GlenDimplex

GlenDimplex

Formerly called	Glen Electric
Type	Private company
Industry	Electronics
Founded	August 23, 1973 (1973-08-23) in Newry, Northern Ireland (Glen Electric) June 7, 1978 (1978-06-07) (GlenDimplex)
Founder	Martin Naughton
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland
Key people	Sean O'Driscoll (Chairman)
Products	Heating, cooling radio and cooking equipment, etc.
Revenue	€1.5 billion (2004)
Number of employees	8,500 (2004)
Website	glendimplex.com

GlenDimplex (formerly known as Glen Electric) is an Irish-based consumer electrical goods firm headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It is the world's largest electrical heating business.^[1] With an annual turnover of €1.5 billion, the group employs 8,500 people.^[2] The company is privately held, with manufacturing and development centres in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, China and many other locations around the world.^[3] The company also has branches in North America, Germany, Holland, Japan, Poland, Belgium, France, Australia and Scandinavia.^[4][5] The company was founded by Martin Naughton, and is wholly owned by him after he bought out the other shareholders in 2003.

History

The company was incorporated on August 23, 1973 (1973-08-23) as Glen Electric in Newry, Northern Ireland, an electric heater manufacturer with ten employees, and it was founded as GlenDimplex on June 7, 1978 (1978-06-07) due to a merger with Dimplex, a large electric heating appliance manufacturer, on May 6, 1977 (1977-05-06).^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Morphy Richards and Burco Dean Appliances were acquired by the Glen Dimplex Group in 1985 and were based in Mexborough near Doncaster, England. Creda was acquired by the group in 1987.^[11] Belling was acquired in 1992,^[12] Roberts Radio in 1994,^[13] Goblin Vacuum Cleaners 1998,^[14] LEC Refrigeration in 2005,^[15] Robinson Willey in 2010,^[16] Valor in 2011,^[17] and Real Flame Australia in 2016.^[18] Dimplex was the shirt sponsor of Southampton Football Club from 1993 until 1995.^[19]

Brands and acquisitions

Research and innovation

GlenDimplex uses its own design teams and R&D facilities.^[39] The group is actively involved in numerous major demonstration projects around the world including:

• RealValue is a €15.5m Horizon 2020 European Project which is using a combination of physical demonstrations in Ireland, Germany and Latvia along with innovative modelling techniques, in order to demonstrate how local small-scale energy storage, optimised across the whole EU energy system, with advanced ICT, could bring benefits to all market participants.^[40]

• ACCESS (Assisting Communities to Connect to Electrical Sustainable Sources) is an project which will enable the real time matching of local renewable electricity generation to local electricity demand in off-gas-grid properties in order to use renewable energy to heat homes efficiently and affordably.

• NINES (Northern Isles New Energy Solutions ) aims to address some of the most pressing energy challenges in Shetland by using large and small scale energy storage solutions combined with an active network management (ANM) system to create a smart grid and allow small scale renewable generation to play a much more significant role in meeting the islands’ energy needs.

• PowerShift Atlantic demonstrated one of the world’s first fully grid-integrated virtual power plants designed to allow for more effective integration of wind power, using load and wind forecasting and aggregation capabilities to perform near real-time load shifting and provide new ancillary services to the grid.^[41]

• The Greenway is a collaborative venture established in 2010 by industry, academic institutions and public/semi-state players in the Dublin region, whose vision is to create jobs and trade opportunities by activating and developing an internationally recognised cleantech cluster.^[42]

References