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Strategic report
OCU Group | Annual report and financial statements 2025
Governance
Financial statements
Market opportunity
Energy Transition market
EV charging infrastructure Transport electrification is driving a rapid build‑out of charging infrastructure. In July 2025, the UK had 84,218 public EV charge points installed, a 60% increase on the December 2023 number. The government’s EV Infrastructure Strategy targets around 300,000 public chargers by 2030, a nearly ten‑fold expansion from 2020 levels, backed by over £2bn in public investment and partnerships. Crucially, a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is now law, requiring 80% of new car sales to be zero-emission by 2030 (100% by 2035). This mandate, alongside fuel duty incentives and consumer uptake (over one in five new cars are already plug‑in electric as of 2024), ensures accelerating demand for charging infrastructure. High-power charging hubs, motorway corridor chargers, and residential solutions are all scaling up. For OCU, the planned growth to 300,000 chargers represents a robust pipeline of large‑scale installation projects over the coming years. OCU sees depots and destinations as the key emphasis for activity in this market space, each needing end‑to-end energy connection projects that involve grid connections and charging infrastructure. Our expanding client base includes Charge Point Operators (CPOs), commercial and bus fleet operators, and small to medium-sized enterprises. This diversity has allowed us to tailor our services to suit clients at every stage of their EV transition, from early adopters to experienced operators.
Solar PV Solar PV deployment in the UK is also accelerating. 15.8GW of solar capacity was installed as of March 2024, and the government has set a target to increase this nearly five‑fold to 70GW by 2035. Reaching this would require record annual installations through the 2020s. Policy support is strong: the British Energy Security Strategy (2022) announced plans to ease planning for large solar farms and a new Solar Taskforce is developing a 2035 roadmap. Solar output is expected to play a major role in achieving the UK’s 2030s clean power goals, alongside wind. With solar PV costs falling and 20GW of capacity expected to be online by the end of 2025, the outlook is one of accelerated growth. For OCU, this translates into expanding opportunities in solar farm development and grid connections as the nation adds dozens of gigawatts of PV capacity. Since joining the Group in July 2025, AEC brings significant experience to our Group-wide solar capabilities. Green hydrogen Hydrogen is an emerging yet strategically important market in the UK’s energy transition. The government doubled its low-carbon hydrogen ambition in 2022, targeting up to 10GW of production by 2030, with at least 5GW delivered via electrolytic (green) hydrogen, and the remainder expected largely from blue hydrogen via carbon capture and storage (CCS) processes.
This supports decarbonisation in hard‑to‑electrify sectors such as industry and heavy transport, and enables energy storage at scale. To accelerate development, the government has implemented a Hydrogen Production Business Model (HPBM) for revenue support and a £240m Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) for capital grants. In 2023, the first allocation round (HAR1) awarded revenue support to eleven projects totalling approximately 125MW of electrolyser capacity, with an additional 34MW funded via NZHF. As of July 2025, five HAR1 projects have signed Low Carbon Hydrogen Agreements, totalling 66MW, with more contracts expected shortly. A second allocation round (HAR2) closed to applications in April 2024 and is targeting up to 875MW of new electrolytic capacity. In April 2025, 27 projects were shortlisted and are currently undergoing due diligence and cost assurance. These projects are expected to come online between 2026 and 2029. The UK’s leading industrial clusters – Humber, Teesside, Merseyside, South Wales – are primarily focused on blue hydrogen, supported by natural gas reforming and CCS infrastructure. Examples include Equinor’s H2H Humber, BP’s H2Teesside, and the HyNet project in North West England, all of which target blue hydrogen production at scale. Green hydrogen projects such as HyGreen Teesside are also emerging, particularly where renewable power is abundant.
Green hydrogen continued The Energy Act 2023 has strengthened investor confidence by formalising regulatory frameworks for hydrogen networks and carbon storage. Although still nascent, the UK hydrogen market is scaling rapidly, with a trajectory from near-zero in 2022 to nearly 1GW by 2029 and 10GW by 2030. This presents significant long-term opportunities for OCU in constructing hydrogen production facilities, pipelines, storage, and electrical infrastructure.
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