Heating up

This is hardly surprising as the company, first set up in 2000, now has a turnover of more than £10m with 70 staff, having taken on about 20 people in the last year.

And recently it launched a joint venture, Ice Energy Floor Heating, with Banbury-based Even Heat to supply underfloor heating systems to complement its green central heating systems.

Managing director Andrew Sheldon said: "It is a natural extension to the business and gives us the opportunity to focus more clearly."

Mr Sheldon's introduction to the energy industry came in the 1970s, when he worked for British Gas, just as North Sea oil was coming onstream.

"I was responsible for expanding the gas distribution system in Oxfordshire. Everyone felt that we had a plentiful supply of it for the forseeable future," he said.

He then moved into running his own businesses, which included the Talbot Inn in Eynsham, before becoming interested in the challenge of slowing climate change and the consequences of North Sea oil running out.

"Because heating was in my blood, I started thinking about what the energy world would be like once we had lost our fuel. I came across ground-source heat pumps from Sweden, and started to act as a supplier."

He rejected solar power on the grounds that it was less efficient and a crowded market, setting up a heat pump company with surveyor and property developer Andrew Hillier and engineer David Greenwood.

Ground source heat pumps work through a ground loop buried outside the property which is filled with water and glycol.

The mixture is kept at a low temperature and gently warmed by the surrounding soil as it is pumped through the pipe, before being put through a series of heat exchangers and a compressor where the heat is concentrated to 65?C and fed to underfloor heating pipes and the water boiler.

The result is a system that emits no carbon monoxide and uses "free" limitless energy from underground, providing considerable savings for the user. While the firm has been concentrating on the domestic market, the commercial side is taking off and now accounts for more than a third of the firm's business.

"We are receiving significant orders, mainly from smaller regional companies. We are talking to larger operators but the decision making process takes longer," explained Mr Sheldon.

As a result, demand has spread to councils, housing associations and property developers building new homes, as well as "retro-fits" for environmentally-conscious owners.

Demand has also been boosted by Home Improvement Packs, which include an energy assessment, as well as the so-called Merton law, under which developers sign planning agreements to build homes heated by a certain proportion of renewable energy.

Ice Energy is also looking to branch out abroad and has a subsidiary in Cyprus, where it is catering for a large ex-pat community. Further international expansion is planned .

Mr Sheldon believes the company's growth has been helped not so much by rising concern for the environment, as the spiralling cost of conventional fossil fuels.

He said: "If you are running a heating system on oil, the price has gone up by 60 per cent in seven months.

"If electricity had gone up that quickly, then there would have been a scandal, but relatively few people have heating oil, so it goes unreported."

Winning the sustainability award has proved a major boost for Ice Energy in helping raise the company's profile and in educating the public about the product.

Mr Sheldon said: "It has given us credibility both locally and nationally as we were able to display the logo on our website. We have lots of competitors and being an award-winning company has helped us stand out."

o Contact: 0845 310 560, www.iceenergy.co.uk