We have always believed that continual investment is vital to the success of Rutland Plastics and over the past 18 months we have invested over £1.5m in the latest moulding machine technology. The most recent additions to our suite of moulding machines are a Wittmann MacroPower 1100T and Wittmann MacroPower 700T (the large machine models of the Powerseries) along with a Borche 600T. In 2021 we purchased 3 new Wittmann moulding machines (one SmartPower 120T and two SmartPower400T) and a Mazak machining centre for the tooling department. This continual investment has been made to meet increasing demand and to become a full 24/7 operation. The new moulding machines increase our production capacity but they also help reduce our energy consumption by being significantly more energy efficient than the older machines, up to 40% more efficient in some cases.
Not only are we striving to reduce the amount of electricity we consume but we also generate our own electricity on site. We produced our one-millionth kWh of electricity in June 2022, which is enough to power around 750,000 homes for an hour with the average UK home using around 3000 kWhs of electricity per year. We installed a 900 solar panel installation on the warehouse roof space a few years ago and these panels have the capacity to generate approximately 20% of electricity demand at peak.
Rutland Plastics has an extensive range of state-of-the-art, custom moulding machines all on one site in Rutland and so we have the ability to produce mouldings from 1g to 48 kg in weight, up to 1.5m in size. The company has been involved in the electrofusion methods of joining plastic pipes for many years and as a result of research and expertise has patented one of these processes. Rutland Plastics also has the expertise, flexibility and facilities to add the finishing touches required for injection moulding projects through a suite of additional services such as machining, assembly and warehousing.