We make products that solve real problems: tile cracking on Rosemary and plain tile roofs, cable entry without separate flashings, rail overhang that breaks the visual line of an array, flat roof mounting that takes too long to set up. Each one was developed by going out on the tools first — understanding the problem properly before designing the solution.
1.5M+
Hook Mats sold
Distinctive
Bright green packaging
UK Stocked
Through Leading Distributors.
Installer Focused
Solutions that save time and prevent callbacks
Our Story
The Person Behind Renew
I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I started so long ago there wasn’t even a word for it yet.
That’s not a boast. It’s just the truth. From the time I was eleven years old, I’ve looked at the way things are done and thought: that could be better. It doesn’t have to be that way. Let me have a go.
That instinct is the reason Renew Energy exists.
Growing Up in Kill
I grew up in a small village in rural County Kildare called Kill. My dad was a farm manager. My mum kept lodgers — mostly for the bloodstock sales that brought buyers and handlers and all manner of characters through that part of Ireland every year.
Our house was modest but my mum was proud of it. She had a talent for making things nice and a fierce determination to improve them when she could.
We had a new house when I was young — bought in 1973. It felt modern for the time. Central heating. A brand new fitted kitchen in bright orange with aluminium trim handles. Even fitted wardrobes, which were considered quite something in those days, even if they were little more than sheets of chipboard with butterfly hinges and a single central shelf to support the hanging rail. Simple. But impressive for the era.
As the years went on and my mum saved up, the wardrobes got better. Melamine-faced chipboard. Then UPVC edging. Then concealed Blum hinges. She found a carpenter she trusted and kept going back to him as her standards — and her budget — grew. I was probably ten when I started watching him work.
I watched everything. Every cut, every joint, every fitting. I’m sure I drove him mad but I couldn’t help it. I needed to understand how something that started as flat sheets of material became something useful. Something you could open a drawer on or hang a coat in.
How could I be worried about homework when I had six units to get out for the weekend?
A Lifetime of Making Things Better
That was the beginning of something I’ve never stopped doing.
Since then I’ve been involved in all kinds of enterprises — some involving design and manufacturing, some in sales and marketing. The specifics have varied. The underlying instinct never has.
I don’t see things as they are. I see things as they could be. If something doesn’t do the job it’s supposed to do as well as it should, it needs to change. It needs improving. It needs someone to at least try.
That’s been my mission my entire life.
I retired at forty. Then I decided to build two eco-houses during the Covid years — a project that turned into quite the education. It was through building those properties that I met the solar installer who changed everything. He knew I’d spent my career designing and manufacturing products. He started telling me he was struggling to get hold of reliable mounting system components. That some of what was available was overpriced. Poorly made. Not really fit for purpose.
How Renew Started
I looked at the products that were available to solar installers in the UK and I saw the same thing I’d always seen throughout my career: things that hadn’t been thought about properly. Hardware that was overengineered in places that didn’t matter and underengineered in places that did. Products designed without anyone asking what actually happens on a roof.
I knew they could be done better.
So I did what I’ve always done. Before I designed anything, I went out and did installs myself. I wanted to feel the problems, not just hear about them. I wanted to know what it was actually like to be on a roof in February trying to fit a hook to a Rosemary tile without cracking it. To run cables. To fit bird mesh around a rail that protruded six inches beyond the last panel.
Then I started designing.
The first product was the Hook Mat — a shock-absorbing rubber tile replacement that eliminates the need to cut tiles on Rosemary and plain tile roofs and prevents the cracking that costs installers time and callbacks. The second was the Fast Tub — a ballasted flat roof mounting solution designed for speed and simplicity.
What We're Building
The renewable energy industry should be innovative. It often isn’t.
The sector has grown fast — faster than the hardware that supports it. Most mounting systems are still built to a standard that hasn’t moved much in years. They work, more or less. But they haven’t been thought about. Not really.
We think about them.
Every product we make is developed with real-world installation in mind — tested rigorously, engineered to a standard the industry has been missing, and designed to make the installer’s job faster, cleaner, and better. We build genuine relationships with our customers and take what they tell us seriously. When an installer comes back to us with a problem, that’s a product brief.
We’ve grown from one customer to a national distribution network. From one product to a full range. And we’re still developing new ones — because the problems haven’t all been solved yet.
I don’t intend to retire. I love it too much.
— Donal O’Dwyer, Founder, Renew Energy
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