Renewable Devices powers up to £30m

Published on Sunday 24 February 2008 20:52

AN EDINBURGH firm which makes micro wind turbines has been given a £30 million valuation after selling a stake of equity to an Australian insurance group.

Renewable Devices, which sells wind turbines that can be mounted on homes or businesses, has sold 2 per cent stake in the company to the Australian owners of Equity Insurance, for 600,000.

The company, formed by engineers Dr Charlie Silverton and Dr Dave Anderson in 2002, also has Perth-based energy giant Scottish & Southern Energy in its shareholder base, with the utility trialing an earlier version of the turbine on many of its sites.

According to Renewable Devices, Scottish & Southern Energy made a bid for 40 per cent of the company early in 2007, but this was declined.

The turbines, which cost around 3,000 each, offset domestic carbon emissions and reduce electricity consumption. The company claims the devices effectively provide a return on investment within five years.

Silverton said that from first design the turbines – the Swift Rooftop Wind Energy System – was created to be used in the built environment, rather than simply downsizing a larger turbine designed to be used on a tall tower.

He said: "Every feature in our product is designed to make it quiet and make it react to the varying winds that you get in the built environment."

Trials conducted by Australian wind consultancy firm Garrad Hassan said the turbine "emitted very little noise", which was an "extremely attractive asset for an urban turbine".

Silverton said the company is now preparing for mass production of the latest version of the device and has secured capacity with US-based Cascade Engineering, which "could make thousands of them for us within weeks".

The business is targeting commercial sales of around 10-12 million this year. Small shipments of the turbines have been sent to the US, Australia and New Zealand "and are now being spread around Europe".

Silverton said the company, which employs just 26, had not only given its staff an alternative to the industrial careers of most Scottish engineers, but now held the potential to be a lucrative business.

"We all say here that, as a bunch of engineers, we would have been working for the military or digging up oil if we weren't doing this, but we've managed to sustain a career and now have a great future based on something really ethical."