Renewable energy utility Good Energy is aiming to land more large business customers as part of an expansion of its supply business, the company announced today.
The firm this morning launched a new share offer as it hopes to raise £3.1 million to power a new strategy it first teased towards the end of last year.
The share offer prospectus reveals that the £2.7 million proceeds from the offer are to be spent overhauling its customer platform and developing new generation assets, with large business customers fully in its crosshairs.
Good Energy’s supply business grew by almost a third (32%) in 2015 as revenues topped £60 million on the back of soaring new customer numbers. However Good hopes to further increase this over the next four years and is targeting a customer base of 500,000 by 2020.
At year end 2015, the company had just shy of 220,000 customers of its 100%-renewable electricity and/or gas tariffs. Good Energy generates 95% of its own electricity and gas from various onshore wind, solar, hydro and biomethane assets, and saw its generation portfolio surge to nearly 50MW in the last year.
But, prompted by an overhaul of UK subsidies, the utility introduced a new strategy last year, more details of which were confirmed in today’s prospectus.
The three-phased strategy will see it first look to cut costs in its energy supply business and then target large business customers, identified by other clean utilities as a potential source of growth in the coming years.
Not only are UK businesses facing growing political urges to ‘go green’, but a large number of retailers have said that their customers are becoming increasingly expectant of their environmental credentials.
April’s Clean Energy Summit saw the likes of IKEA, Coca-Cola and Heineken all stress that customers sought environmentally friendly companies, and last month Marks & Spencer revealed record engagement from its customers with its ‘Plan A’ initiative.
Earlier this year Good Energy traded blows with rival supplier Ecotricity after the Advertising Standards Agency backed the latter’s advertised claims that it offered Britian’s “greenest tariffs”.