Expertise in green technologies and renewable energy among Nottinghamshire entrepreneurs is now being exported abroad, creating new demand for jobs and training and bringing the benefits of the emerging 'green economy' full circle. Mark Patterson reports...

TREVOR Fletcher's home- grown engineering nouse is helping Europe's lorry fleets run on gas made from rotting green waste.

It was in July last year that Volvo asked Fletcher if he and his engineers could design a new engine for their 26-tonne vehicles that would reduce their diesel consumption and carbon emissions.

Fletcher, who runs his family-owned Hardstaff haulage group at Kingston-on-Soar, agreed to the challenge and designed a dual-fuel engine that runs on diesel and biomethane – the gas that is produced naturally from decomposing plant matter.

Just nine months later Fletcher is sending 200 dual-fuel engines a year to his own new production plant in Gothenberg, 3km from Volvo's headquarters.

"From there Volvo distributes them to the Nordic region – Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark," he said.

"They've also announced that they'll be distributing them to the Netherlands and the UK. It really is a phenomenal success story."

If Fletcher sounds pleased with himself, well, he has a right to be. After all, he owns 14 patents related to his unique dual-fuel engine technology, which have been used by his own fleet of HGVs in south Nottinghamshire over the past ten years.

Around 90 of his 140 lorries now have dual-fuel engines, making their normal long-distance runs fuelled by tanks filled with natural gas.

He estimates that this reduces his fleet's fossil fuel diesel consumption by just under a million litres a year.

As well as reducing his business's carbon emissions by around 2,000 tonnes a year, using gas brings a considerable cost saving since it is around half the price of diesel.

"We are able to run our 44-tonne vehicles on the same gas you use for cooking and home heating," he said.

With contracts to supply dual-fuel engines to Mercedes Benz and now Volvo – among the largest engine manufacturers in the world – Hardstaff is a prime example of the way that Nottinghamshire success in green technologies is now being exported to the world.

But it's not the only local business reaching out to global markets, where major businesses increasingly want innovative green technologies to help them reduce their energy costs and carbon emissions.

Another local business with strong international links is Nottingham-based Romax Technology, which has a division specialising in the design of wind turbine gear mechanisms.

Such is the demand for Romax's expertise in China, which has the largest renewable energy programme in the world, that the company's turbine design work is growing by 50 per cent a year.

It has also recently opened offices in Chennai, India, and Colorado in the US in response to growing demand for wind energy knowhow.

Almost all of Romax's work is done outside the UK.

However, in Britain, Romax is involved in a complex project to research the viability of deep water off-shore wind turbines, turbines that would float on rafts rather than being anchored to the sea bed.

"The UK is currently the largest offshore wind turbine site in the world," company founder Peter Poon told a wind turbine business event in Nottingham.

"That means that over the next 20 years, people will be coming here to see our expertise and I would urge everyone in this business to grab a piece of the cake.

"This year the projected energy produced by wind farms is 45 gigawatts – that's more than ten large power stations. So the amount of work in this area is colossal and we have just been dragged along in its slipstream."

Poon was born in Hong Kong and originally founded Romax in Newark after a life-changing experience in which he was almost killed when he was knocked off his bicycle by a tractor.

Romax is now based at Nottingham Science and Technology Park, off University Boulevard, and Poon has no intention of moving out of Nottingham. Indeed, the company's location was a big reason why leading Chinese car maker Changan decided to establish its newest European R&D centre at the adjacent No.1 Nottingham Science Park.

Changan wants to build a new generation of hybrid and electric cars to sell all over the world; Romax, just over the road, has the necessary expertise in gearbox and transmission design.

This itself is a good example of how local expertise in green technologies is now also attracting major international businesses to invest in Nottinghamshire.

Last autumn, a business founded in the US which specialises in waste-to-energy technology also moved to Nottingham Science and Technology Park and announced it would be doubling its workforce to at least 90 people within a year.

Chinook Sciences said it anticipated that demand for its non-incineration technology would be led by local authorities seeking to keep waste out of landfill.

Other local green-tech companies trading abroad include 4Energy, which has designed energy-saving cooling systems for corporate customers in Jordan, Egypt and China.

Based in Keyworth and Nottingham, the company's founders, Pat Tindale and Steve Redshaw, attracted £2 million of investment from the Carbon Trust and private investment fund Catapult.

"Everywhere we go, energy is common currency," said Tindale.

"We see the same appetite to save energy and money throughout the world."

Trevor Fletcher reiterates this point. "Whether you're in China, Malaysia or Russia, every business in the world now wants to reduce its fossil fuel use and carbon emissions and make air quality better," he said.

The growth in green business is also starting to bring benefits back to Nottinghamshire in terms of employment and skills training. At Kingston-on-Soar, Hardstaff group now employs more than 240 people and there are another ten employees in Gothenburg.

The drive to build new dual-fuel engines for customers thirsty for low-carbon engines is fuelling a demand for people with engineering and fabrication skills in Nottinghamshire, said Fletcher. "We need people with the technical training to look after this equipment.

"We're also partners with the universities in Leicester and Nottingham to employ graduates who have come here for their PhD studies.

"We've just invested £100,000 over the last three years to support a PhD student who has been learning about our technologies."

Despite the success with Volvo and Mercedes Benz, and plans to expand into South America, Fletcher has no intention of moving the businesses out of Nottinghamshire.

He stresses that it is a local family haulage business and he is the fifth generation to run it.

"It's amazing to think that we had horses and carts a few generations back and now we are a global business," he said. "But I was born and brought up in East Leake and my heart remains in Nottinghamshire."