About SHV Energy
The SHV Energy Group is a global organization specialising in lower carbon and renewable energy solutions.
It focuses on operating companies that provide 'off natural gas grid' energy applications, services and advice for domestic and commercial customers. It is committed to continually develop energy solutions for this group of customers to enable them to benefit from the latest applications in some of the more remote parts of the world.
Currently SHV Energy is the leading supplier of LPG in the world and this is its core business. This form of energy is the cleanest available conventional fuel for consumers situated beyond the natural gas grid. When it is used in cogeneration or as a back up for renewable technology, substantial carbon savings can be made.
SHV Energy is also an investor in LNG, sustainable biomass distribution, cogeneration technology and small scale solar technology.
SHV A Journey with Energy
The creation of SHV Energy is actually just a natural part of a journey that started over 100 years ago. In 1896 when the founding fathers of SHV formed the company, they wanted to ensure a safe secure and affordable source of energy for their customers. At that time the energy choices for homes and businesses were more limited and coal was still the backbone of the energy market throughout Europe.
This business expanded through acquisition, organic growth, developing innovative practices and by putting the needs of the customer at the heart of the business. SHV also diversified into a number of other market sectors – most notably the wholesale business.
By the latter half of the 20th century, people were moving away from coal for a number of reasons including its high carbon content and other polluting emissions that were becoming less acceptable to consumers and society as a whole. This is when SHV decided to put the expertise gained within the coal distribution market to good use and invest in LPG.
Why LPG?
The desire of businesses and consumers to use gas rather than solid fuel increased dramatically from the 1960s when natural gas infrastructures were being expanded throughout the developed world. There was, however, a problem. People who lived beyond the gas grid could not benefit from this energy revolution and were in danger of becoming left behind to use the 19th century technologies of coal and heating oil. Electricity was also used but it could be expensive and, in remote locations, extremely inefficient and unreliable. SHV saw that the needs of these consumers could be well met by the use of LPG. LPG was – and still is – a naturally occurring by-product of the natural gas extraction and oil refining processes which could be relatively easily compressed, stored and transported to fuel the gas appliances that were becoming so popular at that time. SHV therefore decided to invest in a number of existing LPG companies that, together, would become the basis for SHV Gas.
Sustainability
As the environmentalist voices at the edge of political debate in the 60’s became louder and more mainstream, energy companies found themselves at the centre of this issue. Today the awareness of the consequences of energy usage has never been higher and the debate is at the heart of Government policies all over the world.
SHV Gas companies already had an advantage within this debate as LPG is a lower carbon, low polluting fuel which had already been established as both a more acceptable alternative to oil and solid fuel for buildings and, a practical, cleaner fuel for road vehicles. But, it was time to do more.
Sustainability is not just about what you do but also how you do it. All SHV Gas companies adhere to a sustainability commitment with defined activities within these areas: Safety, Environment, People Management, Customer Service and Community Support.
As part of this ethos, SHV also started to invest in selected renewable energy solutions as well as cutting edge LPG innovative technology such as mCHP and fuel cell development.
SHV Energy will develop further the commitment to sustainability and our relatively new biomass activity is a solid example of this in practice.
SHV Energy – The Journey Continues....
Today, SHV Energy is the world’s leading distributor of LPG. It operates in more than 20 countries and provides LPG for millions of people to use in thousands of applications. The LPG business will continue to be the driving force for SHV Energy for decades to come but, we are looking beyond LPG. We have gained considerable experience in providing hybrid energy solutions incorporating either solar pv or solar thermal with highly efficient LPG appliances. These solutions are used in areas beyond the natural gas grid to replace aging, inefficient and highly polluting solid or liquid fuel appliances. There is still an enormous opportunity for us to develop our activity in this area. Rural areas are also where the benefits of Combined Heat and Power (CHP)units can be at their greatest. Generating electricity and heat from an LPG micro CHP unit could halve a rural home’s carbon footprint if they had been using an aging oil based heating system.
In Turkey, SHV Energy provides LNG to large installations situated beyond the natural gas grid. This enables buinesses, previously reliant on high polluting fuels, to benefit from the latest generation of natural gas applications.
In the complex world of Bio-fuels, SHV Energy is proud to be an investor in one of the most sustainable biomass operations in Europe. Utilising waste from the wood processing industry, SHV Energy produces pellets for use in highly efficient power and heat commercial installations. We also ensure that the wood used for our pellets comes from registered sustainable woodland.
Our journey in the new energy world relies completely on one thing. People. The people we have in SHV Energy and the customers who use our products and services. We are committed to develop SHV Energy by investing in our people. We will ensure that they are empowered to act locally in a proactive and responsive way to enable us to follow the tradition, instincts and values of SHV that have got us this far. We will also never forget that our customers are the whole point of this journey and that our energy solutions will succeed only if they provide what they and our wider society needs and desires.
SHV Energy looks forward with confidence to building on its unique heritage in the energy market and it is totally focussed on delivering decentralised, clean, efficient and increasingly varied energy solutions for people and businesses all over the world for decades to come.