C&F books €7m profit as company eyes renewable energy openings

CONTRACT MANUFACTURER CF made close to €7 million profits last year and is gearing up to enter renewable energy markets in Britain and the continent.

C&F’s accounts show that group sales jumped almost 40 per cent to €77 million last year from €57 million in 2009.

It made pretax profits of €6.8 million in 2010, a 162 per cent increase on the €2.6 million surplus it reported the previous year.

Athenry, Co Galway-based C&F provides contract manufacturing services to the IT, motor and refrigeration industries from bases in Ireland, eastern Europe, the US and China. The group is set to begin selling small-scale wind turbines, designed and manufactured by C&F, in Britain, Europe and the US next year.

Chief executive John Flaherty said the Government could unlock the potential to create hundreds of jobs in the Republic if it were to set guaranteed prices for small-scale electricity generation from wind here.Wind power plants using conventional turbines, with the capacity to generate up to two megawatts of power each, benefit from guaranteed prices.

Mr Flaherty’s firm is set to manufacture turbines with capacities ranging from six to 50 kilowatt hours. These will be sold to farms and businesses primarily to generate power for their own use.

They can then sell excess electricity to the national grid. Britain and other European countries offer guaranteed prices for electricity generated in this way that are ahead of the Republic.

Figures provided by the company show that the guaranteed price – known as the tariff – paid here is 9 cent for all electricity sold to the grid. In the North, this is 22p while in Britain it can be up to 31p. He said that CF would sell 1,000 turbines in Britain next year, mainly to farms in rural England, Scotland and Wales.

If similar support were available in the Republic, Mr O’Flaherty said that he would sell a comparable number of turbines here.

In those circumstances, C&F alone would create at least 100 jobs, while opening up this market could add hundreds more.

The Galway-based manufacturer is preparing to begin shipping to Britain in the New Year and intends selling into Germany and Italy in the first quarter. Sometime in the third and fourth quarters of 2012 it intends launching in the United States.

Overall, the group hopes to sell 1,500 turbines next year.

Mr Flaherty said that all its existing operations are trading well.