About us

Overview

The UK is undergoing a once-in-a-generation energy transition. This unique market is created by the phasing out of coal, nuclear and large-scale gas plants at the same time as exponential growth in renewables. This change is creating a totally new power requirement in the UK with large-scale renewables needing support from energy storage and flexible generation. Development of flexible and smart infrastructure is critical to support the UK’s targets to decarbonise.

IBNE is a commercially responsible energy company that is capitalising on the exponential growth in supporting the transition to net zero, enabling renewables deployment. We are at the forefront of this transition with our flexible generation potential and are currently developing more than 500MW of assets with another 1.5GW under appraisal.

Our purpose
& values

ESG is at the core of Infra Balance New Energy as we are making a difference today through the reduction of emissions and ultimately enabling UK’s Net Zero future. We take a holistic approach to our business and seek to ensure that our suppliers and partners have a shared vision of responsibility and are progressive with ESG factors.

Environmental
IBNE is providing essential infrastructure to support the effective decarbonisation of the UK energy market. Through our suppliers and partners we look to source from those that challenge the industry norms of carbon footprint, conservation, sustainability and recycling/waste disposal.

Social
IBNE is fully committed to:

  • A safe and healthy working environment for all employees
  • Equality for everyone
  • Continued employee development at all levels
  • Supporting the drive to eradicate fuel poverty

Governance
IBNE aims to hold the utmost standard of Governance in all aspects of its business activities through structured compliance. The Company will operate transparently to ensure it meets the expectations of all stakeholders. We ensure financial transparency and reasonable compensation for management, who are also heavily vested in the Company.

Business model

The phasing out of coal, nuclear and large-scale gas plants and unparalleled growth of renewables in the UK power market have led to significant increased costs of and value in balancing the grid. The solution is flexible and smart power, however the current alternative for peaking power is provided by large Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) assets that crowd out renewable generation and increase emissions.

IBNE has clearly identified the socio-economic opportunity fuelled by renewable energy deployment. We solve the existing issues of power intermittency and reliability by developing, owning and operating energy storage and flexible generation assets that are essential to the UK grid and the UK’s ability to become Net Zero by 2050.

Our current portfolio Phase 1 comprises a pipeline of well over 500MW of ready-to-build assets. We have a further 1.5GW+ of identified projects and this is expected to grow substantially through active portfolio development and acquisitions.

Battery storage
Battery storage will play a critical role in balancing the UK grid. Batteries are charged by purchasing at times of low pricing or indeed negative pricing and then usually discharging at times of peak demand. Moreover, batteries provide very valuable grid balancing services, to ensure the smooth operations of the UK grid.

Gas peaking plants
There will be occasions when solar and wind do not generate enough power and batteries cannot provide the continuity and longevity of power. This is why gas peaking will continue to play an important role in the form of small and locally deployed and fast-response power plants. In addition, small gas peakers can provide power on the low voltage network, freeing up the congested high voltage network.

In the medium term, gas peaking plants will evolve to run on a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen, and eventually only hydrogen, further reducing their carbon emissions.

Management

Matt Appleton

Chief Executive Officer

Matt has worked extensively in the European private equity industry for more than 20 years. He was a Partner at DH Private Equity Partners (Doughty Hanson) and was responsible for investments based in the UK and Europe across a range of industries, including Moeller Group, Zobele, and TMF Group.
Matt qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) in 2000 at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he spent time in the London and Frankfurt offices. Prior to joining IBNE, Matt was Group CFO at a Swiss-headquartered regulatory services provider.

William Andrews

Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer

William has more than 23 years’ experience in the management of diverse and challenging teams in capital-intensive industries. He has worked within the UK energy sector since 2008 and was CEO/Founder of an EPC company delivering large renewable heating, wind and solar projects across the UK.

Alexander Yanushkevich

Technical Director

Alexander is a senior engineering manager with 15+ years in the energy sector, focusing on high-voltage infrastructure for renewables, EVs, and BESS. A leader in digitalisation, IoT, and smart grids, he is dedicated to advancing net zero solutions. With 14 scientific publications and certifications from PMI, IAM, and Cambridge Judge, Alex is an active member of CIGRE, IET, and IEEE, with Chartered Engineer status pending. He holds a PhD in Energy Systems and an MSc in Power Engineering from Czech Technical University.

Thomas Crook

Head of Energy

Tom has 13 years of power, gas, and carbon trading experience, ranging from the manual physical trading and optimisation of the UK's largest power generation portfolio to the design, creation, and maintenance of algorithms for the physical trading and optimisation of UK-based assets, along with writing algorithms to trade the non-physical UK and European energy markets. His experience includes founding and managing several UK and European energy trading and optimisation desks, along with experience in the internal consultative aspects of the design and propagation of renewable and flexible generation and battery energy storage asset portfolios.

