Blakeney has worked with Octopus Energy since 2019, shortly after it was launched. From the outset, Octopus has been on a mission to transform Britain’s energy market with a customer-focused and affordable green energy revolution. It is now the UK’s largest domestic electricity supplier and one of Europe’s biggest investors in clean power.
To deliver its mission, Octopus has needed to not just challenge the incumbents in the energy market, but also challenge governments to make the energy market work better for customers, and remove the obstacles to decarbonising the UK’s energy.
Despite being a relative newcomer, Octopus has needed to make the case to Government and politicians on everything from the roll out of heat pumps to decarbonise home heating, the government’s response to the 2022 energy crisis and price capping, the route to a smarter more flexible power system, power transmission infrastructure, how the incoming Labour government can channel private investment into new clean power and technology, and the electricity market reforms needed to make the energy transition work without blackouts or soaring prices.
We have helped take Octopus from an upstart challenger brand to being at the centre of the Westminster conversation about the UK’s energy transition.
By organising a programme of visits by political stakeholders – to Octopus’s HQ, to its R&D and Training Centre, and to developments including offshore wind farms and innovative Zero Bills homes – we have helped Octopus attract the attention of key stakeholders, and show them how Octopus’s technology and green, customer-centred approach is transforming the energy system. These visits have also set the stage for deeper conversations and workshops with Ministers and Secretaries of State about the most pressing policy questions.
Blakeney has supported visits by the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak in 2020 to Octopus’s HQ in London, and visits by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to Octopus’s R&D centre in Slough, and by Ed Miliband to Octopus’s HQ and to one of its Zero Bills homes developments during the 2024 general election campaign.
Blakeney has helped Octopus position itself not just as a important voice that government and politicians should listen to, but also as the source of expertise and solutions to the problems political leaders are concerned about (and some that they were yet to notice).
In 2023, when the Government was trying to support the roll-out of domestic heat pumps with a subsidy scheme, Octopus wanted to show policy makers that the real obstacles to heat pump uptake were in other places, like the planning rules and various conditions attached to the subsidy scheme.
Blakeney helped Octopus to show the Government how to deliver on its ambitions for heat pumps, helping produce the briefings and secure the meetings that made that case to stakeholders.
As a result, the Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme was extended, and unnecessary obstacles were removed, allowing potentially millions more households to benefit.
In today’s pace of politics, key decisionmakers are constantly changing. New ministers get inundated with requests for meetings with people they’ve never heard of before, while eager rising stars get mostly ignored by businesses. But today’s backbenchers are tomorrow’s ministers, so Blakeney has helped Octopus identify the future talent that could be relevant to them in future, and helped them develop relationships with visits, receptions and informal meetings – all to build the networks that will be key in future.
Long before the 2024 general election, Blakeney had already started identifying Labour’s rising stars and future frontbenchers, drawing on our networks to facilitate introductions for Octopus to the candidates, advisors and think-tankers who would soon be fast-tracked to positions of influence in the new Labour government.
Leading by convening
In early 2024, after the Labour Party dropped its previous commitment to invest £28bn a year in the green economy, the party faced questions over how it would finance its clean power mission. In March, Blakeney and Octopus organised and co-hosted the Green Prosperity Summit, which brought together Octopus’s CEO Greg Jackson, Labour’s Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband, and the C-Suite business leaders of companies and major global investors in clean energy, for a deep discussion of how the UK could attract the necessary investment for its clean power mission from private investors – not just from taxpayer money.
The attendees included CEOs of leading renewable energy developers like Orsted and E.ON, clean tech manufacturers GE Vernova and Siemens, electrification innovators like Tesla, and major investors including CPPIB, Blackstone and Blackrock. Blakeney organised all elements of the summit, from its ideation and design, to securing buy-in from Reeves and Miliband, to inviting attendees and event logistics.
The summit informed subsequent Labour policy announcements on the National Wealth Fund, pensions, and planning reform which are now the backbone of the Government’s growth plans.
"The Blakeney Octopus team behaves more like a team of special advisers than a traditional agency. They mould themselves around me, and Octopus, working hard to complement our way of working and - without ego - making themselves as useful as possible.”
Clem Cowton, Director of External Affairs, Octopus Energy
