Fast expansion for Halifax-based green energy company

Its successful green energy invention has seen a start-up company in Elland double its workforce in a year, with more employment opportunities to come.

FeTu’s award-winning device has the potential to substantially reduce industrial CO2 emissions by recovering waste heat into electricity.

It has expanded from four to eight employees over 12 months, with plans to recruit a further three people this year, and develop an in-house workshop and test lab.

Designer Jon Fenton established FeTu in 2017 following a 35-year career in mechanical engineering, with backing from Innovate UK and several British universities.

The FeTu drive is a two-stage turbine designed to reduce both energy consumption and emissions by unprecedented levels, and on a global scale. It has applications in the energy market, and across a range of other manufacturing industries including aerospace and marine.

Jon Fenton said: “It’s becoming clear the world needs to change quickly to avert a climate catastrophe, and clean, cost effective energy solutions like ours have a crucial role to play.

“We are on the brink of transforming the £34bn global compressor market with technology that reduces energy consumption by 25 per cent.”

He added: “Low-grade waste heat energy represents £4bn a year in the UK alone, and recovering 25 per cent of that would offset the power output of Drax and Hinkley C power stations combined. In terms of carbon, that is 80 million tonnes: 20 per cent of the UK’s annual output.”

FeTu predicts its technology can recover 30-50 per cent of low-grade waste heat, with a one-year return on investment.

Energy solutions: Jon Fenton of FeTu on site in Elland