Transforming Critical Power at Sunbelt Rentals – The Journey So Far

For many years we have provided power solutions to a diverse portfolio of customers spread across many sectors, but more recently the energy division has expanded to include a critical power capability by acquiring Optimum Power Experts (OPS) in 2022.

Since then, there has been a significant transformation exercise to mould it into a fully established arm of our business.

We sat down with our Director of Critical Power, Billy Wharton, to discuss the journey to date and his predictions on the future.

?What is critical power?

When people first hear the words ‘critical power’ their mind typically associates it with power generation type equipment, but it has a slightly different role. In short, critical power ensures that critically categorised power systems remain operational so that sites don’t face unexpected downtime or unplanned interruptions. This is vital across all sectors but especially important for locations such as data centres, healthcare settings, and financial institutions given their need for 24/7/365 uptime.

Building the critical power division at Sunbelt Rentals

When Sunbelt Rentals first acquired OPS, it was apparent to me that there were important steps that needed to be taken in order to properly curate the offering to compliment the wider energy business.

In the first instance we invested significant time and resource into achieving operational excellence internally which has produced new quality processes across all areas of critical power, enabling us to refine our operations and work in-line with standardised workflows.

We have also provided our teams with the opportunity to undertake technical and product-oriented training so that there are no skill or knowledge gaps, which means each member of the team is given a structured development plan that supports their individual growth and development.

This team that I reference has been carefully constructed since the acquisition, bringing in industry leading experts from around the world from Texas, USA to Cape Town, South Africa. This has had a major impact on our success given that each team member brings truly unique perspectives, meaning that our brainstorming sessions are much more fruitful and generate excellent outcomes which in turn enable us to provide the best solutions for our customer’s unique scenarios.

These team members are also helping to collectively drive our new sales plan in the UK and throughout Europe with tremendous milestones already reached. Alongside this, we have also rethought our procurement strategy to ensure the most appropriate high-quality products are being brought into our fleet, with a huge emphasis on key asset maintenance and repair programmes, meaning our customers are always receiving the best and most reliable critical power equipment on the market.

What does the future hold?

As a result of the departmental reinforcement and process standardisation, we have since been able to make significant strides forward, but the journey is only just beginning.

With solid foundations now in place, a fantastic team, and a congruent plan, I believe the future of this division can be captured in a single word – growth.

We have been expanding OPS’ portfolio of deliveries to now support a much wider sector set with high-value, complex projects delivering full-suite Critical Power setups. From energy farms that provide the biggest construction, infrastructure and rail projects across the UK with an almost zero harmful exhaust emission rate, to LV and HV packages for financial institutions, hospitals and facilities management clients, we are continuing to set ourselves apart as the leading critical power supplier throughout the UK and Europe.

And with our wider Energy and Sunbelt Rentals team working closely with us, we act as a true ‘one stop shop’ for all energy needs a customer may have, and this interoperability of services is helping us to deliver comprehensive solutions at a moment’s notice, regardless of the location.

However, with all that considered we are seeing exponential growth in one area in particular – data centres.

Data Centres – A key area of opportunity

Considering that technology in general is accelerating at a rate of terminal velocity, data centres that ensure the critical data supporting its functionality are also growing at a parallel rate. There are already a large number of data centres situated across the UK, with plans for hyperscale data centres to be introduced in the UK, Europe and the Nordics, which demonstrates the huge investment from organisations like Microsoft, Google and so forth.

We see this as a huge area of opportunity for critical power, especially considering that we already provide multiple data centres with the means to remain operational 24/7/365.

Therefore data centres are a huge focus for us, and as a division I see our critical power presence growing alongside their emergence with inevitable expansion across key strategic locations, so that we can continue to provide full-suite solutions for the most complex data centres yet to come.

In-line with our ambitions in the data centre space, we recently exhibited at Data Centre World in the ExCel, London. With more than 10,000 visitors across the two-day exhibition, we were able to speak with key stakeholders and leaders in the data centre space, expressing how the wider Energy team can offer a full suite of products and services.

Reflecting back, it was great to see so many likeminded organisations and individuals together as one, all discussing how we can continue to support the inevitable growth of data centres in the UK and overseas.