Protecting critical energy infrastructure in an era of rapid network expansion

Protecting critical energy infrastructure in an era of rapid network expansion

As the UK enters an unforeseen period of energy infrastructure investment and network expansion, an AtkinsRéalis roundtable at GRID Conference on 1st October examined whether resilience is being considered broadly enough.

Britain’s energy network must be protected while it grows, but that the ability to respond and recover the future system has itself become a central part of resilience.

This was a key argument which emerged from energy leaders: the industry has previously tended to concentrate on prevention as its definition of resilience. Now, however, resilience should be concerned with how effectively organisations can respond, adapt and restore services.

From investment planning to a delivery problem

The group agreed that there has been a sectoral shift from investment planning to delivery. They suggested questions are no longer confined simply to whether a project is required or how it should be funded, but as to whether manufacturing slots can be secured, whether the supply chain can provide the necessary equipment, whether enough people are available to install it and whether what is built today will remain resilient throughout its operating life.

The scale of delivery described in the room was substantial. One transmission operator referred to a £29 billion programme over the next five years which, together with supply-chain partners, could require approximately 50,000 additional people by the end of the decade. Participants also noted that transmission investment must progress alongside offshore generation, long-duration storage, substations, high-voltage direct-current connections and major programmes in other infrastructure sectors to deliver a functional system.

This led to a broader discussion of resilience, which explored how if the wider infrastructure needed to reinforce the network, connect generation and provide storage cannot be delivered, that failure is itself a threat to future system resilience.

The practical consequence is that resilience depends partly on delivery sequencing; offshore generation cannot serve consumers without the network capacity to move its power; storage projects need viable routes to market; and delays to connections, equipment or enabling works can hold up other assets that depend on them.

The discussion therefore treated deliverability not as a separate project-management concern, but as one of the main foundations of resilience.

Lowest cost or long-term value?

One participant argued that government and the civil service continue to rely heavily on metrics such as the lowest possible cost of electricity. That may provide an apparently clear objective on behalf of consumers, but the cheapest option is not necessarily the best value when the infrastructure under consideration could remain operational for 100 years.

The discussion suggested that traditional appraisal methods do not always capture the value of operational resilience, physical asset resilience, supply-chain capability, social benefits or adaptation to future climate conditions, nor do they necessarily reflect the productive capability created by developing a domestic supply chain and skills base.

This is particularly important for long-life assets, as decisions taken primarily on upfront cost can shape the performance of the system for decades. If resilience is not explicitly recognised within the metrics used to assess projects, it risks being removed through value engineering or treated as an optional enhancement.

Participants did not propose a single replacement appraisal model. They suggested being more precise about the outcome being valued, distinguishing operational, physical, supply-chain and workforce resilience, and supplementing existing measures with indicators such as asset availability and restoration time after major disruption – but an owner is needed to oversee this.

Who owns resilience at system level?

One of the strongest phrases to emerge was “non-project problems”.

Government has often set policy and created mechanisms intended to allow the market to deliver individual schemes. Participants accepted that this approach has supported significant deployment, particularly in areas such as offshore wind.

However, it does not necessarily address the barriers sitting between projects, including shared workforce shortages, planning delays, grid connections, transport, accommodation, environmental restrictions and local infrastructure. Each project may identify its own needs, but no one necessarily examines the combined demand created when many projects proceed at once.

Examples from work in the Highlands and islands showed how these issues affect delivery. A project may require ferry capacity for several years, but that ferry also serves local communities, tourism and other economic activity. A programme cannot simply displace those existing users without consequence.

Issues such as these may sound like secondary concerns, but they can determine whether a programme is deliverable and how much it ultimately costs consumers. Ultimately, programmes are burdened by issues beyond the engineering scope, and no single organisation appears to own their resolution.

The question of ownership surfaced repeatedly. Government, Ofgem, DESNZ, NESO, network operators, generators, developers and industry bodies all have important roles, yet participants struggled to identify who is responsible for the gaps between those roles.

