SSE invests £15m in GI

Scottish and Southern Energy today announced an agreement to invest up to £15m in cash for a 20 per cent stake in Geothermal International from existing shareholders. The investment will be made on a phased basis over the next six months.

Coventry-based Geothermal International (GI) primarily supplies ground source heating and cooling systems to the commercial building sector in the UK, Eire and Europe.

Since becoming established in 2000, it has installed over 1300 ground source heat pump systems, amounting to over 90MW of installed capacity, sized from 6kW to 10MW.

According to SSE, ground source heat pump systems can be used to transfer energy between buildings and the surface crust of the planet, or surrounding air, providing a renewable and energy efficient means of heating and cooling buildings.

The technology can reduce heating and cooling costs by up to 70 per cent annually whilst building carbon emissions can be also reduced by 50 per cent.