The UK’s energy sector needs start-up utilities to help prevent larger suppliers and energy companies from stagnating, a panel has heard.
Speaking at today’s Solar Finance & Investment Europe event in London, Centrica UK senior originator Lars Weber said that start-up companies in the energy space were “definitely needed” to help larger companies continue to innovate, stressing that not enough new ideas would be generated without them.
Weber, who was part of the energy trading outfit Neas Energy which Centrica acquired last year, added that competition from new entities helped larger counterparts “set good benchmarks” and “offer better products”.
Centrica has itself been a keen investor in innovative start-up companies. Alongside Neas, the energy giant has brought in the likes of smart thermostat firm Hive and CHP firm ENER-G in recent years to bolster its offering.
Weber also asserted his belief that there was “no longer an oligopoly” in the UK energy market, pointing towards the 40-50GW of largely renewable distributed generation assets in the UK that have helped chipped away at the market share the so-called ‘Big Six’ have historically held.
The panel did however conclude that wholesale price volatility was only set to continue after three more years of reduction with various factors, including Brexit, new technologies, energy efficiency and European interconnectors, creating an uncertain environment.
Fintan Whelan, director at Solarcool with a history in solar PV and wind assets, noted however that overall demand – a key factor in wholesale price calculations – was being abated by greater deployment of energy efficiency technologies which were having an “accumulative, low-profile effect on the wholesale price in the UK”.