Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 22ND - 28TH NOVEMBER 2019 | 29 Customers Interview L ying off the coast of Queensland, northeast Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is not something that oen crops up in discussions about the UK energy retail sector, yet it perhaps symbolises the importance of the mission one chief executive has set out on. Speaking to Utility Week at the Notting Hill offices of Ovo Energy, retail chief executive Adrian Letts wants to talk about the much bigger issue facing the UK market – climate change. In his first interview since taking up the role in February, the amiable Australian recounted a conversation he had with one of his children ahead of a visit to his homeland at Christmas. "When your children start saying things to you like 'Dad, can we go and visit the Great Barrier Reef before it's dead?' it is a real wake-up call – we do have a climate emergency. I think cus- tomer awareness and understanding that there is a problem is increasing," he says. That understanding of the greatest issue facing humanity is what has driven Letts to the sector aer more than three years as managing director of Tesco Online. Ovo was founded in 2009 by its chief executive Stephen Fitzpatrick as a challenger to the big six energy suppliers. It cur- rently has around 1.5 million customers across the group and employs nearly 2,000 people. The company has gone from strength to strength and earlier this year its retail business received a £200 million cash injec- tion from the Mitsubishi Corporation for a 20 per cent stake, valuing the company at £1 billion. Letts has taken the helm at a time of exciting and radical change for Ovo, with the supplier having agreed a deal to take over big six supplier SSE's retail arm for £500 million. He is clearly ready to implement change for the good of the planet, but understands this will not happen overnight. "I love the adage 'a waterfall begins with one drop'. Each of us has a role to play. Understanding what they are doing that contributes to carbon is something that we would really like to help customers with," he says. Letts's vision is to encourage incremental change among Ovo's customers – or members, as he like to refer to them. "From a retail standpoint, our vision is very much providing and powering progress to clean and affordable energy through technology. We have released Plan Zero and we have set out our course to measure the success of our business against carbon reduction. Most importantly, how can we halve our customers' carbon footprint by 2030? "The vision of the business is very much, how do you create and integrate a proposition to help customers do that? Both supplying them cleaner energy but also helping them under- stand the impact of their household consumption on their carbon footprint. That is, I think, going to be driven through providing them with the right information and tools and then the right technology to allow them to do that." Letts believes there is a huge opportunity for the challenger brand, given that household energy consumption is a key contributor to carbon, to support customers on the journey to the government's net zero 2050 target. Specifically, data will be Ovo's key weapon in the fight to reduce carbon emissions. "Understanding what they are doing that contributes to carbon is something that we would really like to help customers with." Adrian Letts, RETAIL CHIEF EXECUTIVE, OVO ENERGY by Adam John Utility Week members can read the rest of this interview at utilityweek.co.uk

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