Second renewable energy firm to enter administration sparks industry alarm

Calls for the Government to rethink its green policies have grown louder following the collapse of two leading Green Deal and renewable energy installers.

Climate Energy has become the second UK-based energy efficiency solutions provider to enter administration, following yesterday’s announcement by Mark Group that it too had called in the administrators, leading to the combined loss of over 1,000 jobs.

Less than three months ago Mark Group, installer of energy saving measures including insulation and solar panels, was bought by SunEdison. But yesterday, SunEdison confirmed it was scaling back its UK presence and Mark Group managers confirmed they had repurchased the business, taking the “regrettable decision to put the business into administration”.

Neil Marshall, chief executive of the National Insulation Association today repeated his call for the Government to fast track the development of its new long term, sustainable policy framework for home energy efficiency and introduce urgent transitional arrangements in the meantime to address the current hiatus within the market and industry.

“Whilst Government has outlined its intention to introduce a new long term policy framework for energy efficiency, which we welcome, the insulation industry is currently in a state of crisis as a result of the absence of robust transitional arrangements to bridge the gap until the new policies and schemes are introduced. Without urgent intervention there will be further casualties, job losses and a loss of confidence to invest among insulation companies all of which will impact on the industry’s ability to scale up to support the delivery of the Governments longer term ambitions.

“Given yesterday’s news, which clearly demonstrates the scale of the problems facing the industry at present, we would urge DECC Ministers to work with the industry in putting in place urgent actions to address the crisis,” he added.