Scottish wood-fired heating systems provider Torren Energy Ltd has gone into liquidation but there is hope that its assets and installations can be saved.
Liquidator Delloite & Touche said several companies had expressed interest in the assets of Torren, which operated an Edinburgh sales office and an engineered unit at Fort William. It is assessing the assets and a creditors’ meeting will be held in January.
A Deloitte spokesperson said: “The business was not securing enough sales of its boilers to cover overheads. Basically, it ran out of cash.”
The company, which ceased trading on November 25 with the loss of 12 jobs, operated a turnkey service for the installation of woodchip-fired heating systems, the supply of metered woodchip heating and a consultancy.
Energy services company Egni (Wales) Ltd, which specialises in wood-fired energy, is in negotiation with Deloitte & Touche about running 12 of Torren’s installations, ranging from 80-800kW.
Edward Jones, Egni’s managing director, said the company wanted to make sure people did not see the liquidation as a failure of the biomass industry.
He said: “It’s important that those people who have biomass boilers are not let down and that there is a company that can step in.”
Egni and Torren linked up recently on the UK’s biggest environmentally-friendly district heating system at Atlantic College, near Cardiff.
Torren designed and installed the £500,000 woodchip heating system and Egni, as planned, has now taken over the fuel supply and maintenance contract. For the next month the college boiler will be fed wood pellets, but it is hoped to resume using woodchippings thereafter.
