A Stainton consultant has been recognised as the country’s top energy manager.
Astley Fenwick, who has been offering businesses advice on energy efficiency for more than three decades, was identified as the Energy Managers Association’s (EMA) energy manager of the year for 2024.
He has also earned a highly commended accolade in the ESOS (Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme) lead assessor category of the awards scheme.
Mr Fenwick helps a range of industries across manufacturing, commerce and education, and has written energy saving reports for businesses in all four countries of the UK.
He is also a lead assessor for the Environment Agency’s ESOS audit – a mandatory energy assessment which has to be carried out every four years by all companies with 250 or more employees.
He said he is particularly proud of the Energy Manager Award because it is a culmination of 30 years’ work in the sector.
He said: “I love my work, and I love helping industry because it is small manufacturing that is the backbone of the industry in our country.
“They are the people who have decided they are going to try and do something for themselves and manufacture for bigger companies.
“This is what our country is made of, from back street places then to bigger places and then to huge manufacturing. I think that is how our country was made and that is why we are known in the world as leaders of innovation.”
His venture into the energy sector came about while working as a site electrical engineer for GSK, in Barnard Castle.
Mr Fenwick said: “We had an edict from head office that every site throughout the world had to reduce their energy consumption by five per cent over a three-year period.
“I volunteered to become the energy engineer if you like. We did a thorough check-up of every system, how it was working and how it could be improved.”
His team was so successful over the three-year period energy costs were reduced by 21 per cent, earning them the chief executive officer’s environmental award.
It was also on Mr Fenwick’s recommendation that the two wind turbines that are synonymous with the site were erected.
He said: “I brought them from Holland and they were ten years old at the time. The whole scheme cost £250,000 and they paid for themselves in four years, so that was quite good.”
He resigned from Glaxo in 2006 to become an independent energy consultant.
Mr Fenwick said: “Work kind of grew and grew because more people were wanting to save energy.”
The highly commended ESOS accolade was made for an assessment he made of Hydram Engineering, based at Chilton Industrial Estate, Ferryhill.
The consultant recommends that all people complete an energy audit before introducing renewable energy sources.
He said: “My main focus is on reducing energy consumption first before I look at renewable energy because you size down renewable energy to the load.
“Renewable energy is not inexpensive, so the more you can get out of it the better.
“I have solar panels on my roof and battery storage. I would say I am saving £900 a year.
“My solar panels are on a six-year payback. It used to be 12 years because the price of solar panels has come down and the price of electricity has gone up.”
