Member Article

Newcastle engineering entrepreneur returns to the North East to launch new offshore tech office

A Newcastle-born engineering entrepreneur has returned to his North East roots to set up a new office specialising in offshore technology solutions.

Dr Lee Renforth who was born in Wallsend and went to school in Heaton, Newcastle, moved to Manchester in 1986 to study and then went on to start-up an engineering company that has become a global success.

The company, High Voltage Partial Discharge Ltd (HVPD), are now setting up a new office, HVPD Offshore, in Hoults Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Newcastle has gained a nationwide reputation as a centre of excellence for offshore and subsea technology and Dr Renforth will be the thriving business community’s latest addition.

HVPD are experts in the growing industry of on-line partial discharge (OLPD) condition monitoring of in-service, medium voltage (MV) and high voltage (HV) networks.

The company offers OLPD diagnostic test and monitoring equipment to provide an ‘early warning’ of ‘incipient’ high voltage insulation faults. The technology enables clients such as oil and gas producers and renewable energy generators to take early preventative maintenance action to avoid costly, unplanned outages.

HVPD’s on-line partial discharge (OLPD) test and monitoring solutions have supported customers such as BP, Chevron, Shell, DONG, RWE and SSE to monitor the condition of their offshore assets since 2006.

Lee founded HVPD in 2006 and the company has gone from strength to strength achieving average exports of over 80 per cent of turnover, with the last three years seeing growth in overseas sales of 287 per cent.

This track record was recognised this year when the company won two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in the categories of International Trade and Innovation.

The Newcastle office is likely to add export value to the North-East and it will support HVPD’s headquarters in Manchester and satellite offices in China (established 2012) and Houston, USA (established 2014) in serving customers, both locally and globally.

Regionally, the North-East is playing a big role in UK economic recovery and it continues to grow its exports; recent figures from April to June 2014 showed that North-East exports rose by 2.32 per cent, the highest of all English regions.

The quarterly figures released by HMRC showed that £3.102 billion worth of goods were exported from the region, an increase of £273 million, or 9.66 per cent compared to the same period last year.

With strong links with Newcastle and Durham universities, and extensive work carried out in partnership with Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (formerly Narec), HVPD is looking forward to continuing its research and development activities from the North-East.

Managing Director at HVPD, Dr Lee Renforth, said: “Thanks to its strong knowledge-based economy, Newcastle plays an important role in delivering innovative solutions to the offshore oil and gas, and renewables sectors.

“This makes it the ideal location to support our growing customer base in the area and abroad.

“I’m delighted to be coming back home to set up the new office in Newcastle. I was inspired to study science at Manor Park School, Heaton, and our new base is just minutes away from where I first studied science.

“It means a lot to me and I am proud that we are setting up in a region with such a strong engineering heritage.

“Newcastle has become a centre of expertise for offshore technology and we are delighted to be able to support our customers and stimulate new business opportunities by having a dedicated office for the offshore market.

“This also supports our global growth strategy which aims at serving our customers not only in key geographical locations but also in specific industries.”