Renewable Energy Installer February 2014 | Page 15

Q&A
Two minutes
with . . .
PAUL CLARK
Rural Energy
Q: Who are you?
Gordon Traill, founder and md of the national biomass boiler
company Treco. I’m also a Tenant Farmer on a 350 acre farm on the
National Trust’s Killerton Estate in Devon.
Q: What do you do?
Treco designs, supplies, installs, commissions and maintains
biomass boiler heating systems nationwide. We have completed
in excess of 600 since we started in 2005, mostly to commercial
customers.
Q: Where are you?
Based in Devon, Treco operates nationally and we have literally
installed biomass boiler heating systems from the Shetlands to
southernmost Cornwall.
Q: How’s business at the moment? Hectic, we’re right in the
middle of the busiest heating season since we started
Q: How could it be better?
For the last three years we have been growing more than 70 percent
per annum which makes managing the business very challenging.
Q: Who do you admire in renewables?
I was very impressed with Stewart Boyle’s new book A Sleeping
Giant Awakens, very thought provoking look at the biomass
industry.
Q: What’s the best business advice you’ve ever been given?
There are two main best bits of advice I’ve been given. One was to
carefully cost and appraise any new investment opportunity, which
has stuck with me. I believe that you need to employ clever and
highly qualified people, but this does not always mean that they are
right.
Q: How are you going green?
I have installed a biomass boiler system on my farm which heats a
listed thatched farmhouse, farm offices, workshops and a pie factory.
I also plan to install PV at the farm and offices.
REI: What have you got planned for 2014?
2013 has been a busy year for Rural Energy following
the expansion of our partner network and the
introduction of a number of innovative new products.
Looking ahead we will continue to cement our
position as a centre of knowledge for biomass, setting
and developing industry standards and leading the
way in partner training and educating our customers
on the benefits of biomass.
We will also shortly be introducing some exciting new
IT systems to make life easier for both our customers
and staff.
Q. What do you see as growth areas for renewables?
As a result of the non-domestic RHI, we are seeing
growth across commercial premises where there
is a requirement for continuous heating and the
opportunity to move away from oil or LPG. Demand
is also increasing for our packaged plant rooms,
as these self-contained solutions have opened up
the opportunity for biomass on sites where internal
space for housing a plant room and fuel store may be
limited.
Q. How is your company cutting its carbon footprint?
We are increasing our warehousing capacity and
pre-ordering bulk deliveries from our distributor in
Austria to hold both boilers and Augers in stock.
This reduces our customer lead times and minimises
CO2 levels created from regular deliveries. We are
also introducing a new operations system that will
allow increased efficiency on the scheduling of our
engineers across the UK.
Paul Clarke is md of Rural Energy
www.renewableenergyinstaller.co.uk | 15