Headed by Devrim Celal, the fulfilment platform has announced a multi-year deal with municipal utility Saint John Energy, (SJE) in New Brunswick on Canada’s east coast, licencing Kraken’s end-to-end customer service platform.

As Kraken’s first partner in the North American energy market to license its customer platform, SJE can now use Kraken to support its progress towards a decentralised, decarbonised grid for its 36,000 customers.

SJE will adopt Kraken’s end-to-end utility operating system, enabling it to create & brand new green energy-focused services, deliver advanced customer care through relentlessly efficient processes, and flexibly manage its distribution network.

Kraken, which is part of Octopus Energy Group, will import and integrate all of SJE’s residential & business customers onto its all-in-one customer service, billing, optimisation, and asset management platform.

As Canada’s oldest incorporated city, Saint John on the 45^th parallel has been a test bed for electrification. Its 70,000 or so inhabitants face average January temperatures of minus 12 Celsius, and 167 days a year when temperatures do not rise above freezing point.

So the municipal power provider has had to come up with energy innovations, deemed among the most forward-looking in north America. More than 75 percent of the city’s customers have homes & premises heated by electricity. More than 70 percent of customers rent water heaters, and more than 20 percent of residents rent heat pumps.

In 2019, SJE became the world’s first utility to deploy a Tesla Megapack to store power, cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and reduce grid strain.

As the utility continues to employ solutions to reach Net Zero, the partners say Kraken’s end-to-end management platform will be critical in supporting the utility’s future energy transaction needs while easing emerging grid constraints resulting from new technologies in renewable generation and consumer low-carbon behaviours.

Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy Group, said: “Around the globe, Kraken partners with some of the most trusted energy brands to decentralise, decarbonise, and above all, modernise the grid.

“Saint John Energy’s track record as an innovative early adopter makes this partnership a natural fit for us as we look to drive the energy transition worldwide. As our first utility and distribution partner in North America, we are excited to support Saint John Energy in bringing more affordable, reliable solutions to its customers in Canada.”

Ryan Mitchell, president and CEO of Saint John Energy said: “We’re proud and excited to partner with Kraken, which not only has a transformative platform but an international reputation for best-in-class solutions tailored to the energy industry.”

“Implementing its solutions will give our customers more information and control over their energy needs” Mitchell added.  “It will allow Saint John Energy to pursue more innovative solutions in clean energy and the transition to Net Zero.”

The Canadian deal follows Kraken’s recent pilot partnership to reduce grid constraints in Connecticut, its successful U.S. launch of SmartFlex, and a licensing agreement with a Texas-based energy asset manager, Tenaska.

Kraken currently looks after 54 million utility customers across the globe. Managing around 155,000 domestic devices— or over 38 GW of contracted power, it stands as one of the largest residential virtual power plants in the world.

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Consolidating its position as the UK’s largest electricity supplier, the supplier says absorbing the Shell client base beat its own record by four months, a record set in 2022 when the company took over Bulb’s 1.5 million customers.

Its industry-leading standards of customer services were unaffected by the latest transition, according to the company.

The first Shell customer was transferred over to Octopus’ systems just before Christmas to test the process. Full migration began on 30 January.

Octopus’ technology platform, Kraken, was behind the rapid absorption.  Part of the group since foundation in 2015, Octopus claims Kraken is UK power’s most adept software system for large-scale customer migrations.

Octopus says Kraken is now contracted to serve 54 million energy accounts globally. That number includes around half of all UK energy accounts, managed under license deals with E.ON Next and EDF, besides its parent.

As part of the Shell adoption, Octopus has offered more than 6,000 of Shell’s most vulnerable customers free, energy-efficient electric blankets to help them stay cosy and reduce their bills.

Octopus says its analysis reveals customers who have used electric blankets have saved around 20% on their winter bills, or an average winter saving of £150.

Last month Which?’s customer service survey saw Octopus perform best for quick and effective customer service, scoring 25 points above the industry average.

