Andy Mead was working in festival and event production when he was asked by Marina Pepper, one time Lib Dem councillor for Lewes and notorious climate suffragette, if he could provide a solar-powered stage for a community event.

After some research he discovered there was no facility to provide such a thing, so he borrowed some money off a friend and, along with colleague Paul Brain, built a solar generator.

The early days of Firefly Solar CIC were very much a hobby for Andy. “I was working freelance,” he says. “So I could just freelance less and work with the generator more as and when it was needed. Gradually over three or four months it became a full-time job, and six months later Paul Brain was working full-time too. Now we have five people full-time.”

Firefly develop and provide renewable energy generation to replace diesel generators in the entertainment industry. As a community interest company, they use their work with large corporate clients to subsidise helping local charitable organisations, such as The Martlets Hospice or Brighton and Hove Fringe Festival.

At just three-and-a-half years old, Firefly may still be a toddler in business terms, but their successes are well beyond their years. Clients now include Sky, the BBC, Greenpeace and the National Trust. Despite both national and international clients, and plenty of positive feedback, including winning Event Supplier of the Year award at the prestigious Event Awards in 2009 and Green Business of the Year at the Sussex Eco Awards, success has still taken them by surprise. “We had a clue last year that this year would be good and then the phones started ringing and by the end of the winter we were fully booked for the summer. We weren’t really fully prepared for it, but it’s let us know that it’s right for us to continue to invest.”

Firefly has now begun to take their knowledge and explore other markets, realising that while there are lots of people putting solar panels on roofs, they were the only people designing completely stand-alone, off-grid systems.

Work with East Sussex County Council converting a library bus to solar energy resulted in a call from Computer Aid, a charity sending refurbished computers to countries in Africa. Often their technicians would find plenty of computers for a village but would be stuck with a power infrastructure that just couldn’t cope. In response, Firefly designed a stand-alone system that allows a fully functional 12-terminal internet café to pop up anywhere in the world. Andy says: “It’s essentially a shipping container converted into an internet suite with satellite link-up. We designed the technology to be plug-and-play so you don’t even need an expert to get it working. The lorry driver can just drop it off and it’s operational.”

There are already three of these systems in Kenya and Ghana, with another seven heading to Africa in the next six months.

“So far everything is working as it should,” says Andy. “It has solved a genuine problem for people who need affordable, reliable information. I’m really proud we got that contract, and that we’re having a positive impact internationally.”

* Visit the website, www.fireflysolar.co.uk