonable £170 pounds, the more practical aspects of the course would justify a day away from your business – especially if it really is tax-deductable. | |
| |
