Skip navigation 
Previous Page
11
INNOVATION
April/May 2013 www.esb.ie/em
ESB NOVUSMODUS' TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE WELCOMES NUALIGHT FOUNDER
THE FOUNDER AND Former CEO of Nualight, Liam Kelly, was the key note speaker at the opening meeting of the Spring series of the ESB Novusmodus technology Committee in early March.
He shared his experiences of the challenges of starting and growing Irish businesses. He took the Committee on the journey of Nualight from a spin-out from UCC to becoming a key player in the LED lighting sector in the retail space, currently ranking #1/#2 to Philips in Europe.
Liam attributed a major part of the company's success to the strength of its customer relationships rather than the strength of its intellectual property, refining its product offering to meet its customers’ needs. He also spoke about the need of continually build the company's team to meet the business’ complexity, scale and challenges. Continuous innovation was a recurring theme and will be needed to grow the company to the scale which the shareholders have targeted.
Headquartered in Cork with offices in Holland, Poland and the US, Nualight is a leading LED lighting company specialising in supplying LED luminaires to major food retailers and OEMs across the EU and North America. ESB Novusmodus invested in Nualight in 2009 and since then Nualight sales have grown from €3m to €28m and the number of employees has increased from 16 to 220 of which half are based in Cork. Electric Mail previously featured Nualight for becoming the first Irish company to make it into the Global Clean-tech 100 list that identifies companies most likely to make a significant market impact in the next 5-10 years.
The Technology Committee meeting was well attended by senior representatives from all the business units and corporate centre and was chaired by Nicholas tarrant (Head of Generation). New Era also attended, as with previous meetings. CEO Pat O'Doherty met up with liam to congratulate him on the success of Nualight to date.
The Technology Committee was set up at the same time as the cleantech investment fund, with the objective of sharing the learning from ESB Novusmodus with the rest of the company. It arranges 6-8 meetings per year which are attended by representatives from all of the business and corporate areas of the group.
John McSweeney, Head of Innovation, said, “Liam's presentation was very informative of the key challenges of starting and growing a new technology-based business in Ireland. It shows how resilience and constant innovation, as well as resources -people and finance - are needed to make a good idea into a successful business.”
ESB International gets the thumbs up for quality
ESBI
ESBI IS RECERTIFIED TO IS EN ISO 9001:2008 standard for its quality management systems, after an extremely in-depth audit, involving the offices at Eastgate in Cork and Stephen Court in Dublin. The audit took place between Monday and Friday February 11th and 15th and was conducted by Joe Cavanagh of the National Standards authority of Ireland (NSAI).
In 2012, ESB International reviewed and refreshed its quality management system (QMS) to position itself as the engineering services provider of choice to the power industry. The NSAI audit was the first audit of the updated quality management system by a third-party accredited certification body. The auditor complimented ESB International on the calibre of its staff and on the structured process approach to continual improvement that was visible throughout the business.
Speaking about the audit, ESBI Strategic Business Performance Manager Jacinta Ryan congratulated all those involved and commented, “the recertification of ESBI's quality management system is particularly timely and it provides us with an excellent platform from which we can continue to provide quality engineering services to ESB while we pursue our international growth mandate.”
ESB ECARS SPONSORS SECOND ANNUAL NATIONAL ELECTRICAL VEHICLES SUMMIT
ESB ECARS SPONSORED The second National Electric Vehicles Summit 2013, which was held in Croke Park on Thursday January 31st as part of the National transport Summit 2013.
Leading national and international experts gathered to discuss the latest trends and innovations in the development and roll-out of electric vehicles
This year's summit looked at the latest developments in electric vehicle technology and triumphed the successes and strides being made in the electric vehicle and low-carbon transport sectors. Leading national and international experts gathered to discuss the latest trends and innovations in the development and roll-out of electric vehicles across Europe. The conference was also attended by representatives from regulatory and governmental agencies, local authorities, public transport operators, car manufacturers and environmental agencies.
The ecar event also featured stands and exhibitions from ESB ecars and other companies involved in Ireland's roll-out of electric vehicles.
For more information about the conference visit: www.nevs.ie
THE LORD MAYOR OF CORK, CLLR. JOHN BUTTIMER, SPARKS AN INTEREST IN ECARS
CORK CITY COUNCIL is working closely with ESB to deliver a network of ecar charging infrastructure in the city and suburbs, including on-street charge-points and fast-chargers. These charge points are part of a nationwide network that will allow EV drivers to re-charge their electric cars at locations across the country. To date, there are more than 1,100 charge points installed in public, domestic and commercial locations in Ireland.
At a launch event in Cork, the Lord Mayor, Cllr John Buttimer, met with ESB ecar ambassadors Martha Doyle and Eoghan O'Donoghue, who had their ecars outside City Hall. Martha and Eoghan were selected from more than 12,000 applicants for the ESB ecar ambassador programme to trial an electric for up to one year.
Electricity costs, based on night time tariff, for a full charge (ie 160km for the Nissan LEAF) is approximately €2.30. This works out at about 1/10th of the fuel cost of an average petrol car. In addition, as more and more of Ireland's electricity is generated from renewable energy, ecars will make increasingly significant contributions to meeting Ireland's international commitments to reduce green house gas emissions.
The nationwide network will' allow EV drivers to re-charge their electric cars at locations across the country.
ESB ECAR AMBASSADORS VISIT ARDNACRUSHA POWER STATION
THE ECAR AMBASSADORS, who are taking part in ESB ecars Great Electric Drive, visited ardnacrusha Power Station in January and received a guided tour of the facility by plant manager Catherine Halpin and Civil Engineer tom Hayes.
The tour was part of a gathering organised by ESB ecars to update the ambassadors on the electric vehicle programme and to provide them with an opportunity to share their experiences of electric vehicle driving.
The event also featured an update from ESB ecars Manager Dermot Mcardle, who gave the ambassadors an insight into the on-going work of the ecar programme. Dermot also revealed that the Great Electric Drive participants, who come from all over Ireland, had clocked up close to 45,000km of electric driving since last September and, between them, had made fuel savings equivalent to €5,000.
For more information on the Great Electric Drive and our ecar ambassadors please visit www.ESBecars-blog.ie, or to learn more about ecars in general visit www.facebook.com/ESBecars or our website www.esb.ie/ecars.
Innovation: TELECOMS
On Monday March 11th, the British and Irish Chamber of Commerce held its spring lunch in london. The theme of the event was the Focal Point of British Irish Business. ESB telecoms has expanded its fibre footprint to facilitate high speed connectivity from Ireland to UK cities through the Emerald Bridge Fibres Network and ESBT attended this event to further strengthen ties with the UK business market.
