GB Energy interim chief executive Dan McGrail aims to have a clear list of investment opportunities by the end of his six-month secondment at the planned state-owned energy company.
Speaking to Energy Voice on his first day in the role, McGrail laid out his agenda for his stewardship of GB Energy.
“The steps we take over the course of the next six months have to lay the foundations of how we create that long-term vision,” he says.
He adds that the GB Energy team already has a list of potential areas for investment, “but we want to narrow that down”.
“We want to ensure that, by the end of that period, there’re transactions which are, if they haven’t already been taken forward, that are ready to be taken forward,” he says.
The existence of the company is still subject to the Act of Parliament passing on time. With the Great British Energy Bill in its final stages, “we want to be ready to transact and to start investing in projects that will accelerate the energy transition and do that within the coming months,” McGrail says.
He is also clear about his other two priorities for the six-month secondment. This includes determining a mid to long-term strategy for the company.
“Part of that is vision, and making sure that vision is something that is shared by industry, something that’s communicable to the public and aligns with ministers and the government’s ambitions,” McGrail says.
This includes “what technologies we want to prioritise and the kind of investments that we want to make. That will then feed into the types of projects that we invest in and the types of activities that will stimulate the supply chain.”
His final focus will be on developing culture and organisation for the nascent GB Energy.
“We want to make sure that this company has a really clear and distinct set of values. It has a purpose, it has an identity and a culture which aligns with being an innovative company that is working in emerging technologies and sponsoring the energy transition.”
GB Energy
With a touted £8.3 billion of funding to be made available to it, GB Energy is at the heart of the Labour government’s clean energy strategy.
The group’s chairman, Juergen Maier, has previously said he wants to make GB Energy into a UK Orsted, with the body owning and investing in clean energy projects across the UK.
McGrail’s comments come as GB Energy’s board met on 17 March for the first time in Aberdeen. Their aim is to drive the creation of an investment portfolio and engage with the market on potential collaborations
“We really need to be clear about what the technologies and areas that we want to invest in are,” McGrail says.
“To do that, we need to assess the market. We need to work with industry. There’s work around ensuring that the sector and other parts of the industry, the private sector in particular, really gets this opportunity to input into where GB Energy will add the most value, how it can work collaboratively with the private sector.
“And then of course, that will help us determine not only what areas we want to be active in, but what types of skills, what kind of capabilities we need to build over the next sort of three to six months to be able to operate in those areas,” he adds.
Aberdeen’s role
McGrail, previously the chief executive of trade body RenewableUK, will be based in Aberdeen at GB Energy’s headquarters.
Its position in the city has been touted as offering Aberdeen a potential jobs boom – Maier had previously said that GB Energy “may eventually” create 1,000 or more jobs for the city, though he later clarified that it could take 20 years to achieve this goal.
McGrail tells Energy Voice that GB Energy’s success will lie less in direct jobs and more in the “ones we catalyse”.
“When you look at the investments in projects and the supply chain and the companies that are going to do the heavy lifting to deliver the energy transition, what you should measure is the tens of thousands of jobs that we want to catalyse.”
But he adds that these jobs will be contingent on creating determining the areas GB Energy will focus its investment on.
“Our job is to really work out, with the budget that we get, how we deliver the maximum amount of impact for that.
“Jobs is an incredibly important part of that overall metric, but also economic growth gross value added. We want to invest in the areas of the economy which are going to have the most longevity. We should also think about exports and the role that the UK can play in the energy transition beyond these shores.
“Let’s not forget that this is a profit-motive company. We have to be able to demonstrate to the investors, which is ultimately the British public, that we are delivering investments which are smart and worthwhile and deliver value for the economy.”
