Over £100m of Octopus’s Sky fund is to be invested in Manchester-based EV public charging network Be.EV to scale and install new charge points.

Octopus Energy already supplies all of Be.EV’s chargers, but the deal will help grow Be.EV’s 150-strong public charge point network and add 1,000 further charge points across the North of England and beyond by 2024.

Public EV charge points are currently unevenly distributed in the UK, skewed towards London. Octopus’ backing means Be.EV, which already operates Greater Manchester’s largest public EV charging network, will address this imbalance at speed to ensure more equitable access to public chargers.

Matt Setchell, co-head of Octopus Energy Generation’s fund management team: “Our first foray into funding EV charging infrastructure is a significant milestone. We’re accelerating the green energy transition, with more deals coming up to turbocharge it. As a nation, we need to rapidly build more EV charge points to meet the growing number of drivers going electric. Easy and fair access to chargers will help phase out petrol-guzzling cars once and for all.”

The deal marks the next step in Octopus Energy Group’s advancement of EVs. Its EV roaming service Electric Universe makes charging EVs simple as drivers use one card and app to access over 310,000 public charge points from a range of brands globally. As part of this agreement, Be.EV will be joining Electric Universe, alongside the 460 other charging networks on the platform.

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