Dundee firm behind wind blade 'armour' boosts top team ahead of £2m fund raise

Dundee-based wind energy specialist Edge Solutions has bolstered its top team ahead of a £2 million funding round.

The Tayside firm has developed a patented technology that repairs and protects the leading edge of wind turbine blades from erosion. Its custom-fitted shield – known as Armour Edge – has been developed in tandem with chemicals giant Ineos.

Edge Solutions has built up an order book from operational wind farms across Europe, the US and Asia and the business is now looking to raise fresh funds to expand its team and meet demand. Earlier this year, the firm closed a £1m funding round though existing and new private investors. It is now seeking to bring impact funds and corporate investors on board.

New hires at the company include Stuart MacLean, a former senior partner in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance at legal heavyweight CMS, who becomes head of corporate development, and Richard Scullion, former global marketing director for Palla Pharma, who is now head of business development at Edge Solutions.

Scullion said: “The business is growing much faster than expected. Leading edge erosion is a major issue for wind farm operators and we are now getting second and third orders from our early customers including RWE and Offshore-Windpark Riffgat. The feedback we are receiving is that Armour Edge is quick and easy to install. Our US installer is now able to repair a ten-metre blade in a single day – which is much faster than expected and quicker than most of the current alternatives. This means less downtime and lost revenue for operators.”

In a further step, the company has commissioned research with a major European wind industry test house to back up an earlier study by ORE Catapult which predicted a 50-year life span for the shields. Operations director Will Howell added: “The study has been commissioned at the request of a major blade manufacturer. We are also talking to potential customers in Australia and Latin America, meaning we can realistically expect to have a global order book by the year end. New funds will allow us the execute our current business plan and accelerate activity in the months ahead.”