For the latest in his profiles of companies at the forefront of carbon reduction, Andrew Gaved travels to the Wirral to meet low-carbon CHP pioneer Fleetsolve
If anybody still needs reminding that the journey to Net Zero is not solely going to be solved by heat pumps on the patio, you just need to walk into the storage compound of Fleetsolve. The Liverpool City Region based CHP specialist holds some of its redeployable fleet there and each one, at over 1 MW each, is the size of a truck.
These CHPs units, which are capable of supplying the nearly Net Zero electrical power, heating and cooling to a building and increasingly the EV charging too, using renewable biofuels and gases, very much represent the large-scale end of carbon reduction.
The company, which was founded in 2002, has built its reputation on innovative multiple-fuel CHPs, which use a range of different bioliquids, biogases and natural gases for their fuel. I predict it will come as much as a surprise to you as it did to me that these large capacity units are currently certificated by Ofgem to utilise as many as 14 different sustainably-approved biofuels and liquids.
Fleetsolve’s core CHP units have successfully provided combined heat, power, and cooling for a wide range of buildings and industrial settings for many years. But, says founder and CEO Keith O’Connor, a combination of customer demand and changing energy landscape has seen an evolution in the technology in the last few years.
“We believe our technology provides solutions on several fronts,” he says, “We started our diversification process about seven years ago. The CHP systems that power a building using biofuels – and the associated fuel service – are still the heart of our business. But we found that our customers wanted us as a supplier to take on more responsibility in achieving their carbon reduction targets.”
So, Keith says, Fleetsolve elected to ‘go up the supply chain’ to help our customers ambitions: “If we are going to the trouble of underwriting our CHP design and carbon savings, we thought ‘Let’s see what else the customer might want us to do.’”
For a start, on site the customer would always want a backup generator. So the first step was to use the CHP engine technology to provide them with a CHP system that would seamlessly operate as a standby generator, providing renewable heat and power supply during normal operation but also at times of grid disruption or power failure. This dynamic approach can also help reduce the energy peaks when the building’s demand grew. This approach safeguards the grid connection agreement, avoiding fines or tariff uplifts and provides onsite energy resilience, Fleetsolve says.
The company also found that many customers wanted help with their PV installations – the solar systems on the roof, were often found not to be integrating well with the BMS control or with other energy sources. So, by designing its own control interface Fleetsolve was able to efficiently manage the solar operation and battery storage alongside the CHP and the generator. Providing this single point of responsibility and combined with a 24/7 maintenance package has really stimulated interest with developers, FM companies and data centre operators in the UK and Ireland.
Since 2002, the company has installed low and zero carbon CHPs in universities, supermarkets, hospitals, local authority buildings, schools and prisons. One particular niche was in food production facilities where it could take the waste product and covert it on site and use it as fuel – the fact the engines can run on 14 different fuels, from cooking oils, tallows to fish waste, meant that it wasn’t exposed to one type of fuel. This diversity of supply went down well with customers and funders alike, Keith (below) says: “Universities liked the flexibility; hospitals liked the fact that it de-risked fuel supply; and schools liked it because they could get funding from use of renewables under Building Schools For the Future.”
Solutions provider
Keith says the journey for Fleetsolve to become a full-scale ‘Energy as a service solutions provider’ came partly as a result of his own journey prior to Fleetsolve, which had seen him move from an engineering career into the world of private equity: “The private equity businesses were becoming interested in carbon reduction, often market driven by fund investors looking to de-risk their future interests , I found my niche of decarbonising organisations in line with funding targets and fund exits. I learned to look at the whole picture, not just the engineering challenge that was in front of me… When you look at something from both the top down and from the bottom up, it allows you to take on bigger projects by understanding the needs of all parties involved. If a customer has an aspiration – you need to challenge that aspiration.”
He believes the low-carbon technology companies need to take the lead to determine the future direction of decarbonisation: “We have had decades and decades of cheap energy and we have become addicted to it. We need to wean ourselves off it, and embrace an alternative energy future” he says,
“We as a society believe that we have five or six years of struggle ahead, while we come to terms with the best energy solutions for short-term carbon reduction for the current UK building stock and infrastructure followed by the learning of the transition, where some businesses and sectors will be out in front, and others will wait to see who the winners are before making the move.”
Keith acknowledges that the company’s distinctive portfolio, providing the means for off-grid renewable Combined Heat and Power has taken Fleetsolve from a niche sector 15 years ago, into the heart of the low carbon debate. “We are finding consultants are being driven to go down this route find ways for their clients by providing the whole solution, while some of the energy providers are looking at diversifying their estates as we move away from fossil-based fuels, saying: ‘Shouldn’t we be influencing our consumers with renewable technology rather than just providing power or gas down the Grid?’ Its proving quite a challenge. Also, we are finding that financial institutions are moving to fund the carbon zero movement helping them with their corporate and social responsibilities.”
