Great British Energy will find opportunities to develop technology sovereignty in the supply chain to drive the concept of energy engineered in the UK that backs the recently released Industrial Strategy.
That is what Rob Gilbert, director of supply chain at GB Energy, told PV Tech managing editor Ben Willis in a discussion at the UK Solar Summit in London yesterday (1 July).
Introducing him, Willis said that we are “seeing the organisation take definite shape now”, noting that one of the state-owned company’s objectives is to create local jobs and strengthen the domestic clean energy supply chain to ensure that as much of it as possible originates in and benefits the UK.
Gilbert explained “from an economical standpoint, it makes a huge amount of sense in terms of our broader mission to help deploy clean power in aid of local communities and local power projects into the supply chain, so that we create the jobs, skills and career opportunities, but also the industrial base for the future.”
As he pointed out, the ‘mantra’ of the Industrial Strategy is ‘Built in Britain’. Gilbert said there is a material opportunity for GB Energy to play a role in delivering industrial benefit for the UK “because there are gaps in the supply chain where there is an opportunity for GBE to play a role in that inflection point between the public and private sector; that role that we uniquely occupy”.
The government has effectively mobilised £1 billion for GB Energy to spend supporting UK supply chains. “If we want to gain the benefit from the reindustrialisation opportunity of the energy transition, we have to go and find those opportunities in the supply chain where we can develop some technology sovereignty, some domicile IP, and drive this energy engineered in the UK concept,” Gilbert said.
However, Gilbert noted that “we will never reduce complete reliance on global supply chains and that’s certainly not the intent of what we are trying to do; we’re not trying to put off people investing in the UK.
“What we really want to do is look for opportunities and find where those homegrown, UK-based supply chains are and really help those innovation pathways.”
GB Energy to work as ‘one ecosystem for public finance’
GB Energy is not attempting what Willis called a “fool’s errand” of taking on China in terms of crystalline silicon manufacturing or balance of system components.
Instead, Gilbert explained, the aspiration for the company is to work as “one ecosystem for public finance”.
“Although there are lots of public finance institutions out there, the experience of the market has been for some time that it’s a one to one relationship, and so you have to go to lots of different organisations to find funding to create the ultimate sort of investment support that you need to be able to really bring forward supply chains.
“GB Energy is not operating as a single front door, but we want to really act as a convener—we want to bring the might of public financing to bear on the supply chain.”
Already, the company has been working on trying to make the process simpler and more effective to access capital.
Gilbert said that it will not just be grant giving, which was the mechanism used in GB Energy’s first project, where it provided £200 million to finance solar PV installation on the rooftops of schools and hospitals.
It will also act as an equity investor in supply chain businesses and be an active partner.
Gilbert said, however, that establishing how GB Energy will bring more capital in, and how it will use its positioning within government to help support the policy and regulatory framework evolving to support UK businesses is “quite a big task”.
It is only about six weeks since the company received royal assent and GB Energy became a formal entity.
In terms of how the state-owned company will influence the UK’s energy policy, Gilbert said there will be “a two-way flow”. He explained that, with the energy secretary as its single shareholder, GB Energy has a close relationship with the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
“I think the opportunity that we have being out in the market is that we can then bring that market intelligence back into the department in a really clear and trusted way that hopefully then, in turn, helps influence the direction of policies favorably for the market,” Gilbert said. “We also have a job helping the market understand the policy and regulatory frameworks that are put out by government.”
GB Energy’s investment in green skills
Gilbert said that GB Energy’s team recognises the risk of not having enough installer capacity in the market, but that this is true of a lot of the skills needed in the energy transition; the skills gap is not unique to solar.
“GB Energy has to be quite careful not to bite off more than it can chew in this space, so whether we have a direct role in skills remains to be seen.”
Instead, his view is that “if we invest in supply chains, if we create the demand in the market, if we work with businesses proactively, and then we bring together some of the organisations in government like the Energy Construction Training Board, we can hopefully create opportunities for the acceleration of apprenticeships”.
“More demand to create good jobs will ultimately mean more people are attracted to the energy transition for their careers,” he added.
Success for the company, Gilbert said, would see the UK gain some domestic capacity in the solar supply chain—something he thinks we have a huge opportunity to do “simply because of the volume of solar deployment planned over the next 5-15 years”.
“There is a risk, if we don’t make those investments now, that we’ll be too late to receive the benefit of it.
“Being able to genuinely point to the domestic supply chain that we’ve built around the energy transition would be a success of GB Energy, as would having worked out how that becomes an enduring, long term industrial beating heart for the UK”.
Building an ethical solar supply chain
When asked by an audience member how GB Energy can be involved in the supply chain, given the ubiquity of Chinese components, Gilbert said there are two fronts for involvement. Beyond investing in nascent tech and innovation, the other is ethics.
“The Great British Energy Bill requires us to ensure that there are no unethical practices taking place in our supply chain. I think given the challenges in China, in Xinjiang, we have to work with all suppliers, and with organisations like the SSI [Solar Stewardship Initiative], to find ways to bring our voice and our influence into the conversation to help support how we make those supply chains more effective and more ethical for the UK, even if they’re not in the UK.”
Engagement with the SSI is also one of the key elements of the Solar Roadmap published on 30 July, which includes a series of steps toward establishing the UK’s solar supply chain.
