Member Article

Interview: David Hilton MD of Vickers Energy Group on expansion and raising awareness about saving energy

The Manchester-based company was established in 1991 and works on creating energy saving technology, it boasts that it has saved British industry 10.5 Billion kWh of energy in the last 10 years, which equates to around £200m in cash.

The energy saving company has a turnover of £4.1m, a 24% increase from the previous year and employs 42 people at the moment.

The company has “huge” plans for expansion both by building on the UK team and establishing footholds overseas.

So far it has seen great success in the Netherlands and Poland and has just gained approval to allow the company to expand into the USA and Canada.

The company has been funded mostly from earnings but in 2011 a private equity business, EV, invested buying out historic shareholders in a deal which also involved funding from Yorkshire Bank.

Bdaily interviewed David Hilton, managing director at Vickers Energy Group, he spoke about the challenges the company faces and of raising awareness about saving energy.

David said: “The need and desire for energy efficiency and carbon reduction has grown, with a significant rise in energy costs over the last 20 years and the desire to meet environmental targets.

“There’s still a long way to go in terms of awareness, but more and more companies are setting up environmental policies and understanding the need for industry to cut carbon emissions.

“The biggest challenge we face is definitely awareness, people/businesses put managing/cutting energy consumption on the bottom of their ‘to do’ lists!

“We know people are keen to cut costs but are too busy focusing on other areas of their business so carbon emissions become less of a priority.

“We think this needs to change.

“The easiest thing about doing business for us is our customers, they are great advocates for us - once they’ve seen the savings they’ve made, they shout on our behalf.

“They’re happy to endorse our work and wax lyrical about the savings they have made.

“It’s also a great way to get new business, having your customers introduce you to new clients.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .