Professional Engineering

Innovation is alive and well in the UK, although you wouldn’t always know it. All across the country there are unsung engineering and manufacturing companies that are pushing forward boundaries and operating at the very cutting edge of technology. Some have been established by entrepreneurial individuals who are chasing their dream, while others have been spun-out of intelligent research and development from within universities. Over the next four pages PE champions 10 small companies that are vivid proof of UK innovation and which are starting to make a name for themselves on a global stage.

Whitfield Solar

Location: Reading
Employees: 18

Formed in 2004, the spin-out company from Reading University was always aiming high, just like its solar concentrators. The company is commercialising almost 30 years of research by Dr George Whitfield into how to make solar photovoltaics more efficient and cost effective. 

Whitfield’s solution is the kind of refreshing blend of simplicity of design and pragmatism that British engineering does best. The solar concentrators use an array of fresnel lenses, like the lenses used in lighthouses, to amplify light on to a silicon solar cell, so reducing the surface area needed to achieve meaningful power outputs. A simple mechanical pivot and tilt mechanism, controlled by a light sensor that uses a shadow cast by a protusion, adjusts to track the sun through the day, maximising the amount of sunlight collected. 

The solar concentrator is more efficient than its main competitor, flat-panel solar PV, and, unlike tower solar concentrators, can be installed on rooftops. In August this year Whitfield’s development work began to be paid off with the company’s first successes abroad. The first concentrators were installed in Lisbon, Portugal, and two in New South Wales, Australia. Whitfield’s Australian partner then announced that follow-on interest had generated more than 300kW worth of orders – over 950 solar modules.

Ian Collins, project director for Whitfield Solar, says the next step is to scale up the size of the installations from tens to hundreds of kilowatts and then up to the megawatt range. “I see no reason why we aren’t dealing with installations in the 10 to 100MW range in five years’ time,” he says. “But we are taking it slowly with our partners throughout the world so we can guarantee quality.”

Camfridge

Location: Cambridge
Employees: 5

The domestic fridge represents a huge market and has a correspondingly big environmental impact – refrigeration and cooling account for 15% of all the energy used in the UK. There is a massive regulatory drive for manufacturers to make fridges more efficient. 

Existing fridges that use gas compressors to run a vapour compression cycle are almost at the point where they cannot be improved further without becoming prohibitively expensive. But, using materials research spun out of Cambridge University, UK firm Camfridge has developed a completely new type of fridge that is more efficient, quieter and does not use harmful gases. 

Camfridge has replaced the fridge’s gas compressor with a component that comprises a metal alloy sitting in a magnetic field. The magnetic field causes a reduction in the alloy’s temperature, and an exchange fluid and regenerative cycle is then used to obtain the desired cooler temperature in the fridge’s compartment. 

Camfridge has demonstrated the viability of its technology with prototypes that use a metal alloy called gadolinium. Unfortunately gadolinium is very expensive, and the company’s engineers have been focused on reducing costs by using different materials. 

According to Neil Wilson, chief executive of Camfridge, a breakthrough was made last month when a third-generation nanomaterial called lanthanum iron silicate was delivered from a European research project. “In terms of performance and cost we are looking at a boost of a factor of three, reducing the costs significantly,” he says. “This gives us a clear path towards commercial viability.” Wilson is confident that his magnetic fridge will be on sale by 2014. “Every fridge will be magnetic by 2020,” he says.