Octopus Energy has acquired French energy giant Engie’s residential energy supply business in the UK, its sixth acquisition in two years.
The sale will see Engie’s 70,000 customers switched to Octopus in the coming months, bringing the latter’s customers up to 1.4 million. At the end of 2018, Octopus had just 500,000 customers, but has continued to consistently expand.
Engie’s strategic exit from the UK domestic energy market is designed to allow the company to focus on “leading the zero carbon journey for businesses and local authorities”, according to a statement from Octopus.
Its customers will now join the likes of Affect Energy, M&S Energy and Co-op Energy in being supplied with renewable energy from Octopus. Engie’s business energy customers and district energy supply operations will not be effected by the sale, however.
Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy said: “It is an honour to acquire Engie’s UK home energy supply operations, enabling Engie to focus on their expanding services in other sectors whilst we bring their customers Octopus’s renowned service, pricing and technology.”
Octopus has been very active in the last few years, acquiring Affect Energy amongst other suppliers and taking on Iresa’s customers following the company’s collapse. It has also signed strategic partnerships with Co-op Energy and M&S Energy.
Most recently, Octopus Energy helped to launch the new supplier London Power, in partnership with the Mayor of London.
Elsewhere, the company has been investing in technology to expand in the smart technology sector, including acquiring smart home energy management platform nCube.
In an interview with Current± last year, Jackson explained:
“Our mission is to use technology to bring lower price, more transparent, greener energy to people with outrageously good service, so part of what makes us different is that we believe that technology is the absolute key to an affordable green energy revolution. We need to build deeper tech capability to drive that.”
The company is also looking to expand beyond the UK, and has partnered with the Hanwha group in Australia and acquired German digital energy supplier 4hundred.
