Company profile
Living Fuels, based at Hockwold, near Thetford in Norfolk, is supported by Renewable Energy Generation, the £100m AIM-listed renewable energy company which has acquired a 20 per cent stake in the business.
Living Fuels founder and Managing Director is Adrian Venni who has a wealth of operational experience in the field of power generation and is at the forefront of the sustainable energy business.
Adrian, an enthusiastic advocate of renewable energy, has invested a number of years with his research staff in developing a method of converting used vegetable cooking oils into environmentally friendly biofuel.
The challenge of refining used oil
The cooking oil which Living Fuels takes after use originates predominantly from crops such as oil seed rape, sunflowers and soya.
Previously much of the UK’s waste cooking oil was just dumped in landfill sites but this is no longer acceptable or indeed sensible.
Caterers are now legally required to dispose of used oil through registered and licensed collectors or face large fines.
Living Fuels complies with all necessary legislation.
“We can help businesses avoid disposing of cooking oil to expensive and wasteful landfill sites,” Adrian explained.
“It has long been recognised that much of this is worth recovering and refining as fuel, but there has been real frustration because until now the fuel produced has been incapable of powering electricity generation reliably.
“The challenge was to find a way of completely removing the impurities from the used oil, and we’ve done it.
“I knew the potential, and I knew we would succeed with patience and determination. To me it is shocking that a form of oil capable of producing substantial quantities of clean electricity can be literally thrown away.
"I've been running my Mercedes car successfully on this fuel for 70,000 miles."
Helping companies reduce their carbon footprint
This process is most important to companies and organisations in the catering sector that wish to reduce their carbon footprint.
Use of biofuel refined from used cooking oil can save thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions by displacing electricity generated from fossil fuels.
It therefore enhances the reputation of the companies concerned, and they could even complete the virtuous circle by generating their own electricity from the resulting biofuel.
“The importance of reducing carbon emissions and avoiding runaway climate change cannot be over-stated,” said Adrian. “I believe innovative developments like ours have a really important part to play in building Britain’s renewable energy capacity.”
Underlining this commitment, all Living Fuels vehicles used to collect used vegetable cooking oil have been converted to run on the same biofuel.
The team
Adrian Venni - Managing Director
Tony Pocknell - Company Engineer
Peter Vigus - Logistics Manager
Gordon Gardner - Operations Manager
