The power infrastructure challenge isn't just building more, it's coordinating more

05 Nov

The power infrastructure challenge isn't just building more, it's coordinating more.

The UK’s power infrastructure programme is moving at a scale the industry has not seen for some time. National Grid has secured more than £28 billion in supply chain contracts for its forward UK capital plans, while major programmes such as the Great Grid Partnership are bringing multiple projects together under longer-term delivery models.

The question now is how the industry can coordinate all that work.

For me, a lot of it starts with looking beyond individual projects and understanding the programme around them.
A project might have a clear requirement for equipment, installation teams and transport, but when several projects are moving at the same time, those requirements start to overlap. Dates change, outage windows move and resources planned for one location may suddenly be needed somewhere else.

That makes regular conversations between contractors and their supply chain increasingly important.
You will not always have firm dates or every detail months in advance, and that is understandable. Even an overview of likely workloads is useful. It gives the supply chain a chance to understand where demand is likely to be, look at capacity and identify where more planning may be needed.

Access is part of that wider picture

Access is a good example of why project-level planning is not always enough.

Power projects can cover large distances, with ground conditions and site requirements changing considerably along the route. What works at one location may not be appropriate at another.

Getting involved early gives the supply chain time to understand the ground conditions, the activities taking place and the plant that needs access. It also gives contractors more opportunity to identify any preparation or groundwork needed before installation.

That is much easier to deal with when it is part of the programme planning than when access is already holding up the wider works.

The programme will keep moving

The other challenge is that even a well-planned programme will change. One location may be delayed. Another may need to move forward. An outage date may be fixed, leaving very little room to recover time.
Those changes can have a knock-on effect when equipment, installation crews and transport are being used across multiple projects.

That is why the conversation with the supply chain needs to continue once work starts. Keeping each other updated gives everyone an opportunity to review the plan, move resources where possible and be honest about what can realistically be supported.

The supply chain needs to be part of the planning

I think this will become increasingly important as the volume of work grows.

On larger programmes, installation, recovery, transport and coordination can all influence whether the wider programme stays on track. The role of a supplier needs to be more than only providing equipment.
There is already a move towards longer-term and more collaborative supply-chain models across the power sector, reflecting the need to build capacity as well as deliver individual projects.

The practical lesson is fairly straightforward: the earlier the supply chain understands what is coming, the better it can prepare for it.

The UK has the investment and the projects. The next challenge is making sure the industry has enough visibility across those projects to coordinate the resources needed to deliver them.

That means looking beyond what needs to happen on one site and asking what is happening across the programme.

For a power infrastructure programme of this scale, that wider view could make the difference between having the resources available and having them available when and where they are actually needed.