Ryan Xuereb carefully lines up his mobile phone with the corner of the leather desk pad and when he realised I was watching him, he laughed.

“I know. I have a touch of OCD. But you know... I am very aware of little details and perhaps that is what is so important in business. The devil is in the detail. That is what makes us different,” he smiled.

And Econetique is different. Perhaps the best way to understand why would be to delve into its origins.

Mr Xuereb had been working as an engineer for a manufacturing company for eight years. He was commuting on the ferry to his native Gozo and joined the directors of FXB for a coffee.

“One of them started probing me about my values and way of thinking. Eventually he told me that they had a new business idea and wanted me on board. I thought about their proposal for a few days and was intrigued.

“But they had in mind a retail outlet selling photovoltaics and lighting, that sort of thing. I felt that it would be pointless to limit their idea to just this and asked for a week. I put together a presentation showing them that there was tremendous longer-term potential if we also got into R&D. I even proposed the company name to them.

“When I finished they stared at me in silence at first. But they loved the idea and we identified five sectors in which we should be active.”

Five years ago, nearly to the day, Mr Xuereb started off with a desk inside the FXB offices in Xewkija but the company grew steadily and moved into its own premises. He now has 15 installers, as well as a new outlet in Msida. Training is high on the agenda and they approach each installation with an eye for detail.

“We draw up a plan for each PV project, working out where the shade would be on the shortest day of the year at 9am and at 3pm,” he said.

The retail outlets are complemented by consultancy services covering all aspects of energy, as well as project management. However, these alone would not have been enough to slake his thirst for innovation and the company went heavily into R&D with a view to eventually manufacturing.

“As a Gozitan, my dream is to create good, high value-added jobs in Gozo. At the moment there are literally just a handful of firms who employ engineers,” he said.

And the dream is very close to becoming a reality. Within a few years, he set up a subsidiary called Allurwind and teamed up with the University of Malta in an Malta Council for Science and Technology project to develop wind turbines.

“I did some research and realised that there were many improvements that could be made to wind turbines aimed at small industries,” he said.

Having floating solar farms would mean Malta could reach its targets for renewable energy

He started looking into the performance of 4kW turbines and realised that the problem was that they were certified for wind speeds of Force 7 ­– when the operating environment was far more likely to be in the region of Force 3-4.

“The performance curve is exponential so these turbines are operating at a very low level of efficiency for much of the time,” he explained.

He started using a CAD programme to toy with ways to change the shape of the turbine’s three four-metre blades, in a way which would not affect the weight, cost and durability of the turbine. He used carbon fibre and attached the blades to a central telescopic column so that they can be tightened to add more curvature as the wind changes.

“As they open up, the torque increases and they generate more power,” he explained. “This means that we expect efficiency improvements in the range of 15-20 per cent.”

A scale model was tested at the university with very promising results – it took the supercomputer there a full six days to analyse the data, which monitored the flow of every air particle over the blades. The design was repeatedly tweaked and another spindle was added to reduce turbulence at the tip of the turbine.

Now a full-sized protocol is being made in Italy – and will be ready by next month.

“We will first test the turbine by driving it at Ħal Far on the back of a truck!” he laughed. “There is no full-sized wind tunnel here and it would cost an astonishing amount to get it tested abroad.”

In parallel, the company is also working on photovoltaic panels which could float on the sea, again with MCST support. These have been successfully deployed on lakes but it is teaming up with a Canadian manufacturer trying to find a format which would be able to sustain the waves of the open sea.

“We are working on a pilot project, with just a small unit that could generate 8kW at the moment. But, if it is successful, we would look at larger installations.

“We are very excited about this. Land-based solar farms are not feasible under the present policy as there is simply not enough land available. But having floating solar farms would mean Malta could reach its targets for renewable energy.”

Needless to say, Mr Xuereb is thinking well beyond Maltese shores. Both the wind turbines and the floating solar farms would be of interest on a global scale.

But in the meantime, he is juggling telephone calls from installers and clients.

“You cannot only think about the big things. As I said, the devil is in the detail.”