By Nicholas Earl
Good Energy has snapped up solar and storage business Wessex Eco Energy (Wessex), as it looks to both harness record solar panel installations and shift from being an energy supplier to a green lifestyle brand.
The renewable energy firm has acquired the company for an initial £2.5m fee, in a deal that could rise to £4m.
The FTSE 250 firm hopes the deal will enable the company to become a leading supplier in the solar energy sector, paving the way for households to sign up to solar panels as they make new supply deals.
The announcement comes as the UKrecorded its highest quarter for solar installations since 2015.
Industry certifier MCS has reported that more than 50,000 solar PV were installed in the first three months of 2023.
This a 114 per cent increase on the same period in 2022, which itself was a record full year seeing an increase of 125 per cent on 2021.
These numbers are only expected to rise with government targeting 70GW of solar generation by 2035, as part of its energy security strategy to reach net zero and reduce its reliance of Russian fossil fuels.
Good Energy currently services over 180,000 solar customers as the UK’s second largest administrator of the feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme, where customers are able to sell excess energy from their panels back to the grid.
Wessex will continue to operate under its established brand as part of the wider Good Energy Group.
It was founded in 2014 and is based in Dorchester, South West England. It completed 155 installs in 2022.
Following the acquisition, Wessex will be targeting 600 panels installed per month within 18 months.
Nigel Pocklington, chief executive of Good Energy, said: “Bringing Wessex into the business accelerates our solar and storage installations business, as the solar surge continues. Not only does Wessex ECOEnergy’s purpose align with Good Energy’s, its premium, trusted positioning in the South West aligns with Good Energy too.”
Wessex director and co-founder Daniel Cole added: “Solar power and storage is going to be a crucial technologies for cutting the UK’s carbon and addressing climate change, so it is superb to see it surge in popularity.
