We speak to Dan Bates, Founder and CEO of Rebel Energy about launching a new breed of energy supplier in the UK. Dan's mission with Rebel Energy is to address inequality and the climate crisis with a startup that addresses 3 mega trends in the energy industry:

1. Global Regulatory Changes. This can be seen in the USA's renewed commitment to the Paris Agreement, many countries and businesses commitment to carbon neutrality by the middle of the century and the upcoming COP26 UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland later this year.

2.Technology Changes. With advancements in wind, solar and tidal energy generation and the huge shift over to electric vehicles.

3. Consumer Changes. Consumers are seeking more ethical businesses, exploring choices and placing money into companies that they trust.

Dan also discusses the UK startup culture that has enabled challenger, 'disrupter' businesses to flourish with many traditional barriers disappearing.

ABOUT DAN BATES

Dan is the CEO and founder of Rebel Energy, a supplier of energy to UK households.  Rebel Energy is built around a social mission to provide affordable clean energy.  Dan has a desire to make a difference in society and show that big business can be good business.  Prior to founding Rebel Energy, Dan spent over 15 years at BP in a variety of senior leadership roles.

ABOUT REBEL ENERGY

Rebel Energy is a new breed of energy supplier, providing clean energy to households in the UK at an affordable price. Rebel’s on a mission to address inequality and combat the climate crisis with a benevolent mindset. Rebel with a cause, energy with a difference.

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- [Dan] It's me Karim, and everyone else listening.

My name is Dan Bates.

I'm the co-founder of Rebel Energy,

which is a UK energy supplier to domestic homes.

We're a new breed of clean energy suppliers

where we're aiming to address inequality

and provide easy access to affordable, clean energy.

And we're going to do that, we pretty much see

that with our nimble customer focused model.

We really believe will be well-placed

as a major player in the market.

And we're looking to launch in the next couple of months.

- [Karim] Well, congratulations on that then.

- [Dan] Thank you, Karim.

- [Karim] So when I first was introduced to you,

I saw the name, I saw the company name.

I said, oh wow.

A new energy drink company has entered the marketplace.

And then I read more.

I go, Oh, this is an actual energy company.

So I know you, you have many years in

in traditional energy in, in the UK.

Before I ask you a little bit about that,

you know tell me more about Rebel Energy

and your goal to be able to,

you know bring to the British marketplace

the ability for consumers to access--

to easily access clean and affordable energy.

- [Dan] Yeah, so we, we see a great opportunity

in the UK space but I mean,

he goes, I mean, every household in the UK,

every household in any country needs energy.

So you're ready.

Everyone needs energy, need to get it somehow.

And we see a great opportunity to come in

and do change the-- turn the model on its head.

We very much talk about energy and clean energy.

And, you know, that's a all across the world about that.

We know that's important, but actually, how do we make sure

that everyone can access this clean energy

and it's energy transition, which is happening?

How can everyone be able to access electric vehicles?

How can everyone be able to take advantage of

Solar panels etc.

So we see a real good opportunity to come into the UK

perhaps other territories at some point, and provide access

for everyone to come in and be able to

to take advantage of all these exciting things which happen

in the energy space.

Now for us, it's starting to get the customers

and then let's take the customers

on that journey and starting to provide them

with services to enable them to take advantage of that.

So we see ourselves as initially an energy supplier.

However, we see our journey going

into becoming an energy services provider.

And what do we mean by that?

It means that we're able to buy these goods

and services to enable people, as I said,

to access the energy markets and in an affordable way.

- [Karim] I mentioned a little while ago

that you spent a number of years

at a traditional energy company, 15 plus years.

- [Dan] Yep.

- [Karim] Why did you decide to start all over again

from scratch, cause my understanding is

that your previous employer was starting to

make that sort of transition.

- [Dan] Yeah. And that's a great, great question.

I think firstly, I've always had that bug

in me or desire to set up a company and do something.

So I saw it as a great opportunity to do that.

And I spent 15, 16 years, as you said

at one of these sort of major global energy companies

and I'm grateful for the time I spent there.

