Octopus Energy, Britain’s biggest domestic energy supplier and one of the UK’s most valuable private companies, is launching a new renewables fund in Asia timed to coincide with the COP31 climate summit, with its first deal already struck in the Philippines, Sky News reported.
The Octopus Asia Electrification Fund will be announced on Tuesday on the sidelines of COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, and is designed to support local green energy developers across the region, according to Sky News. It intends to raise $600m (about £448m) from institutional investors, with $50m (about £37m) already committed by unnamed Japanese backers. Its first investment is in Octali Energy Development, a Manila-based solar and storage developer whose projects Octopus says could generate enough clean electricity to power more than 300,000 Philippine homes by 2030.
Britain’s green champion goes global
Founder Greg Jackson has become one of Britain’s most prominent entrepreneurs and a vocal backer of renewables investment, and Octopus argues that building cleaner energy infrastructure will insulate consumers from energy price shocks. “Asia is at the heart of the global energy transition,” Zoisa North-Bond, chief executive of Octopus Energy Generation, said. “Demand for electricity is soaring, and countries across the region want cheaper, homegrown power so families and businesses aren’t at the mercy of volatile fossil fuel prices.”
The fund will target Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as well as the Philippines, with investments in microgrids, electric vehicle charging and other energy transition technology. Coal still supplies more than 60% of the Philippines’ electricity, while 98% of its oil imports come from the Middle East, making local solar and storage an attractive alternative for a country exposed to fossil fuel price volatility.
Why it matters
The move matters for British business as much as for climate policy. Octopus, which grew by acquiring rival Bulb and aggressive marketing into the UK’s largest supplier by some measures, is betting that its UK playbook of cheap, green, tech-led energy can travel. The launch also comes as the UK government itself debates trimming green levies from household bills to cut the cost of living, and as net zero targets face political pressure at home. For Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government, Octopus’s expansion is exactly the kind of private-sector green industrial success story ministers like to cite, even though the investment is flowing overseas rather than into British projects.
What happens next
The fund will spend the coming months completing its $600m raise and deploying capital into its first projects with Octali. The announcement lands in the middle of COP31 in Antalya, where governments are wrestling with how to keep climate finance flowing amid growing scepticism. If Octopus can raise the rest of the fund and deliver its first Philippine solar and storage projects, it will have proved that a British private company can scale the clean energy model into one of the world’s fastest-growing electricity markets.
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