Octopus unveils renewables fund backing UK’s largest battery
Octopus Energy Group has launched a renewables strategy targeting early stage green energy projects to reduce Europe’s reliance on gas imports
The €220m Octopus Energy Development Partnership (OEDP) Fund has already made its first investment in renewables developer Exagen – taking a 24 per cent stake in the company.
Exagen is looking to rapidly grow the UK’s energy storage capacity, including one of the the UK’s largest batteries – with 500MW of power at a rate of 1GWh.
This means it would have the capacity to export the equivalent electricity usage of 235,000 homes in a single day.
Batteries provide grid-balancing services by storing cheap green energy when it is abundant, and releasing it when it is needed.
Octopus backs rapid renewables expansion
OEDP has also snapped up three solar farms with batteries on-site in the Midlands and North East of England as part of the deal, which Exagen is currently developing.
The solar farms have a combined capacity of approximately 400 MW.
Exagen currently has 2GW of solar and battery storage projects in their pipeline, which Octopus will be able to invest in once they’re ready to build.
OEDP is chasing further solar, onshore wind and energy storage projects in the UK and the rest of Europe.
This is very much in line with Octopus’ wider approach to expanding its renewables portfolio.
There’s also potential to boost assets through KrakenFlex, Octopus’ trading platform, which currently manages 1,300 MW of green energy assets.
The fund is managed by Octopus Energy Generation, one of Europe’s largest investors in renewable energy,.
It already manages £4.4bn of renewable energy assets across Europe.
Most recently, they have invested in floating offshore wind developer Simply Blue, onshore wind developers Wind2 in the UK and NorGen in Finland, and solar developer Gridsource in the UK.
Zoisa North-Bond, chief executive of Octopus Energy Generation, comments: “This fund is helping to unlock huge amounts of new renewable energy across Europe, turbocharging the journey to greater energy security. The more new green power we can build, the faster we can reduce our dependence on gas imports and drive down energy bills for people in the UK and the rest of Europe.”
Jeremy Littman, founder and chief executive of Exagen, said: “All of us at Exagen are thrilled by this ground-breaking deal with Octopus, which will support us in our mission to build smarter, flexible renewable generation projects across the grid, enabling communities access to cleaner, cheaper energy.”