The company is in the process of raising £16 million ahead of an AIM flotation on 21 December.

Hewitt has assembled a range of novel waste-related technologies. Some of the new funds will enable the group to take majority stakes in some of these. For instance he envisages obtaining a 51 per cent share of Estech Europe. This group is behind a technology that creates an organic fibre from municipal waste that can be burnt in power stations.

Similarly ReEnergy has obtained a license from Pirelli to commercialise the Italian group’s waste recycling techniques in the UK. Again, this converts waste into bricks with calorific content akin to coal. These can then be used in power stations. Tests are due to be carried out at Drax Power Station in Yorkshire next year.

ReEnergy is also focused on water treatment and has invested in Oases, a desalination system for use in relatively small-scale situations, such as hotels, leisure and small residential developments.

Joining Hewitt on the board are Brian Harcourt, who brought Ocean Power Technologies to AIM in October 2003, and non-executive director Howard Flight, a Conservative MP until earlier this year. Flight built up Guiness Flight before selling it to Investec Asset Management, where he remains a director.

Hewitt says the company is currently in negotiations with local authorities about contracts and envisages first revenues emerging in 2006. Cenkos is broker to ReEnergy and Strand Partners is nomad.