Grants

Great British Energy has put £7.5 million into Crawley-based Naked Energy, its first investment in the UK solar supply chain, backing a new automated factory for solar thermal panels that will create 40 direct jobs

The money comes from GBE's £1 billion Energy Engineered in the UK programme and sits alongside a wider £27 million funding round with Barclays Climate Ventures. It won't change what a Kent homeowner pays for a rooftop PV install tomorrow, but it is a signal of where government money is now backing UK manufacturing rather than just installation grants and export tariffs.

7 August 2026 · Source: Solar Power Portal

Most of the government money this site tracks goes to the demand side, grants and loans that help a household afford solar, or tariff schemes that pay for the electricity once it's installed. This is different. Great British Energy's £7.5 million into Naked Energy is aimed at the supply side, funding a UK factory to build the panels rather than a subsidy to buy them, and it's GBE's first move specifically into solar manufacturing since it was set up.

Naked Energy makes a solar thermal product called Virtu, evacuated-tube collectors that heat water up to 120°C rather than generating electricity, which puts it in a different category to the rooftop PV systems most Kent homeowners are asking about. The £7.5 million forms part of a larger £27 million Series B round, with Barclays Climate Ventures also putting money in, and it's funding an automated manufacturing facility in Crawley expected to create 40 direct jobs and support around 100 more indirectly.

The reason this is worth flagging on a local news page rather than filing under national industrial policy is what it signals about direction of travel. A government-backed energy company choosing to invest in UK manufacturing capacity, rather than only demand-side incentives, points toward a supply chain the government wants built domestically over the next few years. Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh framed it explicitly as reindustrialisation, not just decarbonisation, which is a different policy emphasis to the grant and loan schemes this site has covered up to now.

For anyone in Sandwich weighing up a solar or solar-battery install this year, none of this changes your quote, your SEG rate, or your MCS-certified installer's availability in the short term. What it's worth watching for over the next year or two is whether GBE's supply-chain investment strategy extends from solar thermal into the PV panel and battery manufacturing that actually feeds residential installs, since a UK-built supply chain is the kind of structural change that could eventually move installed prices, not just subsidise them.

Read the original: Solar Power Portal. Commentary is Sandwich Solar's own editorial view; the original reporting is credited to its publisher.

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