- The FEBE – For Entrepreneurs By Entrepreneurs – Growth 100 recognises and ranks the UK’s fastest growing private businesses with founders still actively involved
- Powersystems UK based at Yate, Bristol today announces they are part of this prestigious list
- Businesses must have sales between £3m and £200m, trading for at least three years and have turned an operating profit in the latest financial year to make it into the top 100
- London (26%), South East (13%), Yorkshire (11%) and Scotland (9%) top the list regionally of where companies are based
Britain’s fastest-growing, founder-led private companies have been revealed today in the FEBE Growth 100. And Powersystems UK of Bristol has made the prestigious line up.
The Growth 100 celebrates British business at its best – highlighting founders and business leaders that are driving their companies to deliver significant sales, revenue and profit, against a backdrop of unprecedented economic challenges.
And Powersystems UK Managing Director, Chris Jenkins and Founder Derek Earby today celebrate their success.
Green energy is at the core of Powersystems. We have been successfully connecting renewable generation to the grid since the early 1990s. Based in Bristol, Powersystems works nationwide to provide engineering excellence to clients across the high voltage energy sector. Priding ourselves on quality, health and safety, customer service and employee welfare, we have been able to stay on top of the sector by utilising the latest innovations in the industry and maintaining our highest standards of engineering practice.
Founded in 1977 by Derek Earby and Mike Wilsmore, Powersystems has grown over the last 46 years to become a respected and major player in the design and installation of electrical systems for clients. The founding directors saw an opportunity in the high voltage installation market, where they could offer an alternative to the local electricity board for private customers. The initial projects were small scale, installing 11,000 volt and 415/230 volt distribution systems to companies based in and around South West England. The scope of this work expanded quickly, enabling Powersystems to grow rapidly. Today we can tackle any electrical installation project up to and including 132,000 volts.
Powersystems early beginnings in Renewable Energy
Beginning in the early 1990’s, we entered the fledgling renewables market, with some small hydro schemes and then some of the earliest UK land-based wind farms. Goonhilly Down in 1993, a wind farm consisting of 14 turbines in Cornwall, was to begin a long and successful era of Powersystems’ involvement with the onshore wind generation industry.
With our customer focused engineering, Powersystems soon grew to be one of the industry leaders in the renewable energy market, carrying out electrical connections and on-site electrical distribution for wind farms, anaerobic digestion plants, hydro generation, and solar farms. To this day, onshore wind farms continue to be a large part of our success, we have worked on some of the largest wind farms in the country, such as Crystal Rig near Dunbar in Scotland (66 Turbines), and Pen-Y-Cymoedd in Wales (76 Turbines).
In 2023 we celebrate 30 years in the wind farm market. Powersystems have connected 30% of onshore wind projects in the UK up to 132 kV which equates to 6.1 GW of export generation to the National Grid, and since 2000 have also completed a staggering 1,462 projects.
Powersystems are proud to say that we have been delivering the first of their kind renewable energy projects since 1997 and have recently completed the works for the first private greener grid stability project (Keith Greener Grid Park), as well as electrical works for the first Energy Superhub in the UK, (Cowley, Oxford), which showcases British companies working together with different specialities from science, to engineering, to manufacturing and technology, and all were equally ambitious to make it happen. It is pioneering, bringing these technologies together to show what can be done to benefit the environment and climate and leading the way for other cities to follow. And from onshore to offshore Powersystems continue to play their part on the world’s largest wind farm, Dogger Bank which claims when completed to power 6 million homes per year.
Our highly skilled engineers oversee each project from inception to the start of energy generation. Powersystems now has a large and varied portfolio associated with green energy.
Renewable generation plays a very important part in the future of the industry, as the National Grid ESO looks ahead to eliminate emissions associated with the UK’s operational electricity use and run on clean energy every hour of every day by 2030. Being able to connect these sources of energy to the grid and working across the UK to deliver engineering solutions has helped shape Powersystems into what it is today.
The future of Powersystems
Founders Derek Earby and Mike Wilsmore’s son Stuart, who took over the running of the business when his father passed away both nearing retirements, in 2019 had a strong desire to preserve the company’s legacy and values and wanting the company to continue, to flourish agreed to transfer the ownership of Powersystems to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT).
Now spearheaded by managing director, Chris Jenkins, who continues to promote the values of the original two founders, the company holds true to its motto “big enough to cope, small enough to care”, a philosophy that has seen Powersystems win many friends within the industry. Chris goes on to say, “Like all things to continuously build on success you must evolve, Powering the transition to a carbon free future is the overarching vision for 2023 and beyond.
