Education represents “huge opportunity” for energy efficiency as a service

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Energy efficiency as a service appears to be gaining a foothold within the eduction sector, according to figures from a UK and Ireland provider.

In the three months since its debut on London’s AIM, eEnergy Group claims it has signed 48 new lighting as a service contracts, 21 of them with UK and Irish schools. Projected annual savings for the schools resulting from the contracts are around £360,000 off bills and 618 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Launched in the Republic in 2013, eEnergy Group is appears to be making headway with the energy performance contracting model, now rebadged as energy-as-a-service or variants thereof: Clients get cost-free installation of low emissions technology, in this case LED lighting, plus improved consumption management. The service provider takes its cut and repays the capital cost from the energy savings achieved.

Earlier this year, the company hired former Eon energy solutions sales chief Martyn Sheridan as sales director. At Eon, he brought together bringing together energy efficiency, energy generation, storage and demand side response services, which provides an indication of eEnergy’s ambitions.

Filing first quarter results, CEO Harvey Sinclair said education provides a “huge” opportunity for energy efficiency, with 80 per cent of Irish and UK schools yet to transition to low-emissions lighting. He claimed eEnergy has an active sales pipeline of 150 proposals to prospects in education, and that conversions into signed contracts currently runs at around 40 per cent among UK schools.

The January to March period saw schools including Marlborough and Wycliffe Colleges sign up, as well as the firm’s first contract with an unnamed multi-academy trust.

In January Sinclair told investors of the firm’s intention to grow by acquisitions into a broad energy services provider. That plan remains in place, and the firm reports no cancellations as yet as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.

However, as a precaution, the company is offering new clients a three-month payment holiday, plus a free deep-clean of their premises. Operating breakeven will be delayed until the latter half of 2020, added Sinclair.

More on eEnergy’s results here.

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Indian government eyes UK energy services market

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Reactive Technologies launches ‘CHP optimisation as a service’

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