Ahead in the solar sector

It's 9am on a Monday morning and Enecsys' Danish ceo Henrik Raunkjaer is in ebullient mood.

"There's no one else in Europe with our technology," he tells me in the firm's Harston Mill space as people get set up for the week ahead.

"There's only one other company – in the US – doing this. Here in the UK people are now starting to be aware of it and I'm very positive." Indeed he is. And rightfully so, as Enecsys' micro-inverter technology is finally getting the recognition – from the public and the installation trade – it deserves. As we speak – actually as Henrik speaks since he's clearly in the zone and I'm playing catch-up via coffee – there's a huge media furore raging about the way the Government's feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme is allegedly being abused by commercially-organised solar farms who are taking big chunks out of the £400m set aside to help convert the nation's homes to solar power. But Henrik's already on an unstoppable roll.

"We're right now looking for investors to take us to the next level and due diligence is ongoing." I can see the vision and the mettle shining in his eyes. "We're expecting to close third round funding at the end of March and we'll be using that for the US, expanding our operations and bringing costs down." Henrik's right, of course. There's no such thing as bad publicity and the row over how the £400m should be divvied up brings the topic of renewable energy back into the public consciousness at an absolutely crucial time for the world's energy markets. And Enecsys, whose new micro-inverter technology went on sale last year, is now perfectly positioned to be a global player.

"We are now hiring a lot of people. Why? Because this technology is fantastic and we have the chance to change the game globally." The key development has been to shift from string inverters to micro-inverters. To harness solar power you need a solar panel and Enecsys' box of tricks to convert the sun's rays for use in the national grid. With a string inverter you collect all the energy harvested from the panels into one box which then feeds the current into the national grid. But the micro-inverter means that each panel has its own inverter, so each panel feeds separately directly into the grid, so less power is lost, because previously if one panel went down (maybe it was in the shade for a while), it would slow down the collective feed-in.