Established

Steve Wade, Managing Director, founded Wind & Sun in 1984.

Steve’s journey began in the early 1980s as a physics student at Oxford University where he specialised in electronics and atomic physics. During this time he began to question the rationale behind conventional energy policy - in particular the nuclear programme which was favoured at the time - and became interested in alternatives. Upon completion of his degree he found that many of the careers open to physics graduates were in some way connected with either nuclear power or weapons development. This period of time saw record unemployment in the UK, government grants for research into alternative energy being cut and very few people employed in the field of renewables. It was also the height of the Cold War; the peace movement and campaigns against cruise missiles were gathering pace, resulting in organised protests and peace camps at Greenham Common and Molesworth airbases.

Eager to support this movement, Steve put together an anti-nuclear display and helped run the 'Munchies & Slurpies' caravan - selling vegetarian food at festivals and events with the aim of raising money to provide free food for the peace camp demonstrators. To show a positive and viable alternative to a nuclear future, Steve invested in a small wind generator and fitted it to the back of his converted ambulance. This generated lots of interest and requests for information about where such things could be purchased (this was long before the internet was widely accessible).

To help answer these requests, Steve set up "Wind & Sun - Safe Energy Supplies" (with support from the government's Enterprise Allowance). Initially working from a room in a shared house north of Oxford, the first few years sales were minimal but gradually more products and customers were found. By keeping overheads low and supplementing his income via a sideline in signwriting, the business was able to survive and slowly grow.

The main focus in those early days was small scale wind power as solar photovoltaics were not then available (the first 17Wp panel was introduced in 1985 at a cost of ~ £350 - £20/Wp. In 1985 £20 was a lot of money! Surely these things would never catch on?).

For many years experience was with providing power supplies for remote situations: isolated housing; leisure applications such as boats and caravans etc. All, usually small, self-contained systems using only DC power which we supplied and installed all over the UK.

For many years, Wind & Sun supplied and installed power supplies for remote and isolated locations all over the UK. These projects included solutions for housing, as well as leisure applications like boats and caravans etc. Typically, these were small, self-contained systems using only DC power.

Today Wind & Sun support customers worldwide as distributors of solar PV products, striving to offer the highest level of quality, reliability, experience, service and value.