About us

Ken Gordon

CEO

Ken is a chartered engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with over 40 years experience in building services engineering projects. He has worked in many industries including Oil & Gas, Food & Drinks, Renewables, Agriculture, Construction, and Housing.

He is currently working as a consultant, designing ground source heat pump systems including ground heat abstraction and building physics calculations to provide a fully-integrated system that meets the building’s requirement and the client’s needs. His work covers new-buildings and retrofit of existing buildings to PAS2035. Retrofit is an important part of the business where a fabric-first approach is generally required and an understanding of the integration of the heat pump system with building insulation, air tightness, ventilation, storage batteries, and solar energy is paramount.

Ken believes passionately that ground source heat pumps must be the low-carbon heating of choice going forward to fully tackle climate change. He is also a Director and Trustee of two community groups that are supporting community projects including low-carbon housing, active transport and local energy generation including the feasibility of deep geothermal in Scotland.

Laura Bishop

Chair

Laura is a chartered mechanical engineer, registered with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. She has 22 years engineering experience with a number of blue-chip companies including Rolls Royce and E.ON Connecting Energies. She runs Infinitas Design Ltd, a Derby-based independent renewable heat engineering consultancy where she undertakes the design and development of mainly heat pump, heat network and energy storage projects for a variety of commercial and industrial clients. A complete heat pump advocate, Laura is also a CIBSE Heat Network consultant and District Heat Diva.

Emma Bohan

Vice Chair

IMS Heat Pumps

Emma has had an interest in the heat pump industry since assisting with the start-up of a heat pump company in 2002 that sold out to a manufacturer in 2008. She has been working in the design, supply, install of heat pumps full-time since 2016, and is excited to see the market, and opportunities, expand for everyone.

Andrea Ellison

Treasurer

Andrea Ellison is a Director and Treasurer of GSHPA as well as Chair of the Marketing Group, Chair of the Drillers Action Group and an active member of the Education and Training Committee.

Andrea joined GSHPA in 2013 and was voted onto the Council of the GSHPA in 2014. She has been actively involved in the promotion of heat pumps and the Association and, with experience in finance, company law, education- which includes operating a private school – and a number of commercial organisations Andrea has brought a wide range of skills to the GSHPA as well as the drive to promote the use of heat pumps to politicians, installers and potential users.

She not only attends shows and events for GSHPA, but she has produced an ‘Off the Shelf’ scheme of work for schools for children from ages 5 to 16 which is available free of charge for schools throughout the UK. She is also directly involved with producing Schemes for various schools and colleges.

In her roles within the standing groups of Marketing, Education and Drillers Action she has always focused on ensuring quality is key and the launch of the GSHPA/MCS Drilling Standard in February 2022 was as a direct result of her ambition to improve the standards within our industry.

Away from her work she enjoys family life and travel; particularly with her husband Geoff, 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

Natasha Wilkinson

Arup

Natasha leads Arup’s UK north region ground energy business and is a Chartered Geologist specialising in hydrogeology. Leeds based, Natasha has worked on a wide variety of UK and international projects, including Euston Station in London. Natasha has been involved in ground energy projects for over ten years, and assisted in drafting the GSHPA’s Closed-loop Vertical Borehole and Energy Pile Standards.

Natasha’s other project specialisms are groundwater resources, groundwater – surface water interaction and environmental impact assessment. She has a passion for environmental protection and climate change mitigation which drives her enthusiasm for GSHP technology.

Andy Louth

GroundTherm Ltd

Andy, along with Paul has been proactive with the training development for the new apprenticeship for heat pumps which is due out September 2022.

Andy has created a lot of collaborations with other associations IFA/APHC/MCS/NAPT/and other bodies to make the new apprenticeship work for the industry.

Ken Kneale

Solid Energy

Ken has over forty years of experience in the commercial and industrial mechanical engineering industry and now represents Solid Energy in the UK and Ireland. He has a full understanding of the current market, the new technical advances, the regulation framework and the issues surrounding the ground source heat pump industry. He deals with both large and small consultancies and end users throughout the UK and has a very clear understanding of their expectations. He believes that it is important that the Council represents all sectors and he is able to put forward the views of a manufacturer.