However, I felt after being there for so long,

I needed to change.

And it's also, I think it's an interesting

as it talks about this energy transition

I just mentioned is there's a fundamental change happening.

There's three mega trends hitting this energy market

and the energy in it globally.

One of them is regulatory change.

So this is to drive to a low carbon world

to address the climate crisis.

And we've seen that with Joe Biden coming in

signing back up to the Paris agreement.

And then there is, we've got this big COP26,

which is all which is hopefully a inflection point

in the drive to address this climate crisis we're facing.

The second piece is technology change.

And we've seen that new forms of energy generation

especially wind and solar are starting to

come much more prevalent in society.

For example, in the UK

we've seen coal generation effectively be completely

replaced by wind and that's happening over

all around the world where all of a sudden you've got wind

and solar being some of the most economic forms

of energy generation these in the stack.

And we, when we see the rise

of electric vehicles and if we can have a debate

when's that going to happen or not going to happen?

My personal view is it's one of those hockey

stick things is it's taken a while to get there,

but all of a sudden we'll see this huge uptake

in electric vehicles.

And then the third piece is the consumer change.

So again, this other mega trend, which you see

and that's based, I think we can see it now much more

in the post and pre COVID world.

So the pre COVID world, it was the Greta's of this world.

And all the student protest is about wanting to

address this climate crisis, renewable energy

get rid of fossil fuels.

Post COVID world, that is a given.

And I think the next thing is around the ethical brands.

Now, as I saw these mega trends

could I've done that in the old company?

My, my personal view was the pace of change about

was too slow for my liking.

And also we could debate as well is,

you know whether it's too hard for a leopard

to change it's spots for example.

However, I also saw the winners in this energy transition,

so you, so we've got seismic changes happening

in this energy markets.

And whenever in any industry we've seen seismic changes

you've seen small companies emerge and the old guard to go

whether that's Nokia being replaced by Apple, for example.

Whether that's Kodak going and even the emergence

of Amazon to address the old retailers.

So, whenever we see an industry

which have gone through these huge mega trends.

We've always seen the old guard, not only existing.

And I, energies not going to go away.

We still need energy,

but I saw a real good opportunity then to come in

and just do something to take what I've learned

in that company.

And I learned a lot and to build on that

and just go and do something different.

- [Karim] So tell we, we have many listeners

of this podcast in the UK, but as a Canadian

I'm really fascinated by, by this.

Tell me about, I don't know if it's a business culture

in the UK that enables and empowers you to

to develop an energy startup, you know, as

as Canadian, I mean, this is just, this doesn't happen.

- [Dan] Well, I think there's

two things I think on a bigger picture

there's a great environment for startups in the UK.

So over the last, especially over the last five years

we've seen a real wave of FinTech companies

emerge from the UK.

So you might've heard of Monzo, Revolut, et cetera.

And what's been incredible

as you start to see the UK getting a reputation

as being a great place to start businesses.

Obviously the US Silicon Valley, you know, effectively

we've seen that replicate by FinTech.

So there's a great opportunity,

an investment opportunity and community

and access to capital than probably ever has been.

So I think there's that

sort of bigger macro piece to do that.

And then as you look specifically

at the energy markets in the UK,

what's actually completely changed is

we talked about those mega trends,

but actually also you've seen barriers to entry

have been completely disappearing in the UK space.

So regulatory climate is enabled small players to come in

and access a market. They haven't done before.

You've got service companies,

or software companies coming in

providing off the shelf systems under SAAS contracts.

So all of a sudden traditional energy companies

in the UK with big mainframe computers

or big startup costs, all that goes away.

And so it's been a real enabled

lots of a wave of companies come through

and especially in the energy market in the UK

we've seen a lot of companies over last five years emerged.

Now some of those have been successful as companies

like Octopus Energy, which people may have heard of.

They've been an extraordinary success over the last four

or five years, OVO Energy, which has been a bit around

for a bit longer, again, similar, obviously there's

as any startup business, some have fallen by the wayside.

But there's this great opportunity to come in.

