Firstly, I would like to say thank you to Shibashis (Shiba) Bhowmik who inspired me to write this article after I reached out last week to see which topics people wanted me to write about. As everyone knows I’m passionate about this industry and I’m extremely driven regarding reducing energy (kWh), reducing carbon emissions and saving our planet. My company objective and core values embrace this goal in view of making this my legacy along with my sons.
I was bought up in a family from the East End where my father was extremely hard working, and my mother supported the home (also working at a later dates). My father sadly passed away recently, and he will be deeply missed, being the biggest influence of my career.
When I was growing up, I would have a habit of taking things apart to make them ‘better’ but then not actually completing the task. My dad sat me down and explained that I should appreciate engineering for what it was and rather than taking things apart to make them better, to apply myself to tuning and developing them. This is probably what I enjoy most about buildings today as I love making the most of what we already have.
During my learning at school I was not an academic, I enjoyed sport, motorbikes and girls, all in that order, so I was never going to be a scientist or a doctor. I can remember my dad coming home from work and showing me an article from Bradwell Nuclear Power Station, advertising for apprentices and saying that energy was the future.
This was in 1980 and little did I know that this first step would be the making of my career.
I was employed by the C.E.G.B as an electrical fitter and that gave me some of the most amazing training you would have ever expected. At the end of this time I could have actually built my own power station. To my dad’s complete happiness, I learnt how to take things apart and put them back together again.
When I was 18, I was eligible to work within the Nuclear Power Industry and able to go to site on block release. That was absolutely amazing, the noise and vibration through your body was unforgettable. It was then though that I experienced driving through protesters and listening to the negative sides of the industry. I believe to this day that Nuclear Power is a clean power resource and though there are issues with the waste I will remain a supporter of this form of energy supply.
I can remember walking late one night in the turbine hall and hearing the power screaming to be produced. It was then that I started to think about why are we generating energy when we could be saving energy. I started to think about the many resources that we needed to live our lives.
I began to say just how ‘precious’ energy is and why simple things to save energy like switching lights off, changing set-points and adjusting time clocks couldn’t be done more easily.
I’m now 56 and guess what?…… I am still saying these words today!
I’m sure everyone remembers their parents saying, “why are these lights on?”.
My career evolved from the Power Station to the Met Police, Trend (now Honeywell) and Satchwell (now Schneider). I absolutely loved working for these companies and my only reasons for leaving was for my own personal development.
In 2005 I started my own business and though I worked with other companies I always maintained my independence. My expertise has brought me some amazing experiences working with large leisure clubs, retail groups, ‘Premiership’ football clubs and hotel groups.
My last calculations of savings exceeded were in the region of 1 Billion kWh throughout my career (I wish I had documented it all!!)
Shiba has asked me to explain why I want others to follow me. The world is heading towards something that we can’t explain with rising temperatures and water levels. I know in my heart that this cannot be stopped but I honestly believe we can slow it down. But we must act today.
Over the last 6 months of this pandemic, I have spoken to 100s of experts in the fields of energy supply, energy efficiency and environmentalists and I have been amazed at how we are all speaking different languages but we all have the same passion for saving the planet. There is a monetary goal for everyone, but it all comes with integrity. Our industry is the most exciting industry to be a part of and it has been for me over the last 40 Years.
I have pivoted B2B Energy Ltd to now provide Energy Management Strategies for organisations and training for the industry. I personally want to help organisations drive down Gas and Electricity costs and raise their profits.
I have developed successful strategies to succeed here. In parallel I also want to train and develop energy experts around the world. I have launched the first phase of our website and the next phases will help us train and refer technologies around the world focusing on our target. Phase 4 of the website will be a carbon calculation tool showing how much we have saved as a group along with benchmarking tools.
I have traveled the world enough to witness its beauty, but I still have many places to visit. It is my goal that energy experts around the world are holding hands and sharing knowledge and best practices. It is also my dream that one day I will meet everyone and shake their hands and say, “thank you for making a difference”.