Green request sees CPS move into new areas

Control & Power Systems (CPS), which is based in Scarborough, has developed a microprocessor-based control panel for monitoring power transfer from solar panels and wind turbines to the national grid.

CPS is primarily a producer of control systems for diesel engines and water turbines. It decided to diversify into solar panel and wind turbine generator monitoring following an approach from a green energy producer earlier this year.

Stuart Noble, who is sales director and financial director, told the Yorkshire Post: “It’s basically an off-shoot of something we’ve been doing for many years in the diesel engine systems. We did a little spec data sheet and put it into our website. We got a lot of interest from other wind farm installers and solar PV installers came along and it took off from there.”

The company has received more orders than it envisaged, Mr Noble said, adding: “We thought we’d get 20 orders each year. But we did double that in the first two months [April and May]. We’ve consistently been doing about 10 a month since then.”

He said: “It’s allowing us to look at different markets and has given us a boost in turnover and profitability.”

The new system, which is aimed at larger installations such as farms rather than domestic ones, provides G59/2 protection, which is a legal requirement for those involved in providing more than 16 amps of solar or wind power.

This requires those involved in supplying power to the grid to monitor production and to automatically turn off the flow of power in the event of certain abnormal grid conditions.

If any of the power parameters go outside the nominal settings, the CPS control panel will automatically trip an integral protection relay and close down the transfer of electricity to the national grid, thus avoiding risk to personnel or cabling.

CPS, which currently employs 16 people, achieved a turnover of just over £2m in the year up to May 2011, with pre-tax profits heading towards the £250,000 mark, said Mr Noble. The previous year, turnover was at about £1.5m.

Mr Noble said: “The company has got a sort of natural growth. That’s our idea. We keep looking at new products within our normal manufacturing range. We are looking to develop a new low voltage switchboard. That will hopefully be completed by May next year. It’s something that we’ve always done but we’ve gone along the lines of getting it fully type tested [or independently tested].”

But these are challenging times for the sector, said Mr Noble, who added: “Whether the economy grows or not, if the government doesn’t put any money into major building projects like hospitals then the whole of the power generator industry will find it tougher.”

Changes to the feed-in tariff (FIT) by the government have also had implications for CPS. Mr Noble said: “On August 1 the feed-in tariff changed on solar PV installations, this resulted in a considerable reduction in the FIT received for installations greater than 50kW. The 10-50kW range was not as badly affected due to the reduction on the FIT being smaller than those of the larger kW schemes and we have not seen any marked downturn in orders within the 10-50kW range.

“Schemes above the 50kW seem to have been affected the most and we have seen a smaller number of enquiries and orders for the larger kW ratings.

“We feel that the small to mid range schemes will continue although at a slower pace than before and therefore a need for our product and testing service will continue to be required.”

CPS was set up by Mr Noble and Dave Darrell, who own the company.

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