How the Alderley Group is establishing a platform for long-term global success with a world leading climate tech business

Last month and after a tremendous six months, which has seen growth in all areas of the Alderley Group of companies, we announced that our business in the East of England, hydraulic and electrical specialists SMS, had signed an exciting Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with world-leading climate technology company Levidian.

Founded in 2012, Levidian is a UK business focused on delivering a decarbonised world powered by hydrogen and built on graphene.  Its proprietary LOOP technology cracks methane into hydrogen and carbon, locking the carbon into much sought after high-quality green graphene.

The MoU sets out a clear pathway for collaboration, with SMS providing LOOP deployment support services including ancillary systems and the co-development of ‘balance of plant’ design to enable integration with existing industrial systems such as the processing and flaring of oil and gas operations.

The collaboration opens market opportunities for LOOP systems given SMS’s well-established client base and long-standing heritage as a supply chain leader in the UK and track record of delivery internationally particularly in the Gulf.  The opportunity is to support Levidian as it helps the oil and gas sector decarbonise and reduce its methane emissions.

The importance of this collaboration

For us the tie-up with Levidian is important for several reasons.

First, the partnership is aligned with our strategy – one that is focused on providing solutions for low carbon technologies with global reach.

The really amazing thing about our partnership is that Levidian, like SMS, is based in the East of England but the agreement has the potential to impact the global energy sector.  It’s about putting UK innovation and engineering excellence on the map. 

As my colleague Managing Director of SMS Dave Howlett said recently, the East of England could become a global energy superhub – this collaboration could go some way to deliver this vision.

I’m so proud to work in partnership with other British companies to support the energy transition to deliver global innovation.  It’s great for our business, our people across locations as well as for the regional economy.

Second, the collaboration lays a platform to build a long-term relationship where we can work together to take a competitive solution to the global market.  Growth will only come about if we work closely together and develop the clear synergies that we’ve already identified, and which has led to the MoU.

Our collaboration will start by focusing on the UK market but if we need to develop a local footprint in the Gulf, we will be able to do so through our operations in Abu Dhabi, Dammam, Dubai, and Qatar.

Once the LOOP units are in operation there is an obvious opportunity for through life support, which we aim to support Levidian’s clients with.  Importantly, we’ve got people on the ground to give clients the service they need for long-term service support.  Levidian has a transformative, world-class technology – we want to help them get it to market and give their clients the support they deserve.

Third, in terms of delivery, our collaboration with Levidian foresees the development of a low carbon, readily available, standardised, scalable, and affordable quality checked package.  It’s a ‘plug and play’ deployable green solution that responds to the needs of the market that benefits all in the fight against climate change.

For all these reasons, it’s worth keeping an eye out for more on our partnership with Levidian.

When I became CEO of Alderley in 2019, I wanted to establish the Alderley Group as a hotbed for progressive UK engineering – this collaboration delivers on that objective.