In the 16 years since its launch, Kilkenny-headquartered Gaeltec Utilities has grown to employ 300 people, many of them highly specialised engineers, in Ireland and overseas.
An engineering firm specialising in infrastructural projects for the energy and telecommunications sectors, Gaeltec will begin construction this month on a major new data centre project for Facebook in Denmark.
The social media giant is one of Gaeltec’s biggest clients. Others include ESB Networks, Bord Na Móna, Coillte and Siro, the fibre broadband venture run jointly by ESB and Vodafone.
“We’ve done a huge amount of work for Facebook, both domestically and internationally. They are one of our biggest blue-chip clients,” Declan Wynne, executive director at Gaeltec Utilities, said.
“We’ve just started work on our second project at their Odense campus in Denmark. We’re upgrading an existing substation and power infrastructure to facilitate the expansion of their data centre on the site.”
Gaeltec has also worked with Facebook in Ireland, building two 220kV substations and a grid connection at the US company’s data centre in Clonee, Co Meath.
The Kilkenny company specialises in building and maintaining overhead lines, substations, grid connections and fixed-fibre and mobile networks.
“We work across power, connectivity and fibre. The biggest focus for us right now is fixed fibre, but we have worked on mobile networks as well,” Wynne said.
Gaeltec employs 200 people in Ireland at its Kilkenny headquarters and additional offices in Dublin and Killala, Co Mayo. It employs a further 100 people overseas at offices in Scotland, Portugal and Denmark.
“Our business is very niche, so our skill-set is very specialised. Our strategy has been to focus on the skill-set of our individuals, giving them the space to develop their own skill-set,” Wynne said.
“That’s really what has allowed us to scale the business, because it has created knowledge experts across the business.”
Gaeltec was established in 2004 by the late Sean Hannick and Mario Castro, a Portuguese businessman who is now an executive director of the Irish company.
“Our business has been driven by demand from day one. At that time, the electricity infrastructure in Ireland needed substantial investment,” Wynne said.
“ESB went overseas looking for international expertise in network development. Portuguese company Tegael piloted well and its director Mario Castro then set up Gaeltec Utilities with Sean Hannick here in Ireland.”
Hannick invited Wynne to join the business in 2009. “Up until that point, Gaeltec had been very much an ESB-focused service provider, renewing infrastructure for the utility here in Ireland,” Wynne said.
“Sean wanted to internationalise the business and turn it into a multi-disciplinary engineering firm,” Wynne said.
“We entered the UK market back in 2010, working on wind energy developments for the ESB in England and Wales. From there, we went on to secure utility contracts with Scottish Power.”
Gaeltec Utilities has since doubled its workforce and extended its overseas footprint into Denmark and other European markets.
“The key to our success has really been understanding that our people are our greatest asset,” Wynne said.
“We have an in-house delivery model by and large, so we have a lot of expertise in-house, predominantly electrical, mechanical, civil, mechatronic and some telecommunication engineers.
“We focus on delivering projects we can tailor and we try to be flexible in terms of what we offer clients, from installations to full turnkey solutions.”
Gaeltec Utilities became a client company of Enterprise Ireland, the state agency, in 2009 when Wynne joined the business.
“They have been a huge support in helping us to internationalise the business,” he said. “They offer great advice and have exceptionally willing and capable local advisors in other markets.”