Octopus in talks to help power Ukraine after Russia attacks grid
BRITISH energy supplier Octopus is in talks to help power Ukraine as the country rebuilds its electricity grid following Vladimir Putin’s bombing onslaught.
It has held exploratory talks with Kyiv-based DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, about how the two businesses can work together.
It is understood this could potentially include Octopus licensing its groundbreaking Kraken energy management software to DTEK, or even going one step further and forming a joint venture with the company.
Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure efforts has galvanised support in Kyiv for renewable energy, with the more distributed nature of wind turbines and solar panels making them smaller targets than large coal power stations.
Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus, held initial discussions with his DTEK counterpart, Maxim Tim- chenko, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month.
Both stressed the talks were at an early stage but were enthusiastic about the potential for co-operation.
Mr Timchenko said: “We want to learn from this company [Octopus] and we want to bring this innovation to Ukraine.” A potential deal between the two would mark yet another foreign expansion for Octopus, which already operates in Germany, the US, Japan, Spain, Italy, France and New Zealand.
Many of the company’s global agreements have been propelled by demand for its Kraken software, which can manage energy assets such as wind turbines as well as customer service databases.
Kraken is now used by utility companies in 17 countries to serve 54m users.
Mr Jackson said: “Ukraine – and DTEK – has shown the agility, the speed, at which you can both upgrade and build new electricity infrastructure.
“We can learn a lot from them, for example about how they’ve been able to so quickly and so impressively do work – often under fire – that in the UK often takes five to 15 years.”
Following its takeover of Shell Energy last year, Octopus is now Britain’s second biggest energy supplier with 6.6m customers.
DTEK, meanwhile, has 3.5m customers and last year won plaudits for building a wind farm in just nine months.