I had a sit down with a broker the other week. This broker however is a type of EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction). He is actually active with farmers getting the land then sitting down with install companies and hamming out build cost then eventually selling it.
He placed 50+MW on the table of various sizes that had to be built in the next 12 months with a few being over the 5MW barrier. The government has placed an agreement that if a project has been approved it is "grandfathered" meaning after April there will be installs over 5MW still being built. These project have over 12 months grace.
Now, let's get onto the builders. These scumbag EPC people bring in foreign labour, the spade diggers are crews from Bulgeria paid peanuts, but fortunes in there eyes. The electricians are Spanish and the HV electricians are specialists. You probably don't fit into any catagory. You see, all the cabling and panel connection basically front end electrical work is carried out by labourers and the plant room or transformer work is carried out by specialists.
Ok, back to my first paragraph sitting down with this guy...the point is when you use foreign labour and they leave the country you have no one to turn to when the sh!t hits the fan and you get breakdowns. This is why companies such as Lightsource set up there own O&M teams, contracts usually at ÂŁ70k per MW. The groundwork is an easy job if you know what you're doing, there are plenty of unheard horror stories out there were the groundworkers have started and completely fooked the whole thing up running out of space and panelling off plan to squeeze in the quota. This is why they use these teams and English fence work crews because they know how to get the job done. It's a bit of a fixed market place that spans Europe, companies such as schletter run groundwork and skim by bringing in the Bulgerians to complete construction.
Anyhow, the EPC people are starting to use English sparks now at 6.5p/W because of insurances and liabilities they can claim on. I heard a horror story about a huge install that ventured into using 27.6 trios and the ground workers that connected the mc4's buggered up the torque. All the inverters started tripping out due to condensation creating earth leakage and a team spent 3 months changing all the mc4's, oh how I laughed my --- off.
There's another 12 months left on the above 5MW sites and the big boys are beginning to come to my market place, the commercial rooftop. They swan around with their deep pockets and there luxury PPA agreements that will entice the shrewdest financial manager into agreeing to have his rooftop panelled. Lightsource have a 50MW rooftop target over the next twelve months paying 5p/kW for the PPA on buildings like supermarket warehouses and such, just like the large M&S install that's just been built 6MW.
Rohan, in this business it's who you know not what you know, get in touch with Kingspan, they are pushing the commercial very well with Sainsburies. Lightsource is a closed shop, it's a case of you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. You need to supply Lightsource with PPA agreements and builds before they will give you subby work. They have about 30 uk companies but only use about 3. The green electrician use in house workers and no subbies.
Lastly, I have no work for you as I have my own crews, and 2 select subcontractors I only use. This is how it works, you either need to give someone head or money or be related to somebody important otherwise you'll need to get your own leads.
regards
akaPABLO
