Latest news with #GregJackson
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
OPINION - A once-a-day ‘life-changing' pill for cystic fibrosis patients ...Tech & Science Daily podcast
Listen here on your chosen podcast platform. A once-a-day pill health experts are calling 'life-changing' will be offered to hundreds of people living with cystic fibrosis. The drug, called Alyftrek, is a type of modular therapy which works to tackle the underlying cause of the rare condition. NHS England has announced that the treatment will be available for children and adults with rare forms of cystic fibrosis. A new £650 million Electric Car Grant announced by the government is set to reduce the cost of some new electric cars. We speak with Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson about the technology behind their new EV bundle, which includes free charging. Plus, Nvidia are getting the ball rolling again for sales of their famous chips in China. Also in this episode: -Blue Sharks have a unique structure on their skin which allows them to change colour -Elon Musk's Grok is making AI companions, including a goth anime girl - are they romantic interests or just skins? -Hamleys names Lego, Barbie and Rubik's Cube the top three toys of all time
Sydney Morning Herald
12-07-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The clean energy era is arriving. Is your power company ready?
As long as the lights stay on and power bills aren't too high, most of us aren't overly fussed about who supplies our electricity. That may be about to change, executives in the industry believe, as Australians' booming uptake of solar panels and batteries radically reshapes the market, sending customers searching for the most effective plans to help run their homes on cheap or free energy and profit from selling surplus solar to the grid. Origin Energy was first among the nation's big power companies to start preparing for a future that looks something like this. Five years ago, it purchased a minority stake in UK-based power retailing disruptor Octopus Energy and, with it, the perpetual licence to use its market-leading customer software platform, known as Kraken, in Australia. 'Just like in fintech, there is a digital revolution in energy,' Octopus co-founder Greg Jackson explains. The heart of Kraken is its advanced data and machine learning capability, which collapses multiple legacy customer-service functions, like billing, sales and meter enquiries, into just the one, avoiding the need to bounce callers between departments, and cutting down the company's 'cost to serve'. But perhaps its most important feature in the accelerating shift to green energy is its ability to give customers access to real-time variable power pricing (think Uber as opposed to taxis), and products that automate when to run households' solar panels or hot-water units, charge electric cars and discharge batteries based on when they will get the best price. Octopus, it turned out, was onto something. In less than 10 years, it has gone from a tech start-up selling energy to zero customers to 7.5 million accounts – more than a quarter of all homes in Britain – and is considered one of the world's most valuable unicorns. Its Kraken platform, meanwhile, has proven so successful that it is licensed to utilities in 18 countries. Now, Kraken is poised to be spun out into a standalone entity with a possible valuation of up to £10 billion ($20 billion), according to British media reports earlier this week. Australian investment analysts at UBS and Macquarie value Kraken considerably less than that – UBS's Tom Allen assumes a valuation of £3.4 billion ($7 billion) to £5.8 billion, depending on its growth in sales. Either way, he says, Origin had made a 'fantastic' investment and may be headed for a considerable payday. But Kraken is paying off for Origin in more ways than that, says Jon Briskin, the company's executive general manager of retail. Since Origin migrated its 4.7 million Australian customers onto Kraken in 2023, customer loyalty scores have lifted, customer churn has been falling and complaints to the ombudsman have been fewer. Loading In a fast-changing world where more customers have solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, the tech has also enabled Origin to become more nimble in developing and rolling out futuristic retail products, such as the EV Power Up. With more than 2 million EVs projected to be on the road by 2030, the product means customers can use their app to nominate when they want their EV charged by, and the software automatically chooses the best times of day to charge at an ultra-low capped rate of 8¢ a kilowatt-hour (that could charge up a Tesla Model Y for $5). With home battery uptake on the brink of surging since the Albanese government this month introduced rebates wiping 30 per cent off the cost, Kraken has also given Origin an edge in building out its 'virtual power plant' (VPP) network, whereby Origin pays customers a fee to let it aggregate the energy stored across thousands of their homes. Origin's VPP called Loop – a far-flung network of interconnected household devices including solar panels, batteries, electric cars and appliances that can be ramped up or down to inject bursts of energy into the grid or help address imbalances – is the biggest in the nation, with more than 400,000 devices under orchestration. Briskin says the Loop virtual power plant today sits at 1.5 gigawatts – bigger than a typical coal-fired power station. 