Octopus Energy Completes Majority Investment in Uplight, Targeting 20GW of Flexible Load Within Five Years

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 1, Octopus Energy Group completed the investment closing in Uplight, a U.S. energy management technology company, officially acquiring a majority stake in Uplight. Schneider Electric continues to hold its position as a significant minority shareholder, and Uplight maintains its independent operating model. The two parties had signed a formal investment agreement on March 24 this year, at which time the transaction was still subject to customary regulatory approvals; with the completion of this closing, the transaction has moved from the agreement signing stage to the formal completion of the equity investment.

Following the completion of the transaction, Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US, also assumed the role of CEO at Uplight. Uplight currently manages approximately 8.5GW of flexible load for more than 85 utility companies and connects with over 75 ecosystem partners, with its clients including 8 of the top 10 U.S. utilities. In 2026, the number of customer-side devices enrolled in its demand response and virtual power plant programs exceeded 1 million; in fiscal year 2025, the flexible capacity generated by these programs reached approximately three times the previous level.

Under the business targets established following the completion of the transaction, Uplight plans to increase its managed flexible load capacity to more than 20GW over the next five years, more than doubling its current 8.5GW scale; during the same period, it plans to deliver $1 billion in cumulative savings to customers through energy efficiency improvements, rebates, and other incentive mechanisms. Since 2020, Uplight-supported North American utility programs have returned $586 million in value to energy customers.

This investment will also bring two Octopus Energy products into Uplight's demand-side management system in the United States. Octopus Shift will enter the U.S. market for the first time, providing utility customers with a unified gateway for enrolling in and participating in different load flexibility programs; Octopus PowerStore deploys battery energy storage systems for residential customers, using a model in which customers pay no upfront equipment costs, with utility companies dispatching these storage resources to manage peak load.

Uplight's existing core businesses include demand response, distributed energy resource management, and virtual power plant programs. Its Demand Stack system aggregates adjustable load from thermostats, residential batteries, electric vehicles, and other customer-side devices into dispatchable capacity for utilities. Following the completion of the transaction, Uplight's existing products, pricing, and customer contract arrangements remain unchanged, with the new investment primarily used to expand the scale of this system and introduce Octopus Energy's customer-side flexible load products.

Uplight currently operates demand response and virtual power plant programs with U.S. utilities including PG&E, Xcel Energy, Duke Energy, and CMS Energy. Among these, the demand response program implemented by Uplight with PG&E has already connected more than 100,000 devices; the two parties also utilize distributed batteries to participate in virtual power plant operations. Following the completion of the transaction, Uplight will continue to expand its flexible load scale based on its existing utility customer and program framework.