Octopus founder Greg Jackson commented: “We are thrilled to have completed the transfer of all Shell Energy customers to Octopus Energy, achieving this milestone in record time.

“Thanks to the effectiveness of Kraken and Octopus’ promise of brilliant customer service, we have seamlessly transitioned customers to our platform while ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience.”

First announced in September 2023, the purchase of Shell Energy Retail’s 1.3 million customers was completed in December 2023. All 500 customer-facing employees at Shell Energy Retail were offered new roles at Octopus Energy, with the majority based at Octopus’ new Coventry office.

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Licencing Kraken, the operations and software platform underpinning Greg Jackson’s challenger supplier, to both the gas company serving Japan’s capital city, and to Coventry-based water company Severn Trent, represents two globe-straddling transactions for Octopus, now risen in its seven years of existence to become Britain’s Number 2 power firm, in terms of account numbers.

Kraken, a German word for Octopus, has been the operational information hub of the UK challenger, its ‘deep brain’ supporting service provision, customer account management, plus transactions and billing.

Purchased in the British supplier’s early days and developed further under Boston Consulting alumnus Deepak Ravindran, Kraken has attracted increasing licencing income from utility and broadband providers as far apart as Sydney, Silicon Valley and Houston, as well as Tokyo.

Today’s deals bring the total number of energy, water and broadband accounts Kraken is licensed to manage to between 40 and 50 million, halfway towards the company’s goal of managing 100 million by 2027.

‘O-heyo, Tako-kun ‘ / Hello, little octopus

In the land of the rising sun, the first of today’s deals will see Kraken managing 3 million electricity customers of Tokyo Gas, with potential to add around eleven million gas customers in future.  Tokyo Gas has been a Kraken client for the past two years.

Founded as long ago as 1885, publicly quoted Tokyo Gas’s total of eleven million customers ranks it as Japan’s biggest retailer of natural gas.   Sales of ‘low voltage’ electric power began as recently as 2016, the year Octopus took off in Britain.

Back home, from today Coventry-headquartered water utility Severn Trent  is also now paying for Kraken to manage its 4.6 million accounts, including via customer service interactions, also powered by Kraken.

Extended and developed by Octopus Energy Group, Kraken has disrupted the energy sector with its operating efficiencies, drastically reducing the cost-to-serve, and improving customer and employee satisfaction.

Kraken launched to the market in 2016 with Octopus as its first client. It turbocharged Octopus’ rapid expansion and helped make it the only energy supplier to be Which? recommended six years in a row.

Severn Trent is the first water company to achieve the highest rating for its environmental performance from The Environment Agency for four consecutive years. The Midlands based FTSE 100 plans to invest £12.9bn in its region, bringing 7,000 jobs and major new projects that include laying new water mains the length of the UK – twice – in response to climate change and population growth.

 ‘Goin’ back to Jackson, / Hotter than a pepper sprout’

Of today’s licencing deals, Octopus CEO and founder Greg Jackson, pictured with Ravindran, observed: “Japan is the largest competitive energy market in the world – and no company is more respected than Tokyo Gas. Combined with Japan’s stringent requirements for customer service and the need to decarbonise rapidly, it’s a huge privilege for Kraken to be chosen”.

Tokyo Gas CEO Shinichi Sasayama explained; “We visited Octopus Energy and Kraken in London back in 2019, and were impressed by  their excellent business model and the platform that supports it. We are delighted that just a few years later Tokyo Gas is the first company in Japan to license the Kraken platform”.

Deepak Ravindran, CEO of Octopus’ Kraken Utilities arm, declared: “Unleashing the power of Kraken unlocks both better service for customers, and operational efficiencies never seen before in utilities. We’re thrilled to join forces with Tokyo Gas and Severn Trent as we gear up to bring our cutting-edge tech to even more utilities.”

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No price was disclosed for the purchase, which Octopus completed through Impello, a holding subsidiary of the oil super-major.