'This orchestration is real, it's here, it's building fast,' Briskin says. 'I certainly feel like we are at a competitive advantage to have that technology that can move at greater speed.' While the value of Kraken to Origin's operations today overwhelmingly stems from the lower cost to serve customers, its ability to expand VPPs and co-ordinate household electricity usage and output would become increasingly critical in the fight for customers in the future, UBS's Tom Allen says. 'Energy retailing in the next five to 10 years will be won by who has the best technology to orchestrate behind-the-meter loads and be able to offer incentives to customers and dynamic pricing signals,' he says. 'That's what the future model will look like – it makes sense to be investing in that extra capability now.' While not everyone will be hyper-engaged and may not want to think about optimal times to run appliances, more than 80 per cent of Origin customers are already 'digital-only', Briskin says, with many simply using their app to track their energy usage, and receive alerts if it is trending too high. Origin is not alone in recognising the need to more efficiently manage customers and their energy usage in the shift to cleaner, more dispersed sources of power. We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision. Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer Last year, AGL snapped up a 20 per cent stake in the scalable and flexible Kaluza technology platform for $150 million, and has begun the process of migrating its 4 million power and gas customers in the coming years. Key drivers behind its adoption of the platform were the need to bring new and innovative energy retail products to the market more quickly in response to customers' fast-changing needs, says Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer. 'We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision … it's a completely different model,' says Egan. 'When you are working in a world like we are now, where the energy market is changing so frequently, the best situation is that you can deploy and innovate products quite rapidly and at low cost.'
The Age
12-07-2025
- Business
- The Age
The clean energy era is arriving. Is your power company ready?
As long as the lights stay on and power bills aren't too high, most of us aren't overly fussed about who supplies our electricity. That may be about to change, executives in the industry believe, as Australians' booming uptake of solar panels and batteries radically reshapes the market, sending customers searching for the most effective plans to help run their homes on cheap or free energy and profit from selling surplus solar to the grid. Origin Energy was first among the nation's big power companies to start preparing for a future that looks something like this. Five years ago, it purchased a minority stake in UK-based power retailing disruptor Octopus Energy and, with it, the perpetual licence to use its market-leading customer software platform, known as Kraken, in Australia. 'Just like in fintech, there is a digital revolution in energy,' Octopus co-founder Greg Jackson explains. The heart of Kraken is its advanced data and machine learning capability, which collapses multiple legacy customer-service functions, like billing, sales and meter enquiries, into just the one, avoiding the need to bounce callers between departments, and cutting down the company's 'cost to serve'. But perhaps its most important feature in the accelerating shift to green energy is its ability to give customers access to real-time variable power pricing (think Uber as opposed to taxis), and products that automate when to run households' solar panels or hot-water units, charge electric cars and discharge batteries based on when they will get the best price. Octopus, it turned out, was onto something. In less than 10 years, it has gone from a tech start-up selling energy to zero customers to 7.5 million accounts – more than a quarter of all homes in Britain – and is considered one of the world's most valuable unicorns. Its Kraken platform, meanwhile, has proven so successful that it is licensed to utilities in 18 countries. Now, Kraken is poised to be spun out into a standalone entity with a possible valuation of up to £10 billion ($20 billion), according to British media reports earlier this week. Australian investment analysts at UBS and Macquarie value Kraken considerably less than that – UBS's Tom Allen assumes a valuation of £3.4 billion ($7 billion) to £5.8 billion, depending on its growth in sales. Either way, he says, Origin had made a 'fantastic' investment and may be headed for a considerable payday. But Kraken is paying off for Origin in more ways than that, says Jon Briskin, the company's executive general manager of retail. Since Origin migrated its 4.7 million Australian customers onto Kraken in 2023, customer loyalty scores have lifted, customer churn has been falling and complaints to the ombudsman have been fewer. Loading In a fast-changing world where more customers have solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, the tech has also enabled Origin to become more nimble in developing and rolling out futuristic retail products, such as the EV Power Up. With more than 2 million EVs projected to be on the road by 2030, the product means customers can use their app to nominate when