Neil Lawson

GEO Energy

Neil Lawson is a specialist thermal engineer with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a 30 year career in the field focusing on improved efficiency and reducing pollution. Involved in domestic, commercial, process, petrochemical and utility scale applications. Since 2007 he has been involved in the GSHP industry firstly as Technical Director of ISO Energy developing efficient solutions for rural estates, exemplar green buildings and low carbon hotels using GSHP. Neil quickly identified the opportunity of simultaneous heating and cooling, pioneering its application. Since 2014 as Technical & Operations Director at Geothermal International moving into the integration of GSHPs with other low carbon technologies such as PV, solar thermal, CHP and waste heat for heating/cooling at the 72MW scale. He is a Director of Sandford Hydro CIC, who built the largest hydro on the Thames at 440kW, crowd funded from the community. He is a Non-Executive Director of Low Carbon Farming who built 2 World first greenhouses harvesting waste heat from final effluent discharge. Since 2011 Neil has been lobbying government on the benefits of the GSHP beyond the RHI.

John Findlay

Carbon Zero Consulting Ltd

John has over 30 years international geosciences and engineering experience ranging from oil exploration to water resource management. He is a Chartered Engineer and formed Carbon Zero Consulting in 2007 to provide independent technical design input to GSHC schemes. His mix of engineering, geology and borehole expertise is well suited to the complex demands of the open and closed loop GSHC market.

John has worked on some of the UK’s largest open and closed loop heating and cooling schemes as well as many high profile water supply projects. Both areas require sound knowledge of UK geology, hydrogeology, borehole techniques and the regulatory environment. John has provided input to develop GSHPA Standards, the BGS open loop screening tool, the CIBSE WSHP code of practice and the Environment Agency good practice guidelines.

Chris Davidson

GeniusEnergyLab

Chris graduated in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College before spending several years within the Ford Motor Company in Marketing and Business Process Engineering. In 2001 he co-founded GI Energy which grew to become the UK market leader in large scale ground source heat pump systems. As Chief Technical Officer Chris and his team took direct responsibility for over 200MW of system designs from initial feasibility to system prove out and ongoing monitoring.

Chris has been instrumental in working with the DECC to improve the Renewable Heat Incentive after launch. He has also provided training for CIBSE, Cambridge University, Oxford University and Imperial College covering topics from complex energy systems analysis to ground source heat pump system design.

Having founded GeniusEnergyLab in 2014 Chris now focuses on providing design, funding, policy and consulting advice on energy systems of all sizes.

Robin Curtis

GeoScience Ltd

Robin Curtis is a Principal Consultant of Geoscience based in Falmouth, Cornwall. When working at the Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Project in Cornwall in 1984 he developed an interest in ground source heat pump technology. Since 1992 has been responsible for the introduction and promotion of these systems in the UK. He has been involved in the design, installation and commissioning of a variety of ground source heat pump systems from the smallest social housing installations up to some of the largest closed loop projects in the UK.

Robin is the author of several papers and articles on ground source energy, and is an engineering member of the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association. He is a member of the editorial board of Geothermics, and has been involved in a number of GSHP training initiatives.

Matt Trewhella

Kensa Contracting

Matt has a PhD in Astrophysics and spent 3 years carrying out NASA funded Postdoctoral research at Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California where he specialised in the heat and light energy balance of spiral galaxies. In May 2000, Matt made the switch to renewable energy and ran his own company designing and installing solar thermal, solar PV, underfloor heating, biomass boilers, air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps and wind turbines before joining Kensa in 2013. Matt was the Managing Director of Kensa Contracting and has lots of experience in large scale new build, social housing, tower blocks and shared ground arrays. Matt took over as CEO of Kensa Group in April 2022 has a passion for everything ground source and is focussed on building a self-financing, utility-style model for the mass retrofit of low carbon heating.

