Hello, I'm Dale
I started out at SgurrEnergy in Glasgow, doing the technical checks that banks and investors need before they put money into solar and wind projects. That job teaches you one habit above all: you are not paid to be enthusiastic, you are paid to find the thing that will go wrong and put a number on it.
I then spent seven years in Copenhagen on the other side of the table. First designing large solar plants at European Energy and advising on the contracts around them. Then at Better Energy, a company that builds and owns solar farms, where I built the systems that watch the operating fleet, led digitalisation across the business, and finally ran plant engineering for everything the company designed.
Building and running assets after somebody else has reviewed them changes what you look for. You learn which findings actually mattered, which were noise, and how much of a system's lifetime performance is decided months before anything is built.
I founded Apex in 2025 because that experience is almost never available to the people who need it most: the business owner with a quote on the desk, the fund with a portfolio that is quietly drifting, the family putting solar on a new house. A 400 kW roof deserves the same rigour as a 40 MW farm. That gap is the whole reason for the practice.
- 11 yrsengineering solar, from rooftops to solar farms
- 2 GW+of solar checked, designed or run
- 2 daysturnaround on a second opinion
- 100%independent: nothing to sell you but advice
Where the experience comes from
- Founder and Principal Engineer Apex Renewable Engineering, Glasgow
Independent solar and battery advice for households, small businesses, farms and estates across the UK.
- Senior Director, Plant Engineering Better Energy, Copenhagen
Led the four plant engineering teams of a utility-scale developer and owner-operator: energy systems, design and drawings, energy yields, and civil engineering.
- VP, Director of Digital Solutions Better Energy, Copenhagen
Built the platforms the business used to run and analyse an operating fleet: performance, reporting and numerical modelling across finance, development, operations and design.
- Head of Systems and Analysis Better Energy, Copenhagen
Responsible for the systems that collect and analyse operational data, and for the performance of the parks.
- Senior Project Engineer European Energy, Copenhagen
Design across the solar pipeline and technical input to EPC, O&M and financing contracts. Assets in the UK, Egypt, Australia, Canada, Italy and Portugal.
- Renewable Energy Consultant SgurrEnergy (now Wood), Glasgow
Technical due diligence and owner’s engineering for lenders, funds and developers; plant design optimisation, yield studies and data analytics.
- Power Academy intern National Grid, Warwick, Leeds and Boston MA
Network planning and transmission line engineering.
The full record, with dates, is on LinkedIn.
Credentials
Insurance details, a CV in the format lenders and solicitors expect, and references are available on request.
- MEng, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering with International StudiesUniversity of Strathclyde, 2010 to 2015
- Exchange year, Electrical and Electronic EngineeringNanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2013 to 2014
- Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET)Since 2010
- Royal Academy of Engineering Advanced Leadership Award2013
- IET Power Academy Scholarship, with National Grid2011
- Royal Academy of Engineering alumnusSince 2013
Four things worth knowing up front
I write for the person deciding
If you are a finance director, an estate manager or someone building a house, you should be able to read my findings and know what to do next. That is what "engineering, in your language" means.
I will tell you when the answer is no
Some roofs should not have solar on them. Some schemes do not pay back. Some quotes are fine. Saying so is the point of hiring somebody who is not selling you anything.
Fixed fees wherever the scope allows
You should know what a piece of work costs before it starts. Open-ended day rates are for genuinely open-ended problems, and I will say so if that is what yours is.
Independence is a written policy
Apex takes no commission from anyone in the supply chain and publishes the relationships that could conceivably test that. The policy is here.
I’d just put a deposit on a new-build and the developer’s contractor offered me three PV options. I’m an electrical engineer, so I could read the specs, but I wanted an independent check before spending £12,000. Dale modelled the yield and payback for each system and gave me a clear report, so I could choose with confidence. I’d highly recommend him.
I have come to highly appreciate Dale’s expertise as an engineer, and just as important, his ability to explain complex technical issues to non-engineers.
Not sure where to start? That is what the first call is for.
Most enquiries begin with a fifteen-minute conversation and a look at whatever you already have: a quote, a screenshot of your monitoring app, a contract, your bills. If the honest answer is that you do not need me, I will say so, and it costs you nothing.