UN International Day of Clean Energy

January 26th this year marks the International Day of Clean Energy, a global initiative founded by the United Nations in 2023 to advocate for increased sustainable energy use worldwide.

As the UN themselves state: “The science is clear: to limit climate change, we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels and invest in alternative sources of energy that are clean, accessible, affordable, sustainable, and reliable.” In the EDF Small Business team we think this is an important day to recognise as many of our customers are doing their bit to build a sustainable business.

How are EDF investing in low carbon energy?

25 years ago, EDF embarked on its journey to become a long-term partner to Britain. Since then, we’ve launched ground-breaking projects, forged important partnerships and pioneered innovative technology, all to save customers cash and carbon and help Britain achieve net zero.

We want to champion this day and celebrate our customers that are doing their bit to build a sustainable business.

As Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity⁽¹⁾ we’re busy building Britain’s own wind, nuclear and solar energy supply to reduce our reliance on energy imports and help prevent future price rises:

Wind Farms - EDF currently operates 37 onshore wind farms, including our largest European onshore wind farm at Dorenell. Along with this, we're also developing two major offshore wind projects at Codling Wind Park in Ireland and Neart na Goaithe in Scotland and have plans for a floating offshore wind development at Blyth.

Solar Farms – Alongside encouraging our customers to install solar panels  to kickstart their sustainable journey, we have also built our first solar panel farm at Sutton Bridge, capable of generating enough low carbon electricity for more than 9,000 households annually, saving around 21,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

Solar Panels and Batteries – Contact Solar, part of the wider EDF family, install on-site rooftop solar panels, enabling customers to generate and use their own clean energy.   Contact Solar also support small businesses who are interested in battery storage, enabling your business to store any excess energy generated during the day and use it at night when you need it most. We entered 2025 with 2 GW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) under contract in the UK and our pipeline includes a further 3 GW of flexible battery capacity planned for deployment across the UK & Ireland.

Already have solar panels and a battery storage system? Find out how your business could earn money from the excess energy your solar panels produce with our Smart Export Guarantee tariffs.

Nuclear Energy - Nuclear is a cornerstone of EDF’s clean energy strategy. It’s a stable source of energy and in the entire nuclear process produces less than 1% of the CO² that the equivalent amount of coal would produce, drastically reducing the amount of overall greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere. For more information and myth-busting, visit our blog for small business on nuclear power.

Our partnerships in the Small Business team

No energy supplier is an island; we work hard with our partners to help aid our customers and drive our passion to reach Net Zero. Here are just a few of our partners and what we do with them:

Perse - a market leading firm in data solutions, with their focus on enabling small businesses to gather useful info and insights into customer energy use. In partnership with Perse, we now provide Low Carbon Reports to assesses how small business customers to help improve sustainability and cut costs. To find out more, just click here to see our blog.

Wadi - offers a comprehensive sustainability hub: they provide tools to track your energy usage, professional videos full of expert support and advice and project tracking for robust small-business growth (and so much more). You can find our Small Business blog about them here.

FSB - The Federation of Small Businesses are also very dedicated to achieving Net Zero having joined the Climate Action For Associations in 2024. In partnership with EDF, FSB are helping small businesses up and down the country unlock the power of smart meters. Find out more here.

Enterprise Nation Partnership - Under the "Powering the High Street" initiative, we’ve joined Enterprise Nation to support high street businesses with energy expertise, sustainability guidance, practical tools, podcasts and exclusive EDF offers.

Ready to act?

To mark International Day of Clean Energy, here are some ways to get involved:

Read our blog on how you can turn energy efficiency into a bingo game.

Explore sustainability grants here.

View industry specific energy savings tips here.

Sign up with EDF today and receive a free low-carbon report worth £250 - personalised insights to boost savings and sustainability. Ready for a quote? Just click here.

Make that difference and begin your small business' sustainable journey!