Disruptive Clean-Energy Firm, Octopus Energy, to Emerge in the American Market
By Isaac Singer ‘21
On September 29th, Octopus Energy, the UK’s latest tech unicorn, acquired Evolve Energy for $5 million, establishing its foothold in the US clean energy market. Octopus became a unicorn tech company last May, when Australian utility provider, Origin Energy, purchased 20% stake for 300 million pounds. Octopus is one of Great Britain's fastest growing private firms, and the fastest growing private energy supplier in the UK, planing to create 1000 new jobs across London, Brighton, Warwick, and Leicester.
Octopus Energy’s success can be attributed to the fact that they are first and foremost a technology company, which is what makes them so disruptive to the energy market. Traditionally, the energy market is slow-moving and difficult for consumers to navigate. Most energy providers continue to rely on tech developed in the 70s and 80s, which makes switching plans an extremely slow and arduous process. Octopus’ modern cloud-based solutions give them a leg up on their competition.
The heart of the success can be attributed to their cloud-based software service solution, Kraken. The brilliance of Kraken is that it alerts customers when renewable energy generation is high and lets them earn money by using more energy during these periods, financially incentivizing customers to go green and refrain from the carbon grid. For every kW of energy used during low-demand periods, users of their energy tariff will be paid up to 3.3 pounds for using the available clean energy. Octopus is in the works of developing smart grid technologies to make Britain’s transport and heating systems run on cheap renewable energy, with the ultimate goal of meeting the country’s 2050 goal of being completely carbon neutral.
The company has decided their plan moving forward is to license Kraken to their competitors to increase their impact. Committed to making as big an impact as possible, they claim that Kraken will only be licensed to companies who also value sustainability and want Currently, more than 17 million accounts are being supported by Kraken globally. The company’s goal is to have 100 million people using Kraken for their energy needs by the end of 2030.
Octopus’ success and recent emergence in the American energy markets is highly encouraging in the fight for renewable energy. The world is in desperate need of clean energy alternatives and the only way to effectively get people to change their habits is through economic incentives. The difficulty in garnering public support for sustainable living is rooted in the cultural change required to shift away from disposable lifestyles, and secondly the financial burden that clean alternatives present. The acquisition of Evolve is an exciting opportunity for Americans to participate in the fight against climate change in an easy and economically way.