they want their EV charged by, and the software automatically chooses the best times of day to charge at an ultra-low capped rate of 8¢ a kilowatt-hour (that could charge up a Tesla Model Y for $5). With home battery uptake on the brink of surging since the Albanese government this month introduced rebates wiping 30 per cent off the cost, Kraken has also given Origin an edge in building out its 'virtual power plant' (VPP) network, whereby Origin pays customers a fee to let it aggregate the energy stored across thousands of their homes. Origin's VPP called Loop – a far-flung network of interconnected household devices including solar panels, batteries, electric cars and appliances that can be ramped up or down to inject bursts of energy into the grid or help address imbalances – is the biggest in the nation, with more than 400,000 devices under orchestration. Briskin says the Loop virtual power plant today sits at 1.5 gigawatts – bigger than a typical coal-fired power station. 'This orchestration is real, it's here, it's building fast,' Briskin says. 'I certainly feel like we are at a competitive advantage to have that technology that can move at greater speed.' While the value of Kraken to Origin's operations today overwhelmingly stems from the lower cost to serve customers, its ability to expand VPPs and co-ordinate household electricity usage and output would become increasingly critical in the fight for customers in the future, UBS's Tom Allen says. 'Energy retailing in the next five to 10 years will be won by who has the best technology to orchestrate behind-the-meter loads and be able to offer incentives to customers and dynamic pricing signals,' he says. 'That's what the future model will look like – it makes sense to be investing in that extra capability now.' While not everyone will be hyper-engaged and may not want to think about optimal times to run appliances, more than 80 per cent of Origin customers are already 'digital-only', Briskin says, with many simply using their app to track their energy usage, and receive alerts if it is trending too high. Origin is not alone in recognising the need to more efficiently manage customers and their energy usage in the shift to cleaner, more dispersed sources of power. We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision. Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer Last year, AGL snapped up a 20 per cent stake in the scalable and flexible Kaluza technology platform for $150 million, and has begun the process of migrating its 4 million power and gas customers in the coming years. Key drivers behind its adoption of the platform were the need to bring new and innovative energy retail products to the market more quickly in response to customers' fast-changing needs, says Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer. 'We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision … it's a completely different model,' says Egan. 'When you are working in a world like we are now, where the energy market is changing so frequently, the best situation is that you can deploy and innovate products quite rapidly and at low cost.'
The National
09-07-2025
- Business
- The National
Octopus Energy boss slams UK Government zonal pricing snub
The Energy Security Secretary has allegedly binned plans to introduce zonal pricing, which Octopus Energy has repeatedly claimed could have given Scots some of the cheapest electricity in Europe and boost the economy. The scheme would have split the UK into regions based on local supply and demand, meaning Scotland would likely have benefitted enormously due to an abundance of renewables. The UK Government has said it will not comment on reports it has branded as "speculation". Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, has been a prominent campaigner for introducing zonal pricing, having constantly highlighted how windfarms are often paid not to generate energy because they are built where there is insufficient grid. READ MORE: What is the point of Octopus Energy's wasted wind tracker? On the back of the latest reports, he tweeted: 'Britain's broken energy system. Companies built windfarms where there's no grid and you pay them to not generate. 'Soaring costs, locked in for years to come, and more on the way. 'It's not good enough to sigh. Something must change. It's brutal for families and crippling for growth.' Jack Richardson, head of policy at Octopus, accused the UK Government of 'capitulating' to lobbying from major generators. He posted on Twitter/X: 'Taking zonal off the table against the advice of NESO [National Energy System Operator], then doing loads of complicated, costly stuff to try to get the benefits of zonal pricing, shows the government knows zonal is the right thing to do but it is capitulating to all the backstage lobbying.' Octopus Energy has recently launched a "wasted wind" tracker to show the public how much billpayers' money is being spent on turning off windfarms. Ed Miliband has reportedly abandoned plans to introduce zonal pricing (Image: PA) According to the energy provider, constraint costs have hit almost £700 million already this year. Despite claims from opponents that zonal pricing would turn the UK energy market into a postcode lottery, analysis showed earlier this year that households in Scotland will already be paying more for electricity in the next year than those living in London. Consumers in north Wales and Merseyside will