Carl Benfield chats to Kevin Appleby and Graham Arrowsmith about renewable energy.


About Carl Benfield
Carl is Managing Director of Prescient Power, a business he set up in 2009 as a renewable energy company. He is also the presenter on business podcast Twentisphere. Carl is a military man who served in the Royal Engineers for 16 years.

Twentisphere was created from Carl’s own business experience with challenges. He has discovered that everyone has problems in business!

After a chequered academic career, he joined the Army. He became interested in energy. As part of his MSc he looked at two challenges – generating energy in a clean way or saving energy in an efficient way. For example, would you generate it with a Solar Panel or would you save it by putting in LED lights.
Prescient Power
After the Army, he joined another renewable energy company in 2007. He left that company after 2 years and setup Prescient Power in 2009.

What does Prescient Power do for clients? Predominantly they are installers of Solar panels and biomass Boiler Cover on a commercial scale. Additionally, Prescient Power offer energy monitoring and advice companies on their energy use. Based on the analysis, Prescient often install renewable energy and can then maintain the installations ongoing.

Maintenance is important as you can install Solar panels then find a few years down the track they need upkeep.
What is biomass?
Burning wood. The wood must come from a sustainable source. The logic is that the carbon that tree captures in a lifetime is then available for burning. A closed carbon cycle. Biomass is not quite carbon neutral, its carbon lean. But much less than burning coal or oil.

With the growth of biomass, is there enough wood?

We do import wood from overseas, like coal and oil. It is a global market. The challenge then is to consider the carbon content of that journey. How much carbon is expelled to get the wood to the UK.

Prescient are based in the middle of the National Forest in the Midlands and the plan is to plant 20m trees exactly for this kind of reason. There is a lot of forestry going on in the UK.

Biomass, solar and wind, makes us more secure on energy, relying less on overseas importation.
Renewable energy - What’s in it for a company?
If you use electricity from the national grid or use oil or gas to heat your buildings or factories, you don’t need what Prescient offer, so Prescient point you at Government incentives.

Financial Sense

Paybacks are generally 4-6 years but the Government incentives run for 20 years! So, you have an additional income stream over 20 years, which pays back in 4-6 years providing 14 years of income!

Taking Control of Your Energy Costs

If you generated all of your energy from Solar, you would need capital outlay, but future costs would be free or small. You will not be subject to the vagaries of the Big 6 energy companies raising their fees at a drop of a hat. As a business, you can look ahead and plan your business more effectively.
What’s the comparison between doing renewables and not?
In terms of ‘broad handfuls’, if it takes an average 5 years to pay back, if you spend £100k on Solar Panels, you should benefit to the tune of about £20k per year – from the reduction in your current fuel bills and the Government incentive.

Another way to view this, is that type of saving on an £100k investment is the equivalent of one employee. A good thing.

Despite being called Prescient (meaning fore-knowledge) they cannot foresee the future exactly. Government figures are that businesses can expect to see energy costs rise by 6% year on year. By comparison, biomass prices should rise by 3% year on year.

Graham calls it an “Energy Vending Machine”, you put in your £1,000 and you have two choices – the Big 6 option, which will eat all £1,000 and the renewables which will drop out with £200 back.

If you replace your gas boiler it will never pay for itself.

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