Flybrid flies the flag
26 April 2023
PUNCH Flybrid has joined the Made in Britain organisation whose members have to meet certain criteria regarding the proportion of manufacturing it undertakes in this country as well as the sourcing of components and materials.
The company’s Flybrid product uses technology derived from Formula 1 to store surplus energy from a generator via a flywheel, which can be released when heavy loadings are detected. This boosts efficiency and enables a smaller generator to be used, reducing fuel consumption and emissions.
“Our products are made completely in the UK, which I think is very unusual for a power storage system,” Tobias Knichel, MD of PUNCH Flybrid tells me. “Batteries, for example, incorporate materials that are mined and shipped from the other side of the world.
“So we are supporting UK jobs and the economy, and we source our components from local suppliers, reducing embodied carbon emissions.”
The company is based at the Silverstone technology park in Northamptonshire (above) and currently employs 35 people, although that number is set to grow as production expands.
“We believe we are helping to make a real impact on fuel consumption and emissions,” said Tobias. “Data logging enables us to monitor each site and at the end of December 2022 we calculated that Flybrids had already saved 1 million litres of diesel since we delivered our first unit in October 2021.”
Tobias said that an increasing number of hire companies now have the product in their fleets. One of the most recent adopters is Genny Hire in Aberdeenshire, as reported previously on the blog.
