By Mark Futyan, Anesco CEO
2020 will go down in history as the year that coronavirus impacted upon all our lives. Here at Anesco – as in companies of all shapes and sizes across the world – we have needed to quickly adapt to new ways of working and I’m proud of the whole team for all their efforts in ensuring it remains ‘business as usual’.
But for Anesco, this year is significant in many other ways too.
In November, the company will celebrate its tenth anniversary and a decade spent supporting clients to realise the full commercial and environmental potential of renewable energy. This has seen us leading the way in areas such as utility-scale solar PV and battery storage, regularly being first to market with new innovations and developing commercial models that support the adoption of renewables.
Now, as we approach this milestone, we do so with a renewed focus and clear vision for business growth – one that will play to our core strengths, while supporting the UK to achieve its net zero ambitions.
Since being founded, Anesco has been developing, constructing and operating solar PV and energy storage assets, alongside our energy efficiency operations. To date, we have developed 750MW of such assets across 115 projects – including installing the UK’s first utility-scale battery storage unit back in 2014 and developing the country’s first subsidy-free solar farm, Clayhill.
A vast majority of these projects have been sold to investors, with Anesco providing ongoing operation. In recent years, we have also invested directly, becoming an asset owner, in order to help open up the market for subsidy-free solar and storage.
Now these markets are mature, we are looking to sell the assets we hold – as was always our long-term intention – and this will be an important step in the growth of the business. It will allow us to focus fully on Anesco’s core offering: providing full lifecycle engineering services to solar and energy storage markets.
It will enable us to raise new funds to help bring new projects into being and to grow our operations and maintenance, asset optimisation and ECO divisions. Overall, creating a truly integrated proposition for renewable energy investors.
At Anesco, our true strength has always been in providing specialist services to enable low carbon investments. We develop, construct, operate, maintain and optimise the value of solar PV and storage assets. By focusing on these core areas, we will retain our place at the forefront of energy market leadership, while continuing to drive the green agenda and the UK’s transition to net zero.