Over a 46-year history, Powersystems has seen many changes in the type of industry in which we have worked. We’re going to see massive changes in the energy sector in the next decade. The current gas crisis highlights that. Obviously, we’ve got ambitious net zero emission targets by 2050. Behind the scenes, our grid infrastructure needs to undergo massive upgrades and modernisation to cope with these changing demands. It hasn’t changed since it was built in the 1960s. Now, we’ve got a huge amount of distributed, renewable generation and the grid needs to keep up.
Powersystems are well placed as a major player in the electrical high voltage installation sector, we are now installing newer technologies such as battery storage and small-scale generation projects that can offer short term support to the national grid, as well as the traditional industrial electrical distribution projects, to ensure that our company will continue to prosper”.
The FEBE Growth 100 list shows a spread of entrepreneurial success throughout the UK including 26 companies in London; 13 companies in the South East; 11 in Yorkshire, 9 in Scotland and 8 in the East Midlands. Women are founders or co-founders of nearly a third of all winning companies with the exact ratio of men to women founders standing at 68% to 32%.
The full 100 ranking can be viewed at www.febe.com.
To be on the list businesses must be UK registered, independent and unquoted, meeting the following criteria:
- Sales between £3m and £200m
- Trading for at least three years
- An operating profit in the latest financial year
- Founder(s) must still be involved
The ultimate ranking of 100 was data-driven, with companies ordered by compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in sales over the last three financial years. Businesses were initially selected by either nominating themselves or through FEBE contacting them directly, as well as by accessing publicly available financial information.
In addition to the main list of 100, FEBE’s Watch List sits alongside the Growth 100 to celebrate businesses that do not meet all of the Growth 100 criteria, but have an amazing growth story and are achieving great things.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Chris Jenkins, said: “To achieve this ranking of 38/100, is testament to all of the hard work of every person at Powersystems. I am proud to be part of such talented, hardworking and motivated team that are dedicated to making an impact on the business and industry that we are working in and all of us working towards the greater good, making a difference to the United Kingdom and its people as well as the generations to come.”
Commenting on the FEBE Growth 100 List, FEBE founder Charlotte Quince, said: “We’re so excited to publish this year’s Growth 100. So many people think that business founders just ‘get lucky’ or think of an idea one day and are successful the next. But we know that the journey to success is anything but smooth. The Growth 100 celebrates those who have embraced the entrepreneurial roller coaster and who are now thriving as some of the fastest growing brands in the country.”
Former Dragon’s Den Dragon and FEBE Growth 100 ambassador, Jenny Campbell added: “I’m very proud to be part of something that celebrates and supports the very best British entrepreneurs and their companies. FEBE Growth 100 focuses on true entrepreneurialism. Founders are unique: their experiences, their vision and their resilience are unlike anything else. So, we want to celebrate these ‘dare to doers’ and shine a light on the incredible accomplishments of some of the finest and fastest-growing companies in the country.”
FEBE (For Entrepreneurs By Entrepreneurs), co-founded by Charlotte Quince and John Maffioli, was born out of a desire to celebrate true entrepreneurship, by focusing on the founders behind incredible businesses, as well as an aim to reinvigorate the current corporate business award scene with entrepreneurial dynamism.
For more information visit www.febe.com.
About FEBE Growth 100
The Growth 100 annual list shines a light on the finest and fastest-growing privately owned businesses in the country, where the founder or founders are still involved. The Growth 100 is run by FEBE, the club built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.
For more information, visit www.febe.com
FEBE’s Ambassadors include:
- Jenny Campbell – YourCash Founder & ex Dragon’s Den Dragon
- Sarah Willingham – Nightcap Founder & ex Dragon
- Piers Linney – Atherton Bikes Co-Founder & ex Dragon
- Juliet Barratt – Grenade Co-Founder
- Charlie Bigham – Charlie Bigham’s food Founder
- Aaron Gelbard – Bloom & Wild Founder
- Sally Preston MBE – Kiddylicious Founder
- Paul Baker – St Pierre Groupe Founder
Growth 100 partners include PwC, Lawrence Stephens and Pictet.
Media Contact for Powersystems UK
Media Contact Jules Daly, Marketing and Communications Manager at Powersystems UK.
Email jules.daly@powersystemsuk.com Telephone 01454 318000
Photography Copyright please credit all images used to powersystemsuk.co.uk
Media contact for FEBE
Sarah Over, SixThree Communications
saraho@sixthreecomms.com / 07971 977756
ENDS