18 Sep 2020 .

Celebrating 25 years of building long-standing relationships with our clients

Rosehill Wind Farm against a backdrop of great clouds and yellowing grass

Part of our overall mission to create a world powered by renewable energy is to support our clients by giving them unrivalled renewable energy expertise and services. While we’re celebrating 25 years working in the renewable energy industry this year, we’re also celebrating the long-standing relationships that we have built with our clients.

And these relationships are a testament to that promise to our clients.

In 2019, we further solidified one of our industry relationships by securing a five-year contract to deliver HV support to E.ON (which recently transferred its renewable business to RWE). We have worked with RWE for over 16 years and support a portfolio of 13 wind farm sites (>250MW). By the end of this contract we will have worked with RWE for over 20 years.

We started working with RWE in 2002, when they were known as Powergen before becoming E.ON, on the 24-turbine Bowbeat Wind Farm in the Scottish Borders.

At the time, Bowbeat was Scotland’s most powerful wind farm.

Alistair Parlett, our head of asset management UK, was a site manager at Bowbeat when he joined Natural Power in 2003, so he has seen this relationship with RWE develop over the years.

 “It is a source of immense personal satisfaction that Natural Power and RWE have been able to develop and maintain what I view as a true partnership as our respective organisations have evolved. The experience gained working at Bowbeat during those early years was formative in terms of establishing my, and Natural Power’s, approach to asset management and has also helped inform the values that we still promote within our business today.

“Our longstanding relationship [with RWE] is underpinned by our shared focus on safety, a collaborative approach to project delivery and our ability to work alongside RWE’s business to support the self-performing approach to site management that has been adopted in recent years.”

We still work with RWE on Bowbeat, and the rest of our partnership with RWE’s portfolio spans the UK: Out Newton, Stag’s Holt, Rosehall, Camster, Tween Bridge, Great Eppleton, Butterwick Moor, Haswell Moor, High Volts, Holmside, Harehill and Deucheran Hill.

A team of 18 Natural Power field staff support RWE in south England, north-east England, and central and north Scotland.

The five-year support contract as part of HV operations and maintenance includes 24/7 standby, first response to HV system alarms and events, HV switching and the application of the safety rules to planned and reactive maintenance activities.

James Norris, contracts and relationship manager at RWE, said: “I have been the contracts performance and relationship manager working with Natural Power for the last 10 years, and I can honestly say it is a business partner of choice that always goes above and beyond in terms of contract performance and being flexible in supporting our business at very short notice. 

“I personally would like to congratulate Natural Power on their 25th anniversary and look forward to our continued excellent working relationship going forward.”