Today’s deal takes the seven year-old UK challenger to nearly 6.5 million household accounts here, or over 11 million meter points. In Germany, Octopus’ customer base will grow to almost 300,000 accounts.

Hydrocarbon behemoth Shell held a contest of suitors to its dowry of 1.4 million home energy customers in both territories, accounting for 2.5 million meter points –  and 500,000 broadband customers.

Octopus is telling Shell Energy Retail customers to do nothing right now, and just sit tight.  The new owner will contact them during 2023’s final three months, following expected approval from energy regulators in London and Berlin.

Octopus has a strong track record in large-scale customer migrations through its proprietary tech platform Kraken. The company recently completed the transfer of 1.5 million Bulb customers in just six months – an industry record –, all while maintaining its award-winning customer service levels.

Recent analysis by international management consultants Bain & Company found that Octopus Energy has the highest approval rating of any UK energy supplier.

For six years in a row, the company has won Recommended Energy Supplier status from UK consumer advocates Which?  Octopus also recently topped Citizens’ Advice’s star ratings.

Octopus is headquartered in the UK and operates in 15 countries, with businesses in energy retail, generation, technology and electric vehicles. It has received well over $1bn in investment from global investors, including investment funds, pension funds and large energy companies.

Two years ago, the New York-based investment fund co-founded by former US vice-president Al Gore injected the equivalent of £483 million, securing a 13% stake in Octopus.

On the Shell deal, founder and CEO Greg Jackson commented: “Octopus has proven that it delivers game-changing service whilst innovating and investing relentlessly towards a cheaper cleaner energy system.

“Our commitment to customers is paramount and we will do whatever it takes to deliver the Octopus promise when we welcome these new customers too.”

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Octopus Energy is teaming up with award-winning sustainable housebuilder Verto to bring forward more developments in its ‘Zero Bills’ campaign.

‘Zero Bills’ is a world’s-first smart proposition, enabling customers to move into homes which are fully kitted out with green energy technology – including solar panels, home batteries and heat pumps – For at least five years, Octopus & its partners guarantee no energy bills will be necessary.

After accrediting 600 ‘bill-free’ homes last year with other developers in Essex, the supplier says it is now extending the scheme to Verto and to all other British home builder meeting its standards.

The duo will collaborate on commissioning 70 homes in Exeter & Cornwall, fitted with high-grade insulation, on-site PV generation and in-home batteries, ensuring no purchase of energy is necessary.

Octopus says its pilot schemes have proved that existing in-home technologies are enough to outfit properties so that occupants need pay nothing for extra energy.

The homes will be managed by Kraken, Octopus’ proprietory energy management software platform. It will balance generation sources such as heat pumps and PV panels against storage and load from household appliances, ensuring no external bill need be levied.

Homes currently account for 13% of Britain’s carbon emissions, Octopus observes.

Besides Verto, a further 80 home development firms have entered its accreditation process, including several volume housebuilders.

More than 1,200 homes have been submitted already for assessment under the Zero Bills initiative. Accredited plots span affordable homes, shared ownership, private and rented housing.

Octopus uses its proprietary Kraken software platform to assess buildings’ eligibility. To qualify, new developments must be fitted with solar panels, home batteries, and forms of electrified heating such as heat pumps. Many newbuild homes are already fitted with these clean energy solutions as standard.

Zero energy bills benefit sellers of new properties, Octopus argues.

“We’re on a mission to make ‘Zero Bills’ the new standard for homes”, said Michael Cottrell, director of the supplier’s initiative. “By partnering with developers like Verto, we’re scaling this efficient green technology to homes everywhere while driving down costs for consumers.

“The technology is already proven. Through Octopus’ proprietary offering we can now bring it all together and optimise it in new houses. Together with forward-thinking developers, we can make energy bills and home emissions a thing of the past.”

Read here for more information.

