Charles Thompson Ltd (CTL) has invested in biomass heating for its headquarters in Rotherham, to support its environmental policy and heat its buildings more cost-effectively.

The company has taken delivery of three 240kW biomass heating cabins from Windhager UK, a low carbon heating solutions provider.

Also known as modular boiler house systems, the BioCABINs will accommodate the technology required to provide renewable biomass heating to the offices and factory floor.

Peter Coe, Technical Director at CTL, said: “The choice to invest in biomass heating is both a practical and environmental one. It will hopefully reduce the cost of heating the site, something that has been a considerable overhead.

“The choice to take a low carbon approach to heating our site also helps us work in a more sustainable manner, reducing our overall carbon footprint and helping us to achieve our environmental goals. It will be a sound investment which should pay for itself over a number of years.”

Work has now begun to install heaters, fans and piping controls. The installation is scheduled for completion in autumn, just in time to counteract the colder weather and is part of a rolling programme of ongoing improvements and investments at Glasshouse Road.

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The B2B publication Insider has named the research director and co-founder of the AMRC with Boeing, professor Keith Ridgway, as the second most powerful person in the Sheffield City Region.

Mr Ridgway, the executive dean of the University of Sheffield AMRC, was lauded for how “Sheffield sits at manufacturing’s top table and it is due to Ridgeway’s continuing commitment”.

The University of Sheffield and Boeing have recently revealed their plans for the next phase of expansion of the Advance Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), which Mr Ridgway will be overseeing.

Work is already underway on the first of the new facilities on the site, a £43 million, fully reconfigurable assembly and component manufacturing facility called Factory 2050, which will be the first facility of its kind in the UK.

The partnership has submitted plans to Sheffield City Council for 1.3 million square feet of new buildings at the former airport site, which, according to calculations by consultants at Oxford Economics, could create up to 1,800 new jobs and boost the annual direct contribution to the local economy by £74.2 million. It is considered to be a step towards the creation of Europe’s largest research-led manufacturing area.

Peter Coe, Technical Director at Charles Thompson, which has been based in the area for more than 40 years and has collaborated with the parties involved, believes that the investment and vision of the project is very positive.

He said: “The expansion of the AMRC will help transform the region into a hub for research and manufacturing and offer new methods and solutions for the manufacturing sector that have a truly global impact.

As well as Factory 2050, plans are also in place for a number of other buildings on the site including National Material Institute, the Fast Make Centre of Excellence and the potential for Energy 2050 a carbon capture research development.

A South Korean delegation recently toured the facilities of the AMRC as part of an initiative to boost trade and investment, the first time a delegation of this kind has visited a site outside of London. Delegates signed Memorandums of Understanding and visited a number of facilities.

Mr Coe added: “The visit from the South Korean delegation shows that the world’s eyes are still on the pioneering engineering work going on in South Yorkshire.”

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In recent months universities across the UK have been showcasing their commitment to the future of British engineering, with the launch of new facilities or briefings on the new facilities to be constructed. 

This will be a boost for manufacturing – for example, in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, energy and petrochemical sectors among others – after a 2014 survey by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) revealed a critical demand for engineers in the UK that is not being met, with more than 50% of the 400 companies questioned having difficulties finding high quality candidates.

In addition the survey revealed that, for the ninth consecutive year, there has been an increasing skills gap: 44% of employers stated that IT, technological and engineering applicants did not meet a reasonable level of expectation or skill. 

However, several of the country’s universities have announced and implemented investment in state-of-the-art facilities for the next generation of engineering students, among them the University of Sheffield, which has recently launched the Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA), a scheme to develop leaders in the sector. Notably, it is the first extracurricular leadership scheme by a UK university to cover all the engineering disciplines.

The University of Sheffield has also invested in an £81 million building called the Diamond, dedicated to teaching engineering. Due to open in September 2015, it will enable 1,600 additional engineering students to be taught by 2020.

Furthermore, in May the university submitted of its masterplan for the next phase of its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing, billed as “a step towards the development of the UK’s first Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District”.

Lancaster University, which recently opened a new engineering building to replace older facilities that had been in operation on the campus since the 1960s. The new site will provide the opportunity to study recent new specialisms, such as nuclear and chemical engineering.

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) has received a cash injection of £10.5 million from the government for its own flagship Engineering Innovation Centre (EIC) that is scheduled to open in 2018. The overall funding pot now stands at more than £30 million.

Established universities aside, a completely new engineering school – the first of its kind to be built in 40 years – is to be built in Hereford with an expected opening in 2017. The New Model in Technology and Engineering (NMITE) is expected to expand its intake from 300 students initially to 5,000 over the next decade.

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General Electric (GE) is to invest an additional $100 million into the oil and gas sector in Saudi Arabia.

According to the company’s announcement, the investment will see the creation of new programs to help GE’s localisation plans, create jobs in advanced manufacturing and software analytics, and build innovation capacity.

It aligns GE with Saudi Arabia ambitions to establish Saudi Arabia as a regional manufacturing hub for advanced gas turbines, as well as diversify the economy, develop manufacturing and build next-generation skill-sets.

GE has already invested $1 billion in Saudi Arabia over the last three years. The company intends to expand its facilities in the region, producing hyper-efficient HA gas turbines at its centre in Dammam.

The Oil and Gas Facility, also in Dammam, will manufacture wellheads and other pressure control technologies, alongside performance services repair capabilities. There are also plans to create a first-of-its-kind LED manufacturing facility in the region.

In addition to the new investment GE has announced collaborations with two Saudi universities. With the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, it will focus on material testing and combustion research. The partnership will support development of gas turbines to be created in the region.

The King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals will work with GE on advanced prototyping and additive manufacturing to develop and create enhanced technologies in the upstream and downstream sectors, with the intention of increasing efficiency and production.

This includes the next generation of down-hole technology and Electric Submersible Pump, which could revolutionise the industry not only in the Saudi Arabian region but globally.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude oil exporter. Ironically, the kingdom’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi predicted this month (May) that the kingdom could phase out the use of fossil fuels within decades.

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