Growth and Progress in Energy Management Services

Energy Strategy Updated

We announced an updated strategy for our energy activities in May 2022, focused on the twin goals of continued growth and decarbonisation. We provided a detailed update on that strategy at our DCC Energy Insights Day in September 2023. A key component of that strategy is to build a comprehensive EMS business, providing a broader range of renewable energy products and services to our existing and new customers, aligned with macro trends of electrification and energy efficiency.

Solar PV panels in place at one of our French agricultural customers.

Progress Against Strategy

Since 2022, we have grown significantly in this area, largely by identifying, acquiring and successfully integrating new businesses into the Group. In many cases, the entrepreneurial management teams who established these businesses remain in place under DCC ownership. The support they receive in scaling their operations and the access their businesses can get to our existing large customer base are often key factors in their decision to join and remain with the Group.

Our EMS businesses now support customers with a wide range of energy services including solar, insulation, energy controls and monitoring, efficient heating systems and backup energy systems. Demand for these products and services is growing rapidly in many markets.

Before the financial year under review, we had committed £163 million in acquiring 10 EMS businesses. Over the course of the year to 31 March 2024, we accelerated the implementation of our strategy, committing a further £346 million of capital on nine acquisitions in the EMS sector. These included Alternative Energy Solutions in Ireland, Centreco, DTGen and Next Energy in the UK, and SLER40 and Copropriétés Diagnostic in France. These new businesses are being integrated into our EMS platform and in turn provide exciting opportunities for further growth.

Our growth to date in this area has been achieved by blending strategic clarity, knowledge of the markets where we operate, and a strong commitment to partnership with core DCC skills in areas like M&A and risk management.

Commercial & Industrial Customers

A key customer segment for our EMS business is large commercial and industrial (‘C&I’) customers. These customers often want to benefit from the cost savings generated by energy management programmes and then reduce the carbon emissions from their remaining energy needs. In the year under review we launched WeWise, a European-wide network of DCC EMS businesses, providing a consistent experience for C&I customers with operations across Europe. We are continuing to invest in enhancing our customer proposition through more integrated services and digitisation. Our aim is to become the leading EMS partner for C&I customers in Europe.


Supporting Consumers

Our devolved operating model also allows us to ensure that we tailor our EMS services to meet individual market conditions. This is particularly relevant in the B2C market segment, where energy transition trends vary significantly from market to market.

Our French and Dutch businesses now offer high-quality domestic retrofit services through their EMS businesses, SLER40 and Isolatiespecialist. We were also very pleased to recently incorporate significant additional domestic retrofit capability in the UK market through the acquisition of Next Energy. Next Energy brings deep expertise in utilising a range of funding arrangements to help domestic customers achieve significant housing upgrades in a market that currently has low energy efficiency. Over the course of the year under review, our EMS business made a significant difference in helping customers with their energy transition needs. We installed 150 MWp of solar systems and distributed 1.9 TWh of renewable power.


Investing in the Future

We are excited by the opportunity to use our growing EMS capabilities to help existing and new customers transition to modern energy systems. The Group’s long-established expertise in acquiring, integrating and supporting the growth of companies that provide a broad range of products and services to large numbers of businesses and consumers means we are very well placed to continue our growth in the EMS sector.