Pinergy, the pay as you go electricity company, is expanding its services in order to target the SME market.
The company, whose investors include the family of Peter Coates, one of Britain’s richest men, and former Ireland rugby captain Paul O’Connell, will offer a range of sustainable energy solutions for businesses, including solar energy and retrofitting of LED lighting. Enda Gunnell, owner and CEO of Pinergy said the energy services side of the business would require fundraising of between €5m and €10m. He described the fundraising as “on-going”. “We’re not interested in bringing in an equity investor,” said Gunnell. “We’ve done that strategic investment round.
We’re using our existing sources of funding that have been supportive of the business to date and we’re looking at new specialist funding for energy services.
This would be specialist overseas institutional capital, he said. The company has raised €18m to date, with the Coates family providing the largest investment. The company has also raised cash through the EIIS scheme. Pinergy, which launched in the Irish market in 2013 using O’Connell as its brand ambassador, now has revenues of €30m a year and 30,000 customers, with Gunnell expecting to double the business in the next few years.
He said smart meters and other technological advancements meant that the company now helped people to save energy on their bills. Pay as you go electricity is usually more expensive than mainstream companies, but Gunnell said Pinergy was helping customers reduce usage.
What is the incentive for the traditional supply business to bring those technologies to their customers? “Because if you make your customer reduce their consumption by 20pc, 30pc, 40pc, you’re reducing your revenue and your margins by an according amount.