THE entrepreneur behind Together Energy has revealed he is looking to expand the challenger company beyond its home town of Clydebank.
Paul Richards, the former British Gas executive who launched the firm in 2016, believes the model will work in other “post-industrial” towns. He has built the company, which has around 60,000 customers, on a dual philosophy of recruiting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and driving operational cost efficiency.
Mr Richards said: “We are actively looking for a site in the north Scotland where we can place ourselves and embed ourselves culturally like we have in Clydebank. We just don’t have the right one yet. Dundee is a possibility. There is quite a lot of investment going into Dundee. And we have been looking around the west coast. We’re looking for a rural equivalent of a post-industrial [town].”
Mr Richards said the accounts for the company’s current year will show turnover of around £40 million. He expects turnover to rise to £105m and to make its first profit the year after.
Mulling the outlook for the energy market, Mr Richards sees a “big opportunity” arising from the prospective merger of SSE’s retail business with npower. The deal, which has been given provisional approval by the competition watchdog, would reduce the UK’s big six energy suppliers to a big five.
He said: “The north of Scotland has probably been the most loyal customer base in the UK for a long time. They have a huge connection to the Hydro, particularly in the rural areas where there are apprenticeships and jobs created. The fact that business is becoming a complete standalone business I think will give us a huge opportunity.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here