Investment boost for UK solar thermal business

The UK solar thermal manufacturer Naked Energy has received a combined £8.875m investment from Great British Energy and Barclays Climate Ventures, with the aim of helping to accelerate the country’s transition to clean energy.

Naked Energy’s solar thermal technology is already cutting bills and reducing gas at some of the UK’s most recognised commercial and public-sector sites, including the British Library (pictured) and the investment will support the company’s plans to establish a new UK-based automated manufacturing facility, bringing production in-house, reducing unit costs and supporting the next phase of commercial scale-up. 

Great British Energy and Naked Energy also intend to explore how the company’s Virtu product range could be deployed across suitable public-sector buildings, including potential financing models that would enable organisations to adopt renewable heat without bearing the full upfront capital cost. By generating renewable heat directly at the point of use, Virtu technology displaces gas demand without adding electrical load to constrained grid connections and providing operators with a more stable, predictable alternative to volatile fossil fuel pricing.

Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, comments: “Cutting our reliance on gas is one of the biggest challenges we face, both for energy security and for keeping bills down. Naked Energy has developed a technology that tackles this head on and when you see it working at iconic UK institutions like the British Library and Wimbledon, you understand what is possible.

“At Great British Energy we are backing UK innovators like Naked Energy and helping to create skilled jobs. Through our Energy Engineered in the UK programme we are helping them to manufacture here at home and go further, faster.”

The location of the UK manufacturing facility is still to be determined but when operational, will reduce Naked Energy’s production costs and support its continued growth in domestic and international markets.

Beyond its core hardware, Naked Energy is developing a wider renewable-heat platform, including digital tools for system design, performance monitoring and Heat-as-a-Service solutions. This enables customers and partners to design, deploy, operate and verify renewable heat systems more efficiently, supporting faster adoption across commercial, industrial and public-sector buildings. When paired with heat pumps and other low-carbon heating technologies, Virtu can improve overall system efficiency and support hybrid renewable heat generation without placing additional demand on grid connections — an increasingly important consideration for sites with constrained capacity.