Juliet Davenport, Trailblazer

Juliet’s journey to becoming involved in renewable energy and starting up Good Energy began at university where she studied physics and climate science as part of her university degree. Being interested in the topic, she also began to notice articles on climate change starting to appear in newspapers and magazines. She sensed that this was a field she could make a difference in but wasn’t sure exactly how. So she took another degree, this time in economics, and then took a job in government.

“I found working in government interesting but a little ponderous. My path to Good Energy really came about because I wanted to inspire people and empower them to do something about it. I suppose you could say climate change has been a lifelong mission.”

Good Energy is the UK’s only dedicated 100% renewable electricity supplier, with the majority of its energy coming from wind power. As Britain is the windiest nation in Europe, this makes sound business and environmental sense. When she started the company, Juliet wanted to make it easy for people to engage with the issue of climate change and to keep it front of mind. With over 25,000 customers in the UK, her approach has proved remarkably successful. But those customers have to be efficiently managed.

“We take data from customers once or twice a month. We have to maintain that data and, since many of our customers have been with us from the beginning ten years ago, that’s a lot of data. It has to be stored safely.”

Server performance is also of crucial importance for Juliet and Good Energy.

“We’re developing a new system that takes weather feeds across the UK and lets us forecast which generators will be generating power on an hourly basis. That information is really valuable, so it’s really important that our systems are robust enough.”

Robust servers and effective data management are just two ways Dell is helping Good Energy. How her suppliers work is another fundamental factor for Juliet.

“We wanted our suppliers to be part of the fight against climate change, and we needed a system that was robust. So we went out into the market. We found some small companies which were interesting but didn’t really provide us with the basis for handling the amount of data we have day to day. We needed good solid systems so we could provide good service to our customers, and we needed a company that understood our environmental approach. We looked at the top five providers, and Dell came out on top.”

Asked her views on pursuing her own path, Juliet believes you must have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. For her it wasn’t just about making money; it was about helping to grow renewable energy in the UK. She also advises on focusing and keeping it simple.

“I wanted to make it easy for ordinary people to take simple steps to make a difference to climate change. With electricity contributing around a third to the average household’s CO2 emissions, switching to a 100% renewable supplier is something anyone can do.”