Centrica buys ENER-G’s CHP business in bid to scale distributed energy operation

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CHPBrum Heartlands
An Ener-G CHP installation at Birmingham Heartland Hospital

British Gas parent company Centrica has bought ENER-G’s CHP business for £145 million. The deal gives Centrica a 500MW portfolio of co-generation across 1,400 sites predominantly in the UK.

The move comes as utilities look to further diversify from traditional thermal generation and supply models, with retail supply markets under particular pressure. Analysts predict power prices to remain low out to 2020, with generators likely to close more thermal plant as a result.

Centrica said the business will form part of its new international Distributed Energy & Power business. ENER-G Cogen also has operations in the United States, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania across public and private sectors as well as partnerships in Australia, Ireland, Japan, Canada and Turkey.

Centrica chief executive Iain Conn said the move was in response to growing demand for CHP products and other distributed energy technologies.

“The ENER-G Cogen team has an impressive track record in delivering both off-the-shelf and bespoke solutions for a variety of customers, from initial design through to installation, operation and maintenance,” said Conn.

“This is an important step forward in accelerating our customer-facing strategy to deliver what our business customers need.”

It is likely Centrica will seek further acquisitions in order to build its decentralised business. The firm has stated that it intends to invest £1.2 billion of additional resources in distributed energy and power and connected homes up to 2020.

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