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The deal was signed yesterday in Dubai by Masdar’s CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi and Octopus founder Greg Jackson.

Also pictured – centre – is the investor’s chairman Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE’s minister for advanced technology.  This December Dr Al Jaber will preside over the CoP28 climate talks in Dubai.

The deal will enable Masdar to optimise and expand its energy trading capabilities in Britain, helping to accelerate the rollout of renewables across the country.

In October Masdar bought London-based renewables investors Arlington Energy, and announced its commitment to invest £1 billion in UK battery storage.

Its generation assets here already included the 402MW Dudgeon wind farm off the coast of Norfolk, and the 630 MW London Array, one of the world’s largest wind farms.  They are part of Masdar’s 20GW portfolio of renewable projects, spread across more than 40 countries.

Further international co-operation looks set to follow.  The parties said they will assess possibilities for joint participation, exploring collaborative opportunities in renewable generation.

Kraken is the core of Octopus’s management of generation and power trades.  It is contracted to manage 38,000 green energy assets and 5GW of capacity across in ten countries,

By the end of this year, the company intends Kraken to manage 100,000 devices and 6 GW of capacity.

According to Octopus, state-backed Masdar chose the deep-tech platform for its benefits in low cost, high efficiency management of energy flows and trades.  Kraken enables extended analytics, data and real time monitoring for a wide range of distributed power resources, including grid-scale storage.

Masdar’s CEO Mr Al Ramahi  said: “We and Octopus Energy share a common commitment to pioneering innovative clean energy solutions that disrupt and transform the energy market.

“As we expand our presence in the UK energy sector through our £1 billion investment, Kraken will provide us with the flexibility we need to scale our business rapidly”.

Octopus CEO Greg Jackson responded: “Masdar has established itself as one of the leading investors in renewable technologies around the world.

“Working together with their infrastructure expertise and Kraken’s world-leading technology, we can make a real difference – driving cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy at scale.”

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Enduring losses and commercial pain could be a price worth paying, on the way to building what Jackson today calls “a cleaner, cheaper, more resilient energy system” .

The maverick behind his privately held seven year old energy supplier, now Britain’s third biggest, commanding with over 5 million accounts following absorption of 1.5 million from Hayden Wood’s under-hedged Bulb, made the remarks as he presented full year results to last April for his privately held firm.

Octopus’ £ 141 million operating loss came about as it decided to absorb £150 million of tariff rises and cost mitigation measures, protecting its customers from the first eye-watering increases on wholesale markets. Jackson said Octopus was the only big supplier to do so.

Revenues more than doubled, to £3.9 billion, up from £1.9 billion, boosted by assertive product innovations, but principally due to higher UK tariffs resulting from Vladimir Putin’s rape of Ukraine.

International expansion helped the sales boom. Octopus debuted in Poland, and bought into existing operations in Spain, France and Italy.  It now serves 13 national markets.

“We could have made a profit, but now’s not the time”

Kraken, the group’s sophisticated trading & fulfilment platform, benefitted again from licencing deals at home &  overseas.  The division’s gross profit rose 10 per cent to £49 million, on sales of £115 million, up by nearly two-thirds.

The surge came as the group’s transactional ‘brain’ welcomed 7.4 million new non-Octopus customers over the year. During peak periods such as when admitting E-On customers, staff were migrating over 1 million every three weeks.  By April 2022 Kraken was managing 16 million accounts.

Customer service accolades continued to roll in in the UK.  For the fifth year in a row, Which named Octopus as its Recommended Provider.

Structural strengthening saw the £6 billion in assets of Octopus Energy Generation brought directly within the group and further growth at Octopus Electric Vehicles, with its direct leasing model.

Interest from inward investors saw $ 3 billion of new equity issued to Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and a Canadian public sector pension fund.   Established shareholders Tokyo Gas & Australian supplier Origin maintained support.