Andy Howley

Ground Source Consult Ltd

Andy has been involved in the ground source energy industry for almost 30 years. He is a Certified Geo-Exchange Designer (CGD-AEE), an IGSHPA Accredited Installer and an IGSHPA Vertical Loop Installer. Prior to this Andy was involved in the well drilling industry as part of a family business going back 3 generations and thus has a vast knowledge of drilling for ground source systems.

A member of the UK’s GSHPA for many years Andy was responsible for the introduction of the original Vertical Borehole Standard (V1) and has worked on various other industry standards including thermal piles and shallow ground source standards. Andy has also worked on industry training requirements for the British Drilling Association including development and implementation of a Geothermal drilling module for the BDA apprenticeship scheme and was instrumental in developing a driller certification scheme for the BDA.

Jonathan Grist

Viessmann

Having worked in the commercial and industrial industry for 23 years, my time has been predominantly spent at Viessmann, where I have been the Commercial Sales Director for over 9 years. For almost two decades I have been involved with heat pumps and low carbon technologies, and for the past few years I have worked on the drive to reduce carbon emissions in urban areas, with the ambition that by 2025 over 80% of all the technologies we manufacture will by non-fossil
I believe that we educate and support our customers with heat pump technology and help with the transitioning from fossil fuels.
During my career, I have worked with architects, consulting engineers and installers advising them on market developments, product selection / integration, system design and training requirements.
Education and training is vitally important within the industry and I believe we share a similar aim in “ensuring an understanding of heating and cooling” I have a very strong passion for renewable technologies and I want to be part of an organisation that will help strengthen the ground source energy industries reputation, by offering my services and experience in this market sector.

Gareth Berry

Onsen Energy

I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with the GSHPA as a council member and feel my place on the council will be of value to new companies entering the industry, I would like to share the experiences and challenges we have faced over the past few years, helping others entering the industry and building on the great work the GSHPA do. In my opinion educating people in the correct way is key to a positive attitude towards ground source heating systems and the industry as a whole.

Paul Leedham

Matrix Energy Systems

Paul Leedham is a seasoned engineer and entrepreneur with a strong background in heating systems. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Engineering, he has dedicated over 20 years to the heating industry, successfully transitioning from manufacturing to owning his installation and training businesses. Paul is a fervent advocate for the role of heat pumps in achieving net-zero targets. His expertise spans various Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) systems, and he believes in their potential to revolutionise heating technology.

Paul also played a pivotal role in developing the MCS Low Carbon Heating Technician Apprenticeship ans is involved in shaping the MCS curriculum for colleges and provides “Train the Trainer” programs to ensure quality education for students.

Vincent Bailey

BA Hydro

As a young professional geologist I have been fortunate to gain an already wide experience in assessing, designing, supervising and testing a large number of domestic, commercial and district scale closed loop ground source heating and cooling systems.It is the ground-up understanding that studying for a Masters in Geology and working at B.A. Hydro Solutions Ltd has provided me with which means my participation in the GSHPA Council can provide fundamental assistance and a fresh understanding on the many important roles the Association has in our industry.
Learning how to design robust ground source heating and cooling systems and seeing some of the largest systems in the country now ‘go live’ has kept my knowledge of thermogeology and hydrogeology on a learning curve since day 1. The need for better learning tools and a hands-on approach to design and testing are factors, among others, which I see undervalued by newcomers to our industry.As a Member of the GSHPA Council I will endeavour to help improve upon the geological learning and practices our industry has in place as well as advocating for and engaging with regulatory bodies to discuss and where possible refine new and upcoming working policies, practices and processes such as the General Binding Rules which will now begin to affect the installation of new closed loop systems cross the country.

Stephen Bielby

Operations Manager

Stephen joined the GSHPA on 1 January 2021 and has an extensive background in Sales, Events and Marketing. He supports the GSHPA Council and is responsible for the delivery of operation as well as secretariat services including liaising with members, event management & coordination, writing and editing newsletters, developing company/member partnerships, media campaigns, PR and general communications within the Association.