Ebico rejoins market with Octopus white label deal

Large disruptor brand Octopus Energy has announced it has signed a white label agreement with not-for-profit power retailer Ebico.

Founded in 1998, Oxfordshire-based Ebico supplied around 50,000 customers via a white label deal with Robin Hood Energy which was acquired by Centrica last year. As such Ebico does not currently have any customers of its own.

Prior to Robin Hood, Ebico had an agreement with SSE over a 20-year period.

The agreement announced today (13 April) is Octopus’ fifth white label and will see Ebico relaunch as Ebico Living which in addition to energy will make energy saving products available to customers.

Ebico has its own charity, Ebico Trust, which donates the company’s surpluses as grants to bodies researching the impacts of the net-zero transition on affordability. It also has Ebico Innovation which invests in start-ups that create products and services that make sustainable living more affordable.

As part of the agreement two new renewable energy tariffs will be offered to Ebico customers including Ebico Prime 12 Saver, designed for credit meter customers, and Ebico Prepay.

Speaking to Utility Week Phil Levermore, chief executive of Ebico, said: “We’re really pleased to be launching back into the market again, we’ve missed it and we hope people have missed us.

“In the move to zero carbon and the energy transition, you have to remember that’s not going to come cheap. There are going to be winners and losers and we’re concerned that those on low-incomes will see disproportionate increases in their energy costs because of the transition.

“Don’t get me wrong, the energy transition is absolutely vital. As a nation we have to move to zero carbon but we need to have a discussion.

“We need to be conscious of the fact that the costs of that transition are going to be considerable and we need to be very cognisant that we don’t increase fuel poverty as a result of our efforts to decarbonise.”

In addition to Ebico, Octopus has four other white label deals including Affect Energy, M&S Energy, Co-op Energy and London Power, a local-authority-run retailer.

In July 2020 the Greater London Authority (GLA) scaled back marketing plans for London Power due to the pandemic. In October the supplier said it hoped a “renewed communications push” would attract more customers, after only managing to acquire fewer than 4,000 in its first nine months.

Figures published by the GLA in January however show just over 4,500 customers were supplied as of 31 December 2020.

Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, global director for product and marketing at Octopus Energy, said: “I am over the moon to welcome the Ebico brand to our ‘white label’ family, a brand that over the past two decades has proven that energy can be better for people and for the planet.”

Utility Week recently interviewed Dibb-Simkin about Octopus’ white label agreements. You can read it here.