Among outbound investments made after the year’s books closed, Jackson first injected some of his own capital into Xlinks, the £13 billion Billericay-based venture with an ambition to import solar and wind electricity from Sahara to north Devon. Within months, his company had matched its boss’ stake.

Jackson famously started his company without a personnel or an IT department.  He paid tribute this morning to his staff.

“The team at Octopus Energy Group has worked incredibly hard to support customers through the pandemic, and now the energy crisis. They have done so while maintaining first class customer service levels and relentlessly focusing on ways to build towards a cleaner, cheaper, more resilient system, making sure this is the last energy crisis”.

“It has never been more important to build a better, fairer energy system for all”, Jackson went on.

“We could have made a profit, but now’s not the time. Instead we chose to absorb £150m of escalating costs on behalf of customers through prices and support funds, debt-forgiveness and increased service.”

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Now in its eighth year, Greg Jackson’s privately held international mega-investor says solar installation helps it create nearly 200 UK jobs, as it targets 3,000 roofs this year, starting in southern England and the Midlands. A fast ramp-up is promised.

A nationwide brand recognised from repeated TV advertising,  and with 4.9 million retail accounts following its absorption last month of failed supplier Bulb, Octopus ranks third among UK energy retailers, behind British Gas and E-on.

Octopus is backing its battery and on-roof instals with what it claims are Briain’s best rates for buying homeowners’ unstored electricity, made from light.  Its standard tariff of 15 pence per kWh to buy householders’ exported power is three times higher than rivals’ offerings, the firm says.

More rewarding still is a variable alternative, a floating export tariff linked to market prices for wholesale electricity.

Agile Outgoing links a customer’s “spilled” generation via Kraken, the firm’s fulfilment platform, into realtime prices seen on trading markets. Over the twelve months to last September, customers on this tariff were paid 34p per kWh on average, the firm claims.  Some payments peaked at £1.29 per kWh.

Plenty of beak, but Zero bills

Octopus says its stable of installation technology and proprietary know-how now allows some homes to exist free of any energy cost. By installing the technology trio of on-roof panels, a suitcase-sized in-house battery and a heat pump, the firm says houses can become ‘Zero Bills’ properties.

‘Zero Bills’ is Octopus’ own certification. It means homeowners pay nothing for their own consumption. A pilot in Essex saw 22 eligible dwellings made by Ilke Homes sold with the option of incurring ‘Zero Bills’.  The partners aim to swell that total to 10,000 homes by 2030.

Octopus views venturing into Britain’s now booming on-roof PV installation scene as filling in a gap. Its Energy Services division already connects up home EV chargers, air-source heat pumps and smart meters.

Octopus Energy Services CEO John Szymik commented: “Given the success we have had in scaling and installing huge swathes of smart, green home energy tech, we are champing at the bit to begin installing the last piece of the puzzle, solar photovoltaic.

There’s a clever cephalopod on my roof

“If more homes in the UK produce clean, green solar energy, we will be able to accelerate the energy transition and bring down system prices for everybody by lowering system costs”, Szymik went on.

“In true Octopus style, we’ll focus on reducing solar installation times down to record levels, hoping to soon make solar panels affordable for everyone.”

Interested customers should register an interest here octopus.energy/homesolar.

Observers see Octopus’ ambitions today for southern homes as another upward surge in the PV installation business’ notorious ‘solar-coaster’.

Over a decade ago, British Gas was the first big generator to venture into direct solar installation on domestic roofs.

Its Hampshire-based PV division rode the short-lived installation boom in 2010, buoyed up by Feed-in-Tariffs then paying 40 pence and more to homeowners for every kWh they generated, plus more for any unwanted power released to the grid.

After alarmed Whitehall officials used England’s courts to sabotage the runway demand they had themselves created, the Centrica offshoot turned away from depressed homes instals, concentrating instead on PV systems for commercial clients.

A publicly funded subsidy supporting home-scale beneficiaries for at least twenty years, the Feed-in Tariff closed for new registrations in March 2019.

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