Thameswey ESCO - Sustainable Energy Systems

As part of the DETR funded Energy Saving Trust ESCO Programme, the Council obtained leading counsel’s opinion on local authority vires with respect to forming or participating in ESCO’s. The outcome of this work was the formation of the UK’s first EESCO and ESCO, called Thameswey, to take forward the innovative and unique green energy services concept that Woking Borough Council had so successfully employed over the last 10 years at a small-scale level using local authority finance to a large-scale level using primarily private finance. The Council owns the intellectual property in Thameswey and the Thameswey registered trademarks.

Thameswey Ltd., is an Energy and Environmental Services Company or EESCO wholly owned by Woking Borough Council which enters into public/private joint ventures to deliver its energy and environmental strategies and targets (primarily green energy, tackling fuel poverty, water, waste and green transport). The local authority vires and the Memorandum of Articles and Articles of Association of the EESCO enables Thameswey Ltd., to participate in energy services projects both inside and outside the Borough of Woking.

Thameswey Energy Ltd., is a public/private joint venture Energy Services Company or ESCO between Thameswey Ltd., and ESCO International A/S owned by Miljo-Sam Holding APS. Miljo-Sam Holding APS is owned by Pen-Sam (a Danish pension fund) and Hedeselskab who also own Hedeselskabet Miljo og Energi A/S, a Danish green energy company. Projects are financed with shareholding capital and private finance with project development carried out jointly between the Council and Hedeselskabet Miljo og Energi A/S who also own DDH Contractors UK Ltd., who act as the turnkey contractor on large scale district energy schemes. Hedeselskab is a foundation committed to environmental projects whose patron is Her Majesty Queen Margarethe II of Denmark.

The formation of Thameswey has enabled the Council to increase its embedded generation capacity by 500% in its first year and by 1,400% under immediate current development plans.

Thameswey is not an energy supplier but an energy services provider. The production and use of energy and their cost implications involves several things, including the cost of new or replacement primary energy plant (boilers and chillers), their eventual replacement in say 15 to 20 years time, the related inflation, consultancy and financing costs, their maintenance and the consumption of energy.

Please see the file attached below for more...