British energy supplier Octopus Energy will invest ‘almost’ $1 billion (£740 million) in California’s clean energy sector.
The announcement was made as California Governor Gavin Newsom visited the United Kingdom and signed a Memorandum of Understanding between Britain and California to “drive innovation, scale up clean energy technologies and connect businesses and researchers in both economies,” according to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The Octopus investment includes a solar energy and battery energy storage system (BESS) project, which will begin commercial operation in July.
Octopus did not specify the capacity of the solar-plus-storage project, nor how much of the total investment will go to the facility, and PV technology has asked the company for details on these points. The US is experiencing a boom in new BESS additions, with the country adding more new BESS capacity in the first three quarters of 2025 than in all of 2024.
Much of this growth has mainly taken place in the residential sector, with figures from Wood Mackenzie showing the percentage of solar and BESS projects in the residential sector increasing from 6% in early 2020 to 25% in early 2024. As the size of the new Octopus project is unknown, it is unclear whether this project will contribute to this trend.
However, Octopus noted that its investment in California would also go to two carbon removal and thermal battery companies, as the company looks to invest in what it called “next-gen innovation” in the energy transition.
“Octopus and California are both at the forefront of clean energy innovation,” said Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation. “We are excited to expand Octopus internationally, supporting the thriving US clean technology sector while bringing innovation, growth and returns to the UK.”
The announcement is the latest in a series of international agreements signed by the British company. In January, it signed a deal with Masdar, a state-owned renewable energy company in the UAEAnd entered the Chinese market through a joint venture with PCG Power.
This article first appeared on our sister site, PV technology.
