BRE Innovation Park @ Ravenscraig leads to major Chinese opportunity for Scottish company

Scottish company Applegreen homes has been invited to showcase its model ‘home for the future’ in China, after launching its innovative modular home solution on the BRE Innovation Park at Ravenscraig.

During his trade mission to China, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, accompanied by BRE Director, Rufus Logan attended a ceremony in China this morning (4 November 2013) where AppleGreen Homes unveiled “The Scottish House”, an acclaimed design for an affordable, energy efficient home, at the Beijing Green Building Park, part of the BRE Innovation Parks Network.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the original BRE Innovation Park at Watford  in 2011 resulted in the Chinese Government signing off the construction of the 780 acre Park in Beijing at the UK China Summit, in a ceremony witnessed by the UK Prime Minister and Chinese Premier.

Rufus Logan, Director, BRE Scotland notes: "Applegreen Homes is one of BRE Scotland's key build partners on the BRE Innovation Park @ Ravenscraig and I am delighted to be working closely with the company to access the huge market opportunity in China via our partners on the China Green Building Park.  
"BRE's involvement with research on projects linked to the Parks in Beijing and Ravenscraig builds on the success of the original park in Watford and provides further opportunities for all companies involved in building the Scottish demonstration home of the future to exploit the huge opportunities in China. Given that approximately 10% of homes in China are classed ‘high end’, built to mainly European designs in a country with a population of over 1.3billion, this represents a major opportunity for Scottish companies like AppleGreen.”

AppleGreen’s Energy Efficient home can currently be viewed at the BRE Scotland Innovation Park in Ravenscraig, at the centre of one of the largest regeneration projects ever seen in Scotland.

The Park opened in 2012, with the aim of trialling and testing new ideas from architects, developers and manufacturers before they were applied to real communities. A ‘ground-up’ approach has been adopted at the Innovation Park, allowing for not just a demonstration of innovative buildings, but an exemplar in sustainable planning and development.

The Park also offers a low to zero carbon demonstration of innovative construction methods and technologies, as well as supporting an educational programme, a networking and knowledge exchange hub and is a unique venue for events.

AppleGreen’s three-bedroom detached home for the future highlights the work of Scottish interior designers and structural engineers plus furniture, textiles, cladding options, windows and doors. Amongst other things, it features a solar energy package that drastically reduces electricity and heating bills and has benefited from research at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Alan Wallace, CEO of AppleGreen Homes, said: “We are one of a number of Scottish companies promoting its products and services to the Chinese market and we see this as a significant opportunity to showcase our Home for the Future to a multi-billion dollar market for high-end homes.’’