The boss of SSE saw his pay package leap by 47 per cent to £4.5 million last year as soaring energy prices drove up the power group’s profits and shares. Alistair Phillips-Davies, 54, was paid a salary of more than £900,000 and received a £1.2 million annual bonus and a £2 million long-term share bonus. With pension contributions and other benefits, the chief executive’s total package for 2021-22 increased by £1.4 million to reach by far the highest pay since he took the job in 2013.

Times 18th June 2022 read more »

Shell is pursuing a significant expansion of its business supplying electricity to UK households amid intense volatility in energy markets. The FTSE 100 company wants to supply clean power to five million households and electric car drivers by 2030, up from about 1.5m today, as part of plans to diversify away from oil and gas. Shell plans to invest £20bn-£25bn in the UK over the decade, more than 75pc of which will go towards low carbon energy such as wind turbines and electric car charging points. David Bunch, Shell’s UK country chair, said the investments will help “propel the UK closer to net zero and help to ensure security of supply”.

Telegraph 13th June 2022 read more »

Octopus Energy Group has continued to expand its international presence with its first renewable energy deal in Germany. Octopus Energy Generation’s fund management team is to build a 35MW onshore wind farm in Hessen, near Frankfurt. Construction of the Gaishecke wind farm is to start in the next few weeks, with the asset to be operational by the end of 2023.

Current 10th June 2022 read more »

Greg Jackson runs Octopus, the green energy supplier founded in 2015 and valued at £4bn, with more than 3 million customers in 14 countries and backers including former US vice-president Al Gore. Could Octopus become another Bulb? “We’ve raised 16 times more investment than Bulb did. We have a technology licensing business with big customers like E.ON and EDF, and we’ve invested in generation and a heat pump centre. We’re nothing like Bulb.” Before Bulb’s collapse, Octopus flirted with taking over its rival. Jackson said the size of the supplier – with 1.5 million customers – meant there was “no viable route” for the business to be taken on by a competitor before its collapse. Since our interview, Octopus has rejoined the race, submitting a last-minute bid. Jackson declined to comment on it. Octopus took on 600,000 customers from bust Avro Energy last year, and Jackson accuses the administrators of “arguing and quibbling over completely unimportant technical points”. He believes the energy crisis has underscored the need for Britain to move away from oil and gas. “The first nail in the coffin should have been climate change, then it should have been the fact that renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. Now we see this as a national security issue as well – if that’s not the final nail I don’t know what to do.” One department looks after Electric Juice, a service that lets customers add car-charging payments to their electricity bill. Elsewhere, a vast screen displays the progress of Plots for Kilowatts, a scheme that matches areas where residents have said they’ll put up with an onshore windfarm in return for lower bills with areas where landowners are keen to host one. Internally it’s called Winder (wind-Tinder, geddit?). Octopus’s other renewables ventures include a huge push to replace gas boilers with heat pumps, and investment in what will be the world’s longest subsea power cable, linking Devon to a vast solar farm in the Moroccan desert. Now his mission is to turn Britain on to renewables, despite the efforts of a small noisy group, including Nigel Farage, attacking net zero goals. “Climate change is no longer this vague thing: people are literally baking in India and Pakistan,” he says. “I’m just gobsmacked anyone’s opposing this.”

Observer 11th June 2022 read more »

Octopus submits last-minute bid for electricity supplier Bulb. Octopus Energy has made a last-minute entry in a three-way race to buy collapsed electricity and gas supplier Bulb. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, and Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based energy company, are also in talks with the UK government as it tries to secure bids ahead of a closing deadline on June 30, say people familiar with the discussions. Ovo Energy is weighing a last-minute offer after making a bid in November, which it later withdrew, although it is not part of the formal process, which is being run by financial advisers Lazard.

FT 10th June 2022 read more »

Octopus Energy, Britain’s fourth biggest energy supplier, has made a late entry in a race to buy Bulb, the collapsed electricity and gas supplier. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, and Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based energy company, are also in talks with the government as it tries to secure bids ahead of a closing deadline on June 30, according to the Financial Times. Bulb, Britain’s seventh-biggest household supplier collapsed in November with 1.6 million customers and was placed into a government-backed special administration regime. The administrators, Teneo, were provided with an initial £1.7 billion taxpayer loan.

Times 11th June 2022 read more »

“It was like an arranged wedding,” Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy, quipped following a recent encounter with Michael Lee. Before the pair’s first meeting in person, the British energy group had bought Lee’s start-up for $5 million, rebranded the venture and installed him as head of its nascent American division. “All the work had been done, all this incredible planning, and then you turn up at the altar and go, ‘it’s you!’” Octopus, already growing rapidly in the UK, would not be slowed by the pandemic as it looked to extend its tentacles across the pond. Jackson and Lee were introduced via Zoom in July 2020. Within three months, the acquisition of Evolve Energy was signed, sealed and announced. The company made clear how fast it intended to move from the outset, declaring that it planned to build a network of 25 million energy accounts across the United States — either customers of its own, or of companies to which it licensed its software — by 2027. To do this, it pledged to spend $100 million in the world’s largest economy. Such lofty ambitions do not materialise overnight, however. Octopus declined to say precisely how many US customers it currently has, only indicating that this number is now in the tens of thousands. Kraken, its low-cost IT and billing platform, might now cover some 40 per cent of the British retail market following a string of deals with operators including Eon and EDF Energy, but no licensing agreements have yet been signed in the US. From Houston, Texas — built by oil majors including BP, Shell and ExxonMobil into the energy capital of the world — Lee, 37, is working to turn dreams of a transatlantic renewable revolution into reality. “We’ve laid down extremely good foundations,” Jackson, 50, said.

Times 1st June 2022 read more »

Green energy supplier Good Energy has committed to halving the carbon emissions of its business by 2030. The company has signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative, a global body which enables businesses and financial institutions to set emissions reductions targets in line with the latest climate science. While Good Energy said it has “achieved significant cuts” from a 2018 baseline year, when it produced the equivalent of more than 550 tonnes of CO2, COVID-19 distorted the most recent figures as employees worked remotely, resulting in lower energy use and emissions from community. Cherish Jackson, facilities and sustainability partner, who is leading the initiative within Good Energy, said: “Good Energy enables people to fight the climate crisis by sourcing their power from independent renewable generators across the country, but running the business results in carbon emissions of our own.” Jackson added that switching to a hybrid working model has already decreased the company’s commuting emissions by almost half, and green allowances are encouraging colleagues to walk, cycle or use public transport instead of driving.

Current 31st May 2022 read more »

Business Green 31st May 2022 read more »