Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Smith Environmental Technique, an arm of Southby Holdings, is on the verge of striking a deal with a German hotwater equipment manufacturer that will make them the UK’s sole distributor of a unique heat transfer system.

The German company, Carl Capito Heiztechnicj GmbH, met with Lowestoft based Southby in Ely at the beginning of October at a networking event between companies in the renewable energy sector from the East of England and the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) area, Germany’s energy region.

Richard Jordan, Southby commercial manager, said: “We had initial discussions and they have just contacted us and said they are very interested in forming some form of dealership.”

Hugh Parnell, chairman of Envirolink UK who organised the meeting alongside Trade Partners UK, said: “This is excellent. I am very pleased and it proves the thesis that these two communities need to get in touch and build some bridges.”

Tony Smith, chief executive at Southby, said: “They approached us to see if we could distribute some hot water and purification equipment. We haven’t done a full evaluation yet but it is definitely an area we are very interested in.

“It’s a patented piece of kit which offers some novel features. It is a heat transfer system using solar panels that also has a purification system.

“Our work is mainly solar power and wind power, but we are moving into hot water work now we have established relationships with a couple of local plumbers.

“We are not a company that has dealt with import and export and this is novel for us. We are very much a UK company and this is marking a pretty radical step. I have a huge interest in that market and the renewable energy sector and we will investigate visiting Germany.”

Smith believes the UK is still 20 to 30 years behind countries like Germany and Denmark when it comes to renewable energy. However, the East of England is doing its bit and with much of the power needed to meet the government’s 2010 renewable energy targets earmarked to come from the region, an industry cluster is steadily evolving.

This is attracting a lot of attention from foreign renewable energy companies, particularly Germany who are, in the words of Smith, “head and shoulders above everybody else.”

One of the companies from the delegation currently supplies the cleaning system for the air-cooled heat exchangers at Fibro Thetford Ltd in Thetford, Norfolk, provider of 38.5 megawatts of electricity into the local power system and the largest poultry litter fired power station in the world.

A leading wind turbine supplier from the same region, though not part of the delegation, REpower systems AG, recently announced a new joint venture with Peter Brotherhood Ltd, a specialist engineering company from Peterborough, which will enable the German company to supply, service and support its products throughout the UK.