Clarke Energy, a Kohler Energy business, has been a market leader in the distributed energy space for over 30 years. With humble beginnings as an engine service business in Liverpool, UK and a no-nonsense focus on the customer, the business has gone from strength to strength and approximately $0.5bn global turnover.
The recipe for this success is simple – delivering quality power generation installations, backed up by reliable local after sales support. This is reinforced by a global network of engineers with individual focus on sales, mechanical and electrical design, projects, and after sales support.
With major regional decentralised teams in France, Australia, USA, India, Bangladesh, the African Continent, Romania and Greece we are a truly global business.
The company has grown hand in hand alongside gas engine-based installations. And by gas, we mean gas in the broad sense, including natural gas and renewable gases such as biogas and hydrogen.
Renewable energy pioneers
In fact, one of the first widely deployed renewable energy technologies was the recovery of landfill gas from engineered landfills and its use in power generation, helping minimise methane emissions and generate base-load renewable electricity. In 2024 we have now installed almost 1GW of power to the landfill gas sector. Landfill gas evolved into anaerobic digestion as a more sustainable way of treating organic waste. Our journey here started in India, helping generate energy from effluent from the sugar industry in the 1990s and expanded into solid waste digestion, wastewater digestion and agricultural biogas. In this sector we have over 400MW.
Energy efficiency and lower carbon
Our installations also generate at high efficiency through combined heat and power technology. With the recovery and utilisation of heat, fuel efficiency levels of over 90% can be achieved. This fuel efficiency is even to this date, higher than grid electricity in most of the world. Natural gas-fuelled CHP plants will deliver carbon savings, even in countries like the UK and US with growing renewable energy penetration until the mid 2030s.
Remote solutions for mining
In Australia, we are industry leaders in the supply of resilient energy solutions for the mining and extractives sector. Australia is a huge country with mining not necessarily happening in areas close to the electricity grid. Our Australian team are well versed in the supply and deployment of fully engineered solutions to the mining sector.
Supporting grid resilience
Helping support the local electricity grid is another facet of our business. Much of our fleet in France are combined heat and power systems that are supported by French subsidies. The French power grid is characterised with large amounts of relatively inflexible nuclear energy. Our CHP plants are turned on in the winter months where there is a requirement to increase electricity supplies and generate heat for French homes, businesses and greenhouses.
With large levels of intermittent renewable energy and less predictable demand driven by decarbonisation of transport and heat, the grid is becoming less stable. In the early 2000’s Clarke Energy supplied our first gas peaking stations. Now we have over 800MW deployed globally. Sitting ready and available to be turned on at short notice to ensure the lights are kept on and businesses kept with stable supplies of electricity.
Greening the greenhouse
Greenhouses in cold climates need heating and carbon dioxide and lighting in the winter to support plant growth. Rather than buy gas from the grid, CO2 from the market and electricity from the grid, growers can opt to deploy a CHP plant. This plant operates in a similar manner to a grid resilience installation. The reason for this is the heat, CO2 and light is not needed throughout the year. The CHP plant may be needed for only 1,500-2,000 hours per year. Spare capacity can be used and be sold to the electricity network at times of strain. The benefit to the grower is the ability to create a new form of revenue from electricity sales.
The future and present
Our significant track record in the engineering, supply and maintenance of gas-based power generation systems is naturally growing into new sectors.
First we expanded our offering in the organic waste sector to the supply of biogas upgrading stations. These pre-combustion systems separate the carbon dioxide and contaminants from the methane in biogas. This pure, renewable methane can then be used to increase the renewable energy content of the gas grid, or be used directly as a sustainable fuel for vehicles.
Grid connected storage
Our track record in gas peaking stations is being translated to the supply and delivery of grid supporting battery energy storage systems. Giving our customers a reliable, mature delivery partner with a strong balance sheet.
Microgrids
Our track record in industrial energy solutions is growing to incorporate other technologies such as solar, batteries and microgrid controllers.
Decarbonised heat
Our track record in thermal energy efficiency is growing to incorporate other thermal systems such as industrial size heat pumps and thermal decarbonisation solutions for industry.
Decentralised carbon capture
Finally, our knowledge of the recovery and utilisation of carbon dioxide that originated in the greenhouse sector is being deployed for beverage grade CO2 recovery and advanced mineralization systems.
The team at Clarke Energy looks forward to supporting our customers’ evolving needs for decentralised, low carbon and renewable energy solutions.
Contact us if we can help you with your needs!
