Wallingford's Howbery Business Park’s position attracts power industry supplier

By Nicky Godding

24 March 2021

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A company specialising on on-line partial discharge (PD) testing of MV and HV plants has expanded to Howbery Business Park at Wallingford. Partial discharge is a spark that can occur in high voltage electrical insulation.

IPEC develops world leading technology in the detection and location of PD in cables, switchgear and accessories.

While the company’s developing and manufacturing base has stayed in Manchester where it was first established in the 1990s to transfer electronic technology from academia to industry, a few years ago, Managing Director Colin Smith decided to return to Wallingford – where he grew up – to make the most of relatives’ support as he started his own family.

“I’ve been based on a nearby business park, but I knew Howbery through family visits to the café, and I’ve been keen to move here for a few years. I was therefore very pleased when a suitable office became available, coinciding with the end of the other office’s lease,” he said. “I’m now able to walk to work at Howbery and am really enjoying the grounds. I’m also keen to look after one of the allotments.

“The park will be ideal for receiving our international clients. Eighty per cent of our business comes from them, which has helped cushion our business during the pandemic. Many of our customers are from countries that exited lockdown ahead of the UK, which meant they were back up and running earlier too. We provide them with complex instruments and systems for detection and location of partial discharge. By detecting partial discharge, our systems can identify defects, allowing maintenance to be conducted. This avoids outages with their associated costs and even serious health and safety implications.”

Donna Bowles, Estates Manager at Howbery Business Park, said: “We are so pleased that IPEC was able to join us on Howbery Park. We’re also looking forward to a time when visitors can return to the park, along with all of our community. Howbery isn’t the same without all of its people, although the wildlife does seem to be enjoying the quiet!”

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.