RE: Jan 2020, Swedish Marine engine demonstration30 Jan 2020 12:25
something new from INSP website to read while we wait, lots of questions answered for now!!!
What does ‘Brexit’ mean for Inspirit Energy?
January 31, 2019
Everyone is talking about Brexit and wondering how it might affect them. Here’s how we see it at Inspirit Energy…
Currency
The first and most widely publicized impact of Brexit was the immediate currency realignment. After rising strongly in the final hours of the campaign when a Remain vote was expected, the ensuing plunge when the Leave vote was indicated was particularly acute. An adjustment of more than 10% in a single day is normally cause for concern, except that in this case nothing has yet changed legally and the changes that will happen are as yet unknown. It is that lack of knowledge which worries investors.
From an Inspirit Energy point of view we have limited currency risk. Currently, all of our input costs are sterling denominated, almost all of our first year sales are expected to be to UK customers and sterling denominated and our supply chain is predominantly UK based. As a result there are no obvious, short-term impacts from this currency realignment and, if anything, we are more insulated from this than other companies in the industry.
Even better, the fall in the value of sterling makes our products more financially attractive abroad in markets such as Europe and North America.
EU funding
One of the attractions of the EU to microCHP developers, and particularly fuel cell microCHP developers, is the amount of money available from the EU. The EU’s “Horizon 2020” budget for fuel cells of all types was a staggering €1billion. This is partly due to the much higher costs of fuel cells when compared to engine based microCHP products, particularly Stirling engine based products like the Inspirit Charger. Some microCHP companies are heavily reliant on these funds.
Inspirit Energy has never relied on EU funding and hence the removal of this source of funding has no impact on us. Instead Brexit may help to focus more attention on direct UK government support for the microCHP industry, particularly short-term ‘pump-priming’ measures to help the industry get started.
Feed in tariff
One such opportunity to ‘pump-prime’ the microCHP industry is the current feed in tariff consultation. The feed in tariff is a UK government subsidy for renewable and low carbon electricity generation, which came into operation in April 2010. The consultation is happening now in order to comply with EU state aid rules which control how much support the UK can provide to particular industries and technologies with an enforced review every 3 years. Without these state aid rules the consultation itself might not be happening. Given that it is, one way to address the uncertainties around Brexit would be for DECC (the Department of Energy and Climate Change) to make the microCHP feed in tariff more, rather than less, generous.
Environmental legislation
The transformation of our ec