Made famous in The Office, to the west of London, not far from Heathrow, is Slough Trading Estate. Home to 500 business, employment for 20,000 people.
Slough hosts a diverse set of businesses, famously Mars (the smell of sugar often hangs over the site) and Brompton Bikes. The businesses were once small engineering companies, today they are more likely to be technology or services companies.
This site provides an insight into the future of energy for business and industrial customers. Energy has been central to this site since its inception. It has its own power station and a district heat network.
SSE bought the power station in 2008 and are in the process of converting it to a multifuel Energy from Waste facility that will generate 40GW+ of electricity and provide heat in the form of steam to the businesses.
Swiss group Axpo signed a Power Purchase Agreement in 2021, to purchase the power generated by the plant, Axpo will resell the power to either the grid or local businesses. In return SSE get a guaranteed revenue stream from operating the plant.
Slough is a great example of how regional solutions will be at the forefront of the energy transition. There won’t be one solution that works everywhere, the solution for Slough will be different to that in Manchester. Estates with a gas network could more easily convert to hydrogen.
