The Company
Squab Storage is an award-winning specialist self-storage company that prides itself on delivering quality and tailored services. With 6 operational sites, they have ambitious growth plans for the coming years. The business also has a strong focus on ESG, and as part of that ambition, it is installing solar generation across its portfolio, resulting in significant export capacity supported by structured PPA agreements.
The Challenge
Over the past few years, securing grid connections for new generation capacity has been difficult, as the volume of new installations has increased dramatically. Squab first worked with IMServ to get an initial export meter installed on their site in Rubery in March 2022. Fast forward to early 2023, as new sites were coming online, the businesses needed to get additional connections and meters for new solar developments. However, the environment had changed dramatically, and what was a relatively easy process a year earlier, now was far more complex and bound in delays caused by a backlog of connections waiting to come online.
Delivering a Personal Service
The IMServ account manager took ownership of the challenges in getting the meter installed, managing liaison with the supplier and all the other parties involved. There were additional challenges as the original base equipment had been installed incorrectly by the original developer, resulting in an aborted initial visit, so the IMServ technical team had to correct this before they could proceed.
By taking a strong Account Management approach and developing relationships with all the other parties necessary to get the Export Meter installed correctly, the building was able to go online prior to the opening of the facility, and the requirements of the PPA agreement could be met.
Squab then asked IMServ to take responsibility for the metering for this new project in Stowmarket, and the Account Manager built a strong relationship with the PPA contracting party to ensure that everything went smoothly.
Alex Henney, Managing Director of Squab Storage, said, “Working with IMServ throughout this process has been absolutely fantastic. They’ve taken ownership of resolving issues – even though they’ve been not of their own making – and by doing so have saved me a significant amount of time and headache. Ensuring we have our own supply capacity online in time for business opening, and that PPA agreements can be met has been critical to our business success, and by owning the challenges caused by other parties, IMServ have contributed directly to our continued growth. Their problem-solving has been fantastic, and I’m looking forward to developing our business relationship as we grow.”