Octopus Energy renewables fund makes first investment to develop green energy & UK’s largest battery

Octopus Energy Group launches its new renewables fund Octopus Energy Development Partnership (OEDP). It comes as the fund makes its debut investment in renewables developer Exagen to build new green energy and rapidly grow the UK’s energy storage capacity.

The €220 million OEDP focuses on investing in early stages of building new green energy, vital to help reduce Europe’s dependence on gas imports and to lower energy bills in future.

Managed by Octopus Energy Generation, OEDP is targeting solar, onshore wind and energy storage projects in the UK and the rest of Europe. There’s also potential to optimise assets through KrakenFlex, Octopus’ rapidly growing flexibility and trading platform, which currently manages 1,300 MW of green energy assets.

This latest multi-million pound deal sees OEDP take a 24% stake in Exagen. Exagen is working on large-scale solar and battery facilities, partnering with farmers, landowners and local communities to build projects that help bring energy security.

This deal includes the option to purchase one of the UK’s largest batteries at 500 MW / 1 GWh located in the Midlands, England, currently in development and scheduled to be operational by 2027. This standalone battery would be the UK’s largest, and with 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.

As part of the agreement, OEDP has also acquired three solar farms with batteries on-site in the Midlands and North East of England, which Exagen is currently developing, with a combined capacity of approximately 400 MW. Exagen already has over 2 GW of solar and battery storage projects in their pipeline, which Octopus will be able to invest in once they’re ready to build.

Zoisa North-Bond, CEO 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.”

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