Two energy efficiency companies have been named among the fastest growing private companies in the UK, despite the “tumultuous” year for the market following significant changes to government policy.
Anesco and Acrobat Carbon Services were both included on The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 for 2015, which ranks firms with the fastest-growing sales over their latest three years. Anesco, which topped the league in both 2013 and 2014, was placed 19th on the 2015 list after recording annual sales growth over its latest three years of 96%. In the last financial year sales hit £160 million with an EBITDA of £21 million.
The organisation first featured in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table in 2012, before consecutive appearances at the top – only the second time this has been achieved in the 19 year history of the awards.
Delvin Lane, commercial director for Anesco, said: “It is an incredible achievement to feature in the Fast Track league table. To do so four years in a row is exceptional, especially coming on the back of Anesco being named one of the UK’s top 250 companies for the first time earlier this year.
“We are delighted and thankful to the whole team for their dedication and hard work in making it happen.”
The company employs more than 150 permanent members of staff, as well as up to 600 contractors and 103 supply chain partners and logistics staff at any one time. It claims to have helped over 275,000 people out of fuel poverty, with the technologies it has deployed generating over 1GW of renewable energy.
Acrobat Carbon Services was ranked 70th in the league for its work helping energy companies to meet their obligations to improve energy efficiency in the homes of low-income customers. Its sales grew by £22m last year and the business claims to have helped more than 2m homes to save energy.
Kevin Griffin, managing director of Acrobat, told Clean Energy News: “We’re very pleased to have appeared, it’s been a long standing goal of mine. We recognise that we’re not well known outside of our industry, we haven’t won anything or had anything to wave about so we’re happy to get some more exposure.”
Griffin added that the success of the firm has come at a difficult time for energy efficiency companies, who are faced with an ever-shifting policy landscape for government support.
“It is interesting clearly given the tumultuous time that we’ve had in 2015 with the solar feed-in tariff and things like Green Deal and ECO itself, which is a big part of our business, having been very stop start. We have to bear in mind that the industry has been smashed to bits in 2015. Our experience is that the installation capacity isn’t there, a lot of businesses have gone out of business or left the industry,” he said.
“So we are pleased and proud to have achieved it against that backdrop but given that we’re in this sphere of energy efficiency, things are uncertain to put it mildly.”
