Advice group wins work and then £1.15m grant

Aug 7 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

FAST-GROWING green support services group Eaga has secured a £1.15m grant to help it create 270 jobs on the back of a number of contract wins.

The jobs boom is due to the Newcastle group securing a £200m energy efficiency contract with Scottish Power last month and the deal announced at the start of the year to run the BBC’s digital switchover help scheme, supporting elderly and disabled people making the change from analogue TV to digital.

Under the Scottish Power agreement, Eaga will provide an “end-to-end service” to help the utility meet the carbon emission reduction target (Cert) set by the Government. That includes contacting customers, then fitting and checking measures to boost energy efficiency. Eaga corporate affairs director Ross Armstrong said: “We’re now experiencing record levels of activity under Cert. The Government target is double the previous one and we are certainly one of the biggest players in that market.

“The majority of the jobs are in the North East. More than a quarter of our workforce is based here. It’s about the expanding range of roles from installers through to front-end managers. There will be a whole range of work.”

Eaga’s deal with Scottish Power is the first of its kind and the group also has framework agreements with five other energy companies to work on Cert obligations. The Government has ordered energy companies to achieve lifetime reductions in UK household carbon emissions of more than 150 million tonnes over three years.

Jobs are also being created as part of the digital switchover programme, which Eaga says is a fit with the social inclusion work it already carries out through its Warm Front programme to eradicate fuel poverty. The group is the UK’s biggest residential energy efficiency provider.

“It is a tremendous fit for us. We have established a great position in the market on both the energy efficiency and social inclusion side – both key areas of our business really,” said Mr Armstrong. Eaga, which employs 1,200 people in the North East and 3,000 in Northern Ireland, Canada and India, received the £1.15m grant from One NorthEast’s Selective Finance for Investment.

The scheme awards money for capital investment projects leading to the creation or safeguarding of jobs or company expansion.

Eaga chief executive John Clough said: “This is a significant investment from One NorthEast, not only in Eaga, but I believe in the region as a whole.

“As our business expands and we diversify into new areas, the funding will help us continue to develop a strong and sustainable business which is rooted right here in the North East.”

One NorthEast’s director of business and industry Ian Williams said: “Eaga is a genuine regional success story, providing high quality jobs in a sector that is as important economically as it is environmentally.”