12
Strategic report
OCU Group | Annual report and financial statements 2025
Governance
Financial statements
Market opportunity
Energy Transition market
Outlook Across these segments, broad UK Government support from the Net Zero Strategy to the Energy Act 2023 and Clean Power 2030 has cemented long‑term climate targets and unlocked funding mechanisms that reduce private investment risk. The National Wealth Fund alone is set to mobilise over £70bn of private capital into clean energy industries including renewables, hydrogen, and EV battery production and charging stations. This positive policy environment and the ambitious 2030 targets for wind, solar, storage, EVs, and hydrogen indicate strong sustained growth ahead. For OCU, this represents a rapidly expanding addressable market aligned with its core infrastructure capabilities, a trend that is expected to drive significant business volume through 2030 and beyond. In particular, OCU is increasing its consideration of early-stage technologies within the energy transition, including district heating and carbon capture. Each of these sectors offers growing opportunity and clear alignment with government‑backed infrastructure demand for clean energy projects and programs.
International outlook: North America and Australia
North America: Clean energy development across North America continues to progress. In 2024, the US added a record volume of new generating capacity, led by utility-scale solar and battery storage. This momentum is expected to continue in 2025, driven by regional demand growth, grid upgrades, and favourable market conditions in key states such as Texas and California. Canada remains committed to increasing the share of non-emitting electricity on its grid. Provinces including Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario are expanding wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear capacity as part of longer-term clean energy strategies. National goals remain in place for 90% non-emitting electricity generation by 2030 and a full transition to zero-emission new vehicle sales by 2035. Overall, the pace of infrastructure investment and the continued integration of renewables and storage across both countries reflect a growing role for low-carbon technologies in North America’s electricity systems. These developments present potential opportunities in generation, transmission, and storage infrastructure. Australia: Australia is undergoing a clean energy transformation with a federal target of 82% renewable electricity by 2030. This requires a significant scale-up of wind and solar – roughly a four-fold increase in generation from 2022 levels by 2030, and the build-out of new transmission and storage. Energy programs are in development, including large onshore wind farms and utility‑scale solar in Renewable Energy Zones, supported by state-level renewable targets. Utility‑scale batteries are being commissioned to bolster grid reliability (e.g. the 300MW Victorian Big Battery and others), and pumped hydro (Snowy 2.0, 2,000MW) is under construction to provide firming capacity. Australia is also investing in green hydrogen for export and domestic industry (with at least seven hydrogen hubs co-funded by government across the country), leveraging its vast solar and wind resources. EV uptake, while initially lagging, is growing as the government introduces fuel efficiency standards and purchase incentives. In summary, both North America and Australia show growing clean energy markets, mirroring the UK’s and EU’s renewable transition and opening additional international opportunities in wind, solar, storage, EV charging, and hydrogen development. The UK’s advanced grid decarbonisation presents opportunities for knowledge sharing across markets.
Powered by FlippingBook