McGrail (pictured) will work on an initial six-month contract, on secondment from RenewableUK, and recruitment for the permanent CEO will begin shortly. Image: RenewableUK.
The solar industry “warmly” welcomes RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail’s appointment as interim CEO of Great British Energy.
McGrail currently heads up the trade body representing businesses developing wind, wave, tidal, storage and green hydrogen projects in the UK, and is also sitting on the board for WindEurope. He was previously CEO of Siemens Engines and managing director of Siemens Power Generation.
He joins start-up Great British Energy chair Juergen Maier, who served as chief executive of Siemens UK between 2014 and 2019.
According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), McGrail will draw on his “wealth of experience in clean energy including wind and thermal power” to help scale up the new energy company so it can start delivering “as quickly as possible”.
Solar Energy UK’s chief executive Chris Hewett commented that Mcgrail “brings with him a deep knowledge of what support the renewable industry needs to enable us to deliver on the country’s clean power mission”.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband said: “With the appointment of Dan McGrail as interim CEO we now have a fantastic team in place to lead Great British Energy and start delivering on our Plan for Change.”
McGrail commented: “I’m excited to hit the ground running to scale up the company and work with industry to unleash billions of investment in clean energy, helping to grow new industries at scale with job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people, as well as helping the government achieve its clean power targets.”
He will take up his post in March and be based in Scotland, working from the Aberdeen headquarters. He will work on an initial six-month contract, on secondment from RenewableUK, and recruitment for the permanent CEO will begin shortly.
His appointment follows the announcement in January of the company’s non-executive board. Great British Energy will be led by its own CEO and overseen by an independent fiduciary board rather than ministers. Who will make up that board also remains to be seen.
The government is currently legislating through the Great British Energy Bill to give the company the powers it needs to “rapidly deliver”. It recently amended the bill to reference energy projects that benefit local communities, enabling GB Energy to promote the growth of community-led projects.
A version of this article was published first on our sister site, Current±.
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