The discussion did not suggest that government should take responsibility for the delivery obligations of individual companies. The proposed role was narrower: helping to coordinate constraints that sit across projects or sectors and cannot be resolved by one organisation alone. An “aligned ambition” across national, devolved and local government, regulators, industry and communities could identify which actions belong to individual organisations and which require joint effort. A stronger orchestration role for NESO was also proposed, connecting the infrastructure vision with the people, supply chains, logistics and enabling works needed to deliver it.

Participants recognised the value of the Energy Resilience Group, which brings together DESNZ, NESO, Ofgem and parts of industry to discuss security and resilience, but questioned whether its historical focus on networks provides sufficient representation as the energy system becomes more decentralised and diverse.

From a regulatory perspective, Ofgem currently uses measures including network reliability, customer minutes lost, energy not supplied and asset risk, but the roundtable questioned whether those measures provide a sufficiently complete picture of future resilience. A broader framework could include asset availability, recovery or restoration time, and clear long-term outcomes against which companies can plan investment.

It concluded that any future framework must provide useful direction without becoming overly prescriptive or placing UK companies at a competitive disadvantage. The room did not seek regulation for its own sake, but several contributors felt that clear standards and long-term outcomes could provide the certainty needed to support investment.

The scale of the workforce challenge

Major programmes need civil engineers, construction teams, planners, quantity surveyors, commercial managers, project controllers and contract administrators. Participants reported particular pressure in planning and commercial capability, with experienced project planners commanding day rates of around up to £1,500.

The same people are needed elsewhere, as energy projects compete with water programmes, rail investment, airports, nuclear projects, defence and data centres in both the UK and Europe.

One speaker suggested that the industry needs to become more comfortable with sharing capability and accepting a proportion of available resource rather than attempting to secure all of it for an individual programme, as well as a clearer shared view of credible project pipelines and coordinated workforce planning across sectors. This would help clients and suppliers see where programmes are competing for the same scarce roles, sequence demand more realistically and avoid each programme trying to secure the full available market at the same time.

Training cannot provide an immediate answer, as new entrants need experienced people around them, which limits how many can be brought into a programme safely and effectively at any one time. Apprenticeships, graduate schemes and retraining are essential, but the sector must recognise the years required to turn trainees into experienced professionals.

Attendees also warned AI may help address parts of the immediate capacity problem, but it cannot replace the career pipeline on which long-term resilience depends. Technology may reduce demand for some administrative or analytical tasks, but it cannot simply be used to remove entry-level roles. If organisations stop recruiting graduates and apprentices, they also remove the route through which future senior professionals gain their experience.

Delivering resilience

The roundtable began by asking how critical energy infrastructure can be protected during a period of rapid expansion, and ended with a broader understanding of the challenge.

Cyber security, physical protection, climate adaptation and asset health remain essential. Better monitoring can improve reliability. Stronger standards can influence behaviour. Data can support more informed decisions, and response planning can reduce the consequences of failures that cannot economically be prevented.

There was broad agreement that resilience can no longer be considered separately from deliverability. Workforce availability, supply-chain capacity, planning constraints, logistics and enabling infrastructure were viewed not as secondary concerns but as resilience issues in their own right because they directly influence whether critical infrastructure can be built, maintained, repaired and restored.

There was similar consensus that many of the most important challenges sit between organisations rather than within them. Energy, water, transport, aviation, defence and digital infrastructure are increasingly drawing on the same labour pools, manufacturing capacity and supply chains, yet decisions are often taken in isolation. A clearer view of where those demands intersect was seen as an important step towards reducing delivery risk and supporting more informed investment in people and capability.

While individual companies remain responsible for their own assets and programmes, participants felt that cross-cutting constraints such as workforce capacity, supply-chain resilience and major delivery dependencies require stronger coordination between government, regulators, NESO and industry.

Ultimately, the group concluded that many of the greatest risks facing the UK's future energy system do not sit within individual projects, and instead lie in the gaps in between; addressing this will require clearer ownership, better visibility of future demand and a more coordinated approach to delivery.