Thank you for downloading this programme. In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davis and guests discuss the energy upstarts, the smaller players challenging the big established firms.

Hello and welcome to the programme. Now I think it's pretty clear that the big six energy providers are not the most popular businesses in Britain. So today we hear from entrepreneurs behind two

upstart energy companies, small ones breaking into the market, trying to beat the big ones

at their own game. We'll also get a perspective from one of the price comparison websites,

which in theory, of course, should make it easier for challenger companies to challenge the incumbents.

Now, this should all be interesting on two counts, firstly because energy is itself newsworthy,

but also because some of the most fascinating stories in business do come from upstarts, taking on established players.

Let's start by taking a few minutes to meet each of our three guests. And first

up is Dale Vince, founder and chief executive of ecotricity. Let's talk to you first, Dale, because

your company generates power as well as supplying it. It's been doing that since the mid-1990s. But before we

go into the company, just tell us about your life beforehand, because you had a sort of interesting life. It wasn't necessarily the one that would make you naturally think you were going to be an entrepreneur. What were you up to? Yeah, I guess it was pretty unconventional. I dropped out really, you know, in my early 20s, decided that conventional life wasn't for me. I went travelling. I became new age traveller. I spent about 10 years living in a range of different vehicles, buses, ambulances, fire engines, all sorts of stuff. And I was really just pursuing a different way to live. You know, I was trying to live off the grid, live with a low impact. You know, green issues were important to me back then. Ethical have always been important to me. And, you know, I was just rejecting the 9 to 5 and, you know, being told what to do and all that kind of stuff. Well, no one tells you what to do now, presumably. Maybe the energy regulator occasionally tells you the odd thing. But what was the sort of the moment when you thought, actually, I want to go into business? I saw the first wind farm built in Cornwall. It was 91, 92. And I thought to myself, that was my epiphany. If I dropped back in, I could make a bigger difference in the world. I could bring about more change. If I tried to build a big windmill on this hill I lived on, which I knew was windy because I had a little windmill. And it just started there. I thought I'll drop back in, I'll build a windmill, and that was my plan.

So it started with the building of a turbine of some sort. It did, absolutely. and it just started there I thought I'll drop back in I'll build a windmill and that's that was my

plan so it started with the building of a turbine of some sort absolutely yeah and it went on from

there now the businesses we've got these two bits we've got generation green energy generation

renewable and retail in terms of the sort of size of the business, which is the more important bit?

They're equally important. They support each other. You've got to make the stuff, in my opinion, in order to sell the stuff.

And if you look at where we are in the market today, for example, we have a degree of price independence.

We are independent from the price of fossil fuels

because we now self-generate 40% of our own electricity from the wind,

and the wind doesn't go up in price, and that's a very important thing.

And all the who hire in the markets of the last few months about rising energy prices,

people have been pointing the finger at the wrong things.

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