Green Cat Renewables CEO argues de-politicising energy can help towards goal of modernisation

Green Cat Renewables (GCR) is a specialist renewable energy consultancy that has scaled considerably since it was founded by its chief executive Gavin Catto in 2005.

Gavin Catto | Green Cat

The business, with offices in South Lanarkshire, West Lothian and outside Edinburgh, has grown from a Scottish consultancy into an international group with operations covering the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and Greece.

Green Cat Renewables forms part of the wider Green Cat Group, which also includes Green Cat Renewable Developments (GCRD), the group’s renewable energy asset investment business; Green Cat Hydrogen (GCH), focused on developing green hydrogen projects; Green Cat Contracting (GCC), a specialist civil engineering contractor delivering renewables and hydrogen infrastructure.

In addition to the main group companies, Green Cat is one of the principal shareholders of Dutch wind turbine manufacturer EWT Systems.

Group-wide, there are just more than 200 people on its roll, and the business generates annual revenues of around £20 million (excluding its EWT acquisition). Together, the various divisions provide a complementary range of services and capabilities spanning renewable energy development, engineering, environmental and planning consultancy, civil construction, asset ownership and management, hydrogen development, and wind turbine manufacturing.

Now in its 21st year, Catto tells us how the firm plans to tap further into the green energy revolution.

​How has the business been built up and how has it been funded?

Green Cat has been built through steady, sustained, organic growth over the past two decades. Rather than pursuing rapid expansion through acquisitions, the business has focused on building deep technical expertise, long-term client relationships and a reputation for delivering specialist and practical solutions, incrementally adding to our services offering.

Growth has primarily been organic, supported by reinvesting profits back into the business to expand capabilities, enter new markets, and establish international operations.

More recently, the group has broadened its activities through strategic joint ventures and investments, including the creation of GCH and the acquisition of a significant interest in EWT, reflecting a long-term strategy of investing across the energy transition while remaining privately owned.

What was your biggest success story of the past year? And the biggest challenge/s?

Successes: Green Cat Hydrogen was shortlisted for three HAR 2 projects – the most of any Scottish based hydrogen developer.

EWT Systems business restart and the first new turbine install was a major milestone for the group.

Challenges: grid reform has created additional uncertainty and project delays within the renewables sector over the last 12 months in the UK. This is hopefully easing now with the issue of updated grid offers to developers. Ongoing uncertainty around government targets, policy and direction.

​Where do the greatest opportunities lie in your sector?

Renewable energy is increasingly being viewed as a tool to mitigate against energy price shocks, and as a means of decoupling power prices from the world gas price. This reframing of the debate fits well within the Green Cat ethos and the group’s skill set.

The Green Cat Group of companies work across the breadth of the renewables sector, supporting a diverse range of clients from farmers, to small-scale industrial businesses, to utility-scale project developers. These projects are led by the client needs, ranging from behind-the-meter solutions to reduce business operational costs and protect against future market shocks; to utility scale development providing large-scale generation directly to the grid on wind, solar, battery energy storage systems [BESS], hydrogen and multi technology energy parks.

These projects help to provide baseload power, while the energy parks, which combine generation and storage elements, present a significant opportunity to reduce variability in the wider system, creating a more valuable development for owners and consumers.

We will continue to invest in our people, who help to drive change on a daily basis.

What are you doing to minimise your environmental footprint?

A cornerstone of the group’s business is to enable the energy transition through renewables and low-carbon development.

We have solar panels installed at our office in Edinburgh to offset energy use in the building and for our tenants. We are progressively moving our fleet vehicles from petrol/diesel to electric vehicles.

​What measures could governments take to accelerate the journey to net-zero?

We feel that energy has been a political hot potato for too long and the first thing that government should do is to de-politicise energy. It needs a long-term vision to deliver all of the works required to modernise the energy sector across the UK.

The short-term arguments being made over a parliamentary term mean that we are still fighting old battles around fossil fuels vs renewables in 2026. It is accepted that renewables are the cheapest source of new electricity generation, however, the electricity network is not optimised for this. There needs to be clear support, and a delivery pathway for the grid upgrades required to transition the electrical network, and this should not be a party political issue.

Governments can accelerate the energy transition by providing long-term policy certainty, supporting investment in infrastructure, and helping industry adopt new technologies such as green hydrogen.

The UK has deep expertise across the energy sector, a strong pipeline of onshore and offshore renewable generation, and a well-established industrial base. Investors and businesses are willing to commit capital, but they need clear and consistent signals on the direction of travel. Stable support mechanisms, clear timelines, and a credible long-term strategy can reduce investment risk and unlock private funding at scale.

Governments should also focus on removing barriers to deployment by accelerating planning and consenting processes, enabling investment in energy networks and storage infrastructure through appropriately designed market mechanisms, and supporting industries facing high upfront decarbonisation costs.

This is particularly important for sectors such as chemicals, aviation, shipping, and heavy industry, where the transition to low-carbon alternatives often requires significant investment in new equipment and infrastructure.

​Do you see AI as a threat or an opportunity and is it something you are using?

Both, but certainly more of an opportunity in certain areas of our business. We are developing tools within the group of businesses that will streamline our workflows and improve business efficiency, leading to better outcomes for our clients and staff.

As with all tools, artificial intelligence is not a substitute for having the right technical expertise in the business and that is something that we will continue to balance and develop.

​What are the priorities and goals for the company over the coming 12 months?

Continued growth across the group of companies, with a focus on our expansion into European markets on the back of our tie up with EWT Systems. This focus will be particularly on Greece, where we have opened our newest office and see significant parallels with the UK market.

Moving our portfolio of electrolytic green hydrogen production facilities from development into delivery is a goal, with first projects reaching operation by 2028. Starting with final investment decision and commencement of construction on our first project in 2027.