Opinion

Two minutes with… Navitron

Steve Knight_Navitron_13

Who are you?
Stephen Knight, commercial director for Navitron

What do you do?
Established in 2004, Navitron is a leading manufacturer and supplier of a full range of renewable technologies.

Where are you?
Our office, factory and warehouses are situated in Oakham, nr Leicester, but our network of over 100 local installers operates throughout the UK.

How’s business at the moment?
Great. With this being the first winter with the Domestic RHI in effect, more and more people seem to be taking up renewable heating to warm their homes.

How could it be better?
Early delays in the Domestic RHI’s launch seem to have led some homeowners to lose confidence in or forget about renewable heating. In some cases, these consumers spent all of their savings set aside for renewables on PV panels to claim Feed-in Tariff income instead of waiting for the d-RHI to come into effect. Worryingly, at its current growth rate, the d-RHI looks like it could underperform by as much as six times the FIT numbers over the last four years.

What’s the best business advice you have ever received?
The most valuable piece of advice I’ve ever heard, which I carry with me to this day and have helped make part of the Navitron company culture, is “make the most of all opportunities as they come along”.

How are you going green?
Our Oakham warehouse is fitted with 740 solar PV panels, totaling 150kW, which have helped lower our carbon footprint significantly over the years.