ASG Case Study

29 March 2023

This month ‘The Buzz’ caught up with Tony Gresty, Managing Director at Westbrook Industrial, who have recently launched a trading division named ASG Energy Services and exhibited at IMHX 2022.  ASG Energy Services aims to help logistics businesses cut their carbon emissions and save money in the long term, by focusing on providing solar power solutions to the warehouse sector.

Tony – Please tell us a little about ASG Energy Services: 

A long time ago I started a company called ASG Services Limited and we started labelling people's racking. We then went into line marketing, safety and barriers, so we ended up with a labeling ID and safety division which went through various iterations, such as ‘Warehouse Partners’ and our end user services brand. 

We spent a lot of time building those brands, so ASG’s services have been going for about 27 years.

Over the course of this journey, I came across some research from Savills that predicted in the UK there would be 200,000,000 square feet of big sheds built in the next eight years. They estimated that if solar panels were put on 40% of the roofs of that space, then those buildings would be energy self-sufficient.  Completely energy efficient growth – that's quite exciting, isn't it? 

How does ASG stay current with the latest advancements in solar technology and how do you make sure what you've got is always at the cutting edge?

Believe it or not, a solar panel itself isn't advancing very quickly because it's already happened. Panel efficiency doesn't improve very much year on year, though inverter technology has improved.  The real advancements will be in battery storage.

It's now not about how much solar you generate.  Solar isn't really developing as an industry other than the fact that not enough people have it. With the spike in energy costs over the last year, coupled with energy security and carbon targets, it's very much in peoples’ minds but it hasn’t really gone anywhere.  The next big thing is definitely battery storage, which is coming down in price and increasing in ability.

There's more green energy than ever within the grid now – In winter, for example, there's so much wind being generated that the National Grid doesn’t know where to put it.  They can’t use it, so they have to turn it off, which seems a shame.

So the scenario now is this: if you're a big distribution centre and you have solar on the roof, why not utilise the spare energy in the summer? Because you'll get more in a very narrow bell curve of solar power.  This is where grid balancing becomes very significant: you can sell the excess to the grid and know you are generating clean energy to power your operations.

Grid balancing is coming and that's the next big advancement where warehousing and logistics has a part to play.

What made you decide to get involved at IMHX 2022?

When we heard about the opportunity of getting involved with the Sustainability Zone at IMHX we thought we’d be mad to miss out.  Here was an opportunity to lead the sustainability zone amongst other sponsors such as Intelligent Energy, Cranfield University and SEC.  Our participation led to 30 to 40 very active conversations, and that's subsequently transpired into a significant amount of work.

We’ve been to many exhibitions before and you might get 150 people come on your stand, with maybe 30 potentially wanting to take things further.  If one or two of those do convert, you've done alright, but you question whether you should have even bothered being at the event.  But from IMHX we have converted several jobs from the Sustainability Zone already and if that doesn't get into the millions in turnover over the next three-year period, I'd be quite surprised.

We’ve had a flurry of activity just off IMHX and now we're going back into a spring of activity with the UKWA.

About ASG Energy Services

ASG Energy Services are renewable energy installers. The new specialist in sustainable energy solutions for the Warehousing and Logistics sector. Helping businesses reduce carbon emissions, cut energy bills, and save resources.

This proven technology can generate significant amounts of electricity, helping supplement the existing energy supply and lower bills. Our design lead approach ensures you receive the optimum return on investment.

Visit the ASG Energy Services website for more information.

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