pay £120 more than households in London for their electricity over the coming year, Cornwall Insight forecasts, while those in the north of Scotland will pay £96 more than those in the capital. The differentials stem from variation in the charges levied on bills to fund the upkeep of Britain's 14 regional electricity distribution networks, which are regulated by Ofgem. Zonal pricing could have cut the cost of renewing and updating the country's electricity grid by billions. READ MORE: Insider lifts lid on workings of Corbyn-Sultana project in Scotland A report by FTI Consulting predicted overall savings of £52 billion for consumers over 20 years, while another, which was commissioned by Octopus, found the UK would need to spend £27bn less on major grid upgrades in the future. Former Alba MSP Neale Hanvey said: 'Under the 'broad shoulders of the UK', Scotland is being robbed of our vast energy wealth while handing exorbitant profits to the big energy companies. 'Our people are paying up to three times as much for energy as they should as Ed Miliband abandons 'zonal pricing' plans.' Former MP Angus MacNeil accused Labour of 'short-term thinking' and called for Scotland to be in control of its own energy policy. He said: 'Scotland is a net exporter of electricity, yet energy bills in Scotland are higher than anywhere else in the UK. 'Zonal pricing was a modest, common-sense reform that would have recognised Scotland's role in powering the UK and brought long-overdue fairness to our bills. 'By caving to pressure from the energy giants and abandoning a policy that would have incentivised clean energy use in the right places, Labour are undermining their own climate agenda. It is short-term thinking at its worst. 'Scotland deserves better. We deserve control over our own energy policy, one that puts the needs of our communities first, not last. It is clear the only way we can do that is by becoming an independent country.' When asked for comment, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said it does not comment on 'speculation'.
The National
09-07-2025
- Business
- The National
Ed Miliband ditches plan for cheaper energy in Scotland, reports say
The Energy Security Secretary has allegedly decided not to proceed with the scheme that has been strongly backed by Octopus Energy, according to The Guardian. Octopus Energy has repeatedly said such a scheme could give Scots some of the cheapest energy in Europe. Zonal pricing would split the UK into regions based on local supply and demand, meaning Scotland would likely have benefitted enormously due to its abundance of renewables. The proposals would have set lower electricity prices in areas where supply far outstrips demand, in an attempt to encourage industry to move into those areas and reduce the need to switch off generation. READ MORE: What is the point of Octopus Energy's wasted wind tracker? One source told the paper: 'The government has been weighing this up carefully and concluded that the benefits of delivering the clean power mission at pace, particularly given the expected impact of imminent grid upgrades; the need to deliver on the coming renewables auctions; and the significant risk premium being attributed to the UK by international investors, would outweigh the purported benefits of zonal pricing – which at any rate would take beyond the next election to implement.' While Octopus Energy backed the proposals for zonal, the scheme was opposed by the likes of SSE and Scottish Power who warned investors could be put off. Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson (Image: Octopus Energy) Supporters of zonal pricing argued it would have helped resolve the issue of windfarms being paid to turn off. Scotland's biggest wind farm – Seagreen – is paid to not generate 71% of the time it could be. As a result, the effective cost of electricity it generates is four times higher than it should be. The UK has one national energy price despite the cost of producing electricity differing throughout the day across the country. If an offshore wind farm in Scotland produces more electricity than the network can handle it is paid to turn off, or be "constrained", and a gas-fired power plant in the south of England is paid to turn on. READ MORE: Seamus Logan: Keir Starmer's lack of principle will finish off the Labour Party Octopus Energy has recently launched a "wasted wind" tracker to show the public how much billpayers' money is being spent on turning off windfarms. According to the energy provider, constraint costs have hit almost £700 million already this year. Zonal pricing could have cut the cost of renewing and updating the country's electricity grid by billions. A report by FTI Consulting predicted overall savings of £52 billion for consumers over 20 years, while another, which was commissioned by Octopus, found the UK would need to spend £27bn less on major grid upgrades in the future. However, the outgoing chief executive of SSE Alistair Phillips-Davies, claimed recently the plan would be a 'huge mistake', saying it would create a 'postcode lottery' where some households would pay £200 to £300 more because of where they live. It is understood an official decision will be announced once it has been signed off by the cabinet. The decision has reportedly gone to senior ministers in a process known as 'write-round', and will be announced before the next renewables auction which is scheduled for early August.