And what can also, what generally happens

in the UK as well is as a rough rule of thumb

that the new startup companies,

their cost to serve is far lower.

So it could be a lot more cost competitive

versus some of the big, bigger companies and some

of the legacy companies, energy companies in the UK.

So, I think as you say, startup culture in

in the UK is obviously helping that

but also specifically in the energy market.

It's really enabled those barriers ventures to come

down for the likes of Rebel Energy, to come in.

- [Karim] What makes rebel energy different

than the established companies?

You know, other than, you know

you've got the big established ones

but then you also have other startups that you've

mentioned already, what makes rebel different from both?

- [Dan] So I think one of the first things is,

is our positioning.

So what we're saying, where we've got a social mission

at our hearts and it provides

enabling people to have access, everyone have access

to affordable energy is one of our key things.

We, will be doing that in lots of different ways

and we can come on and talk about B-Corp benefit corporation

while we're doing that and why that's important.

So I think that's, that's one, one piece.

The second piece is around how we're sort of approaching

our sources of energy.

Now renewable energy is pretty much

or clean energy is pretty much now a given

for a lot of companies in the UK.

We're taking a bit further than that.

We see it's important, not only to have that

but actually we want to develop the ability to

have traceability.

What I mean by that is we would like to tell our customers

now this is a journey we need to go on.

And of course we'd like to say

to our customers that electron you're using to

charge your phone is coming from this wind farm

in the North of England.

Or if there are plants in the Southwest.

So for us, it's how can we really drive transparency?

And, you know, in the market is, is a key thing.

And then the other one as well is how do we

manage our cost base?

So we're using this concept of what we call digital workers.

What would, what do we mean by that is we're really looking

at how can we automate routine repetitive tasks?

It's an energy industry.

It doesn't matter you've got one customer,

or millions of customers, your processes

are pretty much exactly the same.

Industry standardized, but they're quite manual

involved lots of human intervention.

So we're really, really looking around how can we

use robotic process automation to speed some of that up.

And it just free up our people to think

and also to free up our people to help our customers.

- [Karim] That's amazing.

You mentioned B Corp.

Tell me a little bit about, you know

what that is and why this designation

this pending designation that you have is

is important to, to Rebel Energy.

- [Dan] Yeah, so B Corp movement is something

which is really gaining traction globally.

So what is B Corp?

B Corp is a as a, I guess the best way to describe it

as an independent assessment or an, or a set

of standards companies sign up to say, actually we recognize

that a role of the companies is not just profits.

We have a responsibility

to the wider world for wider stakeholders

for our customers, for our employees, for the environment

for third parties, for our communities you're working.

So not just shareholders, so very much the mandate

of most companies is the profit for shareholders.

This says shareholders are so important.

They have to be because you have to make money

to do this good stuff.

However, you also need to take into account

all these other areas which are impacting.

And for us B Corp means that we can be held to account

to our higher standard.

So it's not one of these ones where we might say

we intend to do X, Y, and Z.

Now, then that, that means could we do it

or could we not do it?

And we could drop it or stuff,

but under the B Corp piece,

we've got B standards which you need to meet,

and you're regularly assessed to make sure you're doing it.

But it's also a journey,

and B Corp peers a real growing community.

So from the likes of star small startups like ourselves

Rebel Energy, actually to well known companies and brands.

So the likes of Dannon, The Body Shop,

Guardian Newspapers, Ben and Jerry's are just some examples

of companies which have gone down its roots.

And it's really, for us we really see it as it helps us

to differentiate ourselves.

But also it's a framework to constantly look

across all areas of our business

to ensure that we're doing good.

And actually research, it shows that customers favorite

brands are strong ethical principles and ethically driven

consumer brands are growing faster than

in their markets and respect to markets

and then any other type of companies they compete against.

So, there's a real opportunity here

to not only to do the right thing,

but actually to recognize it a standard

which people combine to.

- [Karim] Yeah, this is an interesting journey that

that you're going on right now with, with Rebel Energy Dan.

Thank you so much for, for your time.

I really appreciate it today.

- [Dan] Thanks Karim. I really enjoyed the chat today.

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