Bruce Smith

Field Operations Manager

Bruce, Has 30+ years of experience in power generation, working on a wide range of generators and fuel types, with good technical knowledge of both the mechanical and electrical aspects of power generation.

Tom Gruden

In-house Legal

A professional with extensive experience in the legal, financing, fundraising and M&A sector, Thomas provides expert advice on transactions and legal agreements, as well as effectively collaborating with stakeholders. With a proven track record in managing complex financial transactions, including due diligence, and fundraising initiatives, Thomas has a solid understanding of the industry.

Rob Sanders

Senior Construction Project Manager

Rob has over 8 years of experience working in Project Management within the Electrical Distribution and Power Generation industries. Projects have ranged from the supply of Transformers to District Network Operators for grid reinforcement schemes to the development and construction of Flexible Generation Sites. Rob is responsible for the construction of new projects including Gas and Energy Storage Schemes across the UK across a range of connection voltages up to 132kV.

Florence Jawo

Financial Controller

Florence Jawo is a qualified accountant with over 23 years of experience within various sectors including high-growth Private Equity backed businesses, Insurance, Private Equity, listed companies, and start-up companies resulting in all-around meticulous accounting, analysis, and reporting, successful implementation of policies and procedures with a proven track record of creating a structured and effective finance function. Florence is a Certified Public Accountant and Fellow member of the Association of Accounting Technicians.

Martin Maduneme

Finance Consultant

Martin is a highly motivated multilingual (Fluent in Italian and English, basic Spanish) Accounting and Finance (BA Hons) and Finance and Risk Management (MSc) master’s graduate with 1 year of experience as a trainee accountant in a firm. With an impressive academic background of 1st class Honors in Accounting and Finance, and a master’s in finance and risk management recently completed 9 of his 13 exams and was ACCA part qualified. During his year as a trainee at an accounting firm, Martin was tasked with preparing accounts through the software (VT Transactions and Excel) as well as working with masses of data through Excel. Martin learned to organise and manipulate the data to organise it through the user functions.

Sarah Garrett

Human Resource & Office Administrator

Sarah has a BA Hons in Commercial Modern Music BIMM, Technology University Dublin. She was previously a workplace coordinator, with ample experience in office management. A well-educated and adaptable person who approaches all tasks with determination and creativity. She has obtained a considerable amount of personal satisfaction from excelling in all her previous roles, she also has the following accreditations and certificates, RIN:D - Deaf awareness training, MHFA England - Mental Health First Aid, Failte Ireland - Customer Service, PHECC Ireland - Emergency First Responder.

Board

Stephen Baird

Co-founder & Board member

Former CEO of RCOG Holdings, a Private Capital Investment Company established in 2016 with Rampart Capital, an FCA-regulated Multi‐Family Office.

Stephen has held numerous leadership positions in energy and mining companies, with many years of experience in delivering capital‐intensive projects.

Stephen held a Project Director role at Heritage Oil Limited from 2001-2006 and then went o not become the CEO and chairman of Sea Dragon Offshore Limited. In 2011 Stephen set up an investment and consultancy vehicle, HicogGroup, which provided advisory and EMS for several capital-intensive projects.

Toby Watson

Board Member & Executive Director

Before becoming a private investor with Rampart Capital, Toby was at Goldman Sachs from 2000 to 2017.

At Goldman Sachs Toby most recently was Global Head of Structured Credit Trading which included Principal Funding and Investment and Hard Asset Lending This business underwrote some of the largest global infrastructure transactions across the US, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

Before this Toby ran Structured Finance in Europe where he was involved in some of the largest whole business and infrastructure financings in Europe.

Franck Tuil

Board Member & Executive Director

Franck is the Founder and CIO of Sparta Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund based in London.

Before founding Sparta Capital, Franck spent 20 years at Elliott leading some of the firm’s highest-profile transactions in Europe across equity and credit in public and private markets.

As part of his last role as a Senior Portfolio Manager in Elliott, Franck was also in charge of overseeing the performance of other PMs.

Matteo Scattola

Board Member & Executive Director

Based in London, England, GB, is currently an Investment Analyst at Sparta Capital Management Ltd. Matteo Scattola brings experience from previous roles at Alchemy Partners LLP, The Boston Consulting Group, and Permira. Matteo Scattola holds a 2016 - 2018 Master of Business Administration @ London Business School. With a robust skill set that includes Matlab, Stata, Management Consulting, Econometrics, Fiscal Policy and more.