Octopus Energy has continued its international expansion, targeting a 1.1GW energy generation portfolio in Italy by 2025.
It has made an investment in renewables developer Nexta via the €220 million (£191 million) Octopus Energy Development Partnership (OEDP), which launched earlier this year with s primary focus of investing in green renewable energy generation.
Via the partnership with Nexta, a joint venture will be established create over a gigawatt of new onshore wind, solar farms and energy storage in the south of Italy by 2025.
“Building more new green energy will help reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels and drive down energy bills. Onshore wind and solar are some of the cheapest forms of energy – and Italy can generate it right on their soil,” said Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation.
“To avoid a repeat of the energy crisis, it’s essential we turbocharge the creation of new renewable energy and shift to a low carbon energy system.”
OEDP is providing the funding and Nexta will secure land, grid connections, planning permission and local community engagement to get renewable projects to the ready-to-build stage.
Italy depends on Russia for around 25% of its imported gas and thus scaling the renewable energy generation capacity of the country could be key in securing energy security and achieve decarbonisation.
“The partnership with Octopus represents a further step towards the consolidation of our growth objectives within the renewable energy industry. We aim to play a leading role with Octopus in the energy transition process,” said Fabrizio Caputo, co-founder and managing director of Nexta.
Octopus Energy first expanded into Italy in November 2021 when it acquired retailer SATO Luce e Gas using funding from its US$600 million (£438 million) injection from Al Gore-backed Generation Investment Management
In the UK, Octopus Energy is scaling its generation portfolio as well as announcing a repowering programme via a partnership with turbine manufacturer EWT for its onshore wind assets in August.
