Great British Energy naked solar investment
Naked Energy’s renewable heat technology is receiving £8.875mln from Great British Energy and Barclays Climate Ventures.
Robert Gilbert, Director of Supply Chain at Great British Energy, Christophe Williams FEI, Founder and CEO of Naked Energy and Gavin Chapman, Managing Director at Barclays Climate Ventures.
© Great British EnergyThis marks the first solar investment by Great British Energy and is intended to scale UK manufacturing and boost energy security.
It will support Naked Energy's plans to establish a UK-based manufacturing facility for its Virtu solar-thermal technology, creating up to 40 direct skilled jobs and around 100 indirect roles and is hoped to create export opportunities.
The British-designed renewable heat technology is already cutting gas bills at UK institutions such as the British Library and the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon.
Barclays Climate Ventures is participating as an existing shareholder.
Naked Energy’s technology generates renewable heat directly at the point of use – reducing gas demand without adding pressure to the electricity grid and helping businesses keep their energy bills stable when gas prices spike.
The location of the UK manufacturing facility is still to be determined.
The company holds more than 20 patents and unlike conventional solar panels, Naked Energy’s solar-thermal panels can produce both heat and electricity from a single rooftop installation
Its unique, low-profile design allows for around 85% of roof space to be used for energy generation, compared to a typical rate of 50% for conventional tilted solar panels that require spacing between rows to avoid self-shading.
Naked Energy is already delivering projects across Europe and North America. The Great British Energy and Barclays joint investment marks a major scale-up phase, enabling Naked Energy to expand its UK production capacity and grow its presence in both domestic and international markets.
Great British Energy is a publicly owned renewable energy company, 100% owned by the British people.
Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, said: ‘Cutting our reliance on gas is one of the biggest challenges we face, both for energy security and for keeping bills down. Naked Energy has developed a technology that tackles this head on and when you see it working at iconic UK institutions like the British Library and Wimbledon, you understand what is possible.’
