Gloucestershire Firm Wins £150,000 to help turn Taxis Green
A team at RBS in Birmingham is funding an environmental engineering firm which converts diesel engines to liquid petroleum gas.
Top Paying Adsense Keywords
Gloucestershire firm Clean Fuel Systems secured £150,000 of funding to develop further their clean-engine project. The Birmingham office of RBS provided the company with the loan under the Government’s Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, to allow the company to take forward the project, initially with taxi drivers to help them meet greener regulations for their taxi fleets.
The Cheltenham-based company is led by chairman Steven Mills and the business bought the technology to convert diesel engines to LPG in 2006. Since that purchase, the company has invested in further modification and upgrade of this technology whilst researching the taxi market with a view to converting cab engines from diesel to LPG,, not only to meet new emission regulations but also to provide savings in fuel and operating costs.
The funding will be used to build the firm’s engine inventory. The company works on conversion projects with a number of cab operators, to minimise the time a fleet is out of circulation. Currently, Clean Fuel Systems is concentrating on the black cabs, either Fairway or TX1 models, but the company said its technology could also be used in the light commercial vehicle market.
Clean Fuel Systems are also in negotiations with a national fuel supplier with a view to increasing their LPG supply through a small number of “LPG bunker sites” throughout the United Kingdom. Steven Mills, chairman of CFS, said: “We sense a real opportunity here. Regulations mean that taxi operators have to address the issues of emissions in their vehicle fleets and the potential is huge. The additional funding raised provides us the platform to develop a quantity of engines to market aggressively. Our negotiations with a fuel supplier are another exciting development and evidence of the investment we have made in this technology.”
Louise Armstrong, commercial banking manager at RBS Birmingham, added: “The development on this scale is a big step forward for a company of Clean Fuel Systems’ size. They are a good example of the entrepreneurial spirit that still exists despite the tough economic conditions that small businesses are facing.”