Energy legislation affects businesses across Europe. In the UK, the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) promotes energy efficiency. Regulated by the UK government’s Environment Agency, it ensures large organisations assess their energy usage every 4 years, auditing the energy used in buildings, industrial processes and transport to identify cost-effective energy saving measures. There are also UK requirements for inspections of commercial air conditioning systems – TM 44 Inspections – regulated by Trading Standards. Systems must be inspected every 5 years by an accredited energy assessor. Businesses also need to understand and comply with Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR). Across Europe, there are other schemes and regulations to consider.
It is a complicated set of regulations and failing to comply can lead to expensive fines for a business. Non-compliant companies may also be named and shamed.
This is where PE Energy can help. It is a recognised and certified European Energy Auditing and compliance specialist, with experience helping UK and European companies meet or exceed the required standards.
PE Energy helps clients meet their energy efficiency targets and legal obligations.
We talked with the Director of PE Energy Solutions to find out more about the company:
Philip, could you tell us how you came to start PE Energy Solutions? What’s the back story?
I started PE Energy whilst Director of another consultancy specialising in environmental management and energy management. The business has a lot of shareholders and a very restrictive shareholders/ directors agreement limiting what we could do with the business, so I decided to set up PE Energy to focus purely on Energy Efficiency and Energy Management.
There is just one shareholder, me, and as a result I have been able to grow the business profitably every year since its inception.
Over the past five and a half years we have delivered projects in nine countries, and on the customer roadmap we have projects to deliver in seventeen countries over the next two years.
How is PE Energy Solutions different to other energy consulting firms?
PE Energy is different for a number of reasons. Because of the contractor/consultant model, I can draw in expertise from specialist areas when the need arises. Due primarily to the many years that I have worked in the industry, I have been able to build a strong network of experienced experts.
As the business is not back office cost heavy, our pricing is always competitive, and our speed of response is effective and quick.
Communication is the key to a good customer relationship, and this is always at the top of the priority list. My clients, of whom there are around 600, always come back to me for additional services or advice. I am always happy to provide advice to clients for free as I want them to be able to approach me to solve problems as more often than not they will usually ask me and the team to complete the works.
Our clients include Vauxhall Motors, Motorfuel Group, Schneider Electric, the NHS, Wales and West Utilities, Balfour Beatty and many, many more.
What are the big changes that have been happening lately in your industry?
The industry has been pretty stable for the past few years, however Brexit has caused some challenges and will continue to pose some real challenges in the years ahead. We deliver a reasonable amount of work across the EU and have access to European tendering platforms to bid and submit proposals. This may all change, but as yet we don’t know what the future will be with regards to energy legislation and UK targets and initiatives. This government has been very vague to date. However, to compensate I am now working on two new initiatives, the delivery of projects and services in Asia with an office and team based on the SE Asian continent and also with product development, but this will be done within a second business with a team dedicated to developing technology platforms for the energy efficiency sector.
Why did you choose to fundraise with rebuildingsociety.com?
I chose rebuildingsociety.com because I am a firm believer in the peer to peer funding model. I have used them before, and I have always found it to be more of an incentive to work on behalf of the individual rather than a large financial corporation.
How will the funds be used?
The funds will be used to grow the business. I need to recruit two team members to deliver projects - both have already been identified and know of the plan. Also, the business will be office sharing with the technology development company so there will be some shared overheads, but all for the benefit of sharing intellectual experience and knowledge. There are two large projects that, when things return back to normal, I am hoping can get started. One is with the world’s largest real estate businesses and the second with a fuel storage business; both are vast projects so scaling up will be very important.
How have you found the process so far?
The process with rebuildingsociety.com has been good so far. The support is excellent and most importantly the team at rebuildingsociety.com are very friendly and approachable. I appreciate times are very challenging so the speed of reaching the target has been affected but I am happy with everything and happy to keep plugging away.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions Philip, and best of luck with your fundraising campaign.
Read more about this company and visit their current application for funding: https://www.rebuildingsociety.com/applications/pe-energy-solutions-limited-3/
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