Keith adds another area of potential growth: brownfield industrial sites: “From crisis comes inspiration, the seismic shift from fossil fuels is moving at a pace not seen since the 1970’s, driven this time by a society that can make choices to improve the world we live in. The development of brownfield sites plays an important part in this transition, reuse and recycling of industrial landscapes reduces the embedded carbon of new build projects and protect our green spaces.”
Brownfield potential
Fleetsolve has developed two distinct areas that meet the growing reuse of industrial sites for buildings and provision of EV charging for larger vehicles such as buses, refuse trucks, logistics vehicles and even emergency services. The first is in deployable energy centres, which can provide onsite power, along with multiple other energy services, from a single energy unit, powered by renewable sources. Traditionally, a brownfield site has no power or gas, and the Grid won’t catch up for several years, creating an energy problem which Fleetsolve believes it has the solution for.
“Several of our customers have implemented major building projects using our system, enabling an early return on investment – sometimes many years ahead of what was previously possible – by enabling a property development to trade commercially or attract residential occupation well ahead of grid constraints,” says Keith. “Every kilowatt of energy is certified renewable, enabling projects to limit the building stage carbon emissions from the planning requirements or council restraints.”
“Developers often find that getting the DNO to connect to the grid is an expensive and extremely time-consuming process, often scuppering grand plans from getting off the ground,” he adds, “Our Real Green Energy units initially just provide electricity. Often powering the construction village phase. As this construction village grows it can then provide heating and hot water to energise welfare facilities and accommodation, providing battery power for the tower crane and earth movers. As more electric site vehicles are required, it provides charging for those too. Then once you have built the building, you can power the building until it connects to the Grid.”
The unit contains a biofuel or biogas CHP or biofuel generators; a battery; and EV charging facilities contained within in an integrated housing, or a prefabricated building – supplied on a skid with bunded fuel supply. The basic unit, providing 1.2 MW of electric power and 1.5 MW of heating with up to 10 recharging points, can be deployed for one to five years and then returned for subsequent redeployment to use elsewhere. Larger schemes of up to 24 MW have already been deployed to support major development and infrastructure schemes, the firm adds.
“And we don’t have to wait years to have them built as we have fleets of them in the UK,” he says, “Our machines are deployed to support these sites as they come out of the ground through to hand over sometimes up to five years on site. These are then returned for a full overhaul ahead of the next zero carbon assignment. We have a total fleet capacity of 120 MW with 10 to 20 units always ready to deploy. A customer can have one or ten on site if they want. We supply certified renewable fuels, 24-hour service and maintenance from our OEM stock of parts and equipment. It allows developers to bring brownfield sites to life – without Grid connection – attracting investment and occupiers sometimes years ahead of plan.”
Large-scale EV charging
The second area is in a field equally crying out for innovation: the integration of large-scale EV charging. It turns out that Fleetsolve is ahead of the game here too:
“We started integrating our renewable EV charging system with a building as long ago as 2009, because we happened to have a very forward-looking supermarket customer and a local authority looking to a greener energy future,” says Keith, “Our 300 kW biofuel CHP system was able to provide simultaneous heating, cooling and power to the building as well as multiple EV chargers using a single source of renewable fuel. We’ve delivered 28 of those units around the country in modular plantrooms and were very successful with schools, universities and supermarkets, supporting Tesco, to help deliver the World’s first carbon zero superstore.”
However, the new development looks to tackle what is arguably a bigger issue for EVs – and one that is often overlooked in the debate: Freight and large vehicle charging.
“We now are working on solutions for long-term EV charging that the large EV and building simultaneously,” he says, “This is now rolled out as a product with two projects under way, integrating a flexible renewable CHP or generator with large batteries and EV charging at a logistics hub or car-park scale.”
The CHP or generator provides the baseline charging for the site, as well as cooling for the battery technology. It is a 300-car system or 50 Large EVs, powered by a 1 MW CHP, combined with 2000 kW batteries. The batteries are modular enabling the capacity to be expanded as required.
The clever bit is that at night, when the cars have gone home, the site turns into a HGV charge station charging a wide range of large EV vehicles, allowing early start vehicles such as refuse trucks and buses to charge up ready for the next day. This enables three time zones for recharging outside of towns, reducing infrastructure upgrades whilst keeping pace with the EV revolution, the company adds.
Keith notes that there has already been a lot of interest in this product. “We have large customers who are experiencing grid constraints, raising the challenge that if they commit to switch to large EVs to meet the Scope 3 emission reductions demanded by their customers, they need to have somewhere to charge them – whether this is for their company cars or their truck fleets or infrastructure and utility fleets. There are two commercial models: the first is where Fleetsolve owns the scheme, and we charge for the power usage under contract. But for customers who own their own sites, they may want to buy the equipment and share the revenue, or simply to operate it themselves removing our barrier to market.”
A car-park that doubles as an energy centre and charging station? That is the sort of big idea that looks certain to keep Fleetsolve in the forefront of the carbon transition.
