Sarah Clark is a partner at the law firm BDB Pitmans
Having attended the All Energy and Decarbonise conference in Glasgow in May, many conversations reflected the growing trend for UK professional services consultancies to secure a significant role in the renewable energy sector.
Who can blame them? There is a lot to do and there is no shortage of people who want to play their part. For the construction industry, it should be easy: new wind, solar and grid infrastructure simply cannot be built without them.
“If innovative green solutions can be incorporated into proposals at an early stage, their benefits can be considered by decision-makers and reflected in the consent granted.”
As part of the net zero agenda and its energy security strategy, the UK government has committed to a fully decarbonised electricity system by 2035, with the ambition to deploy up to 50 GW of ‘offshore wind power by 2030, including up to 5 GW of floating offshore. wind and a further 70 GW of solar PV by 2035. At the same time, National Grid is embarking on the Great Grid Upgrade, the biggest overhaul of the UK electricity grid for generations, ensuring that the transmission is fit for the future and switch to clean energy.
But is there more the industry could and should be doing to help us meet the challenges we face? As a consent lawyer, I too often witness the disconnect between the planning and delivery phases of larger projects.
Frustrating settings
During the permitting process, policy compliance is key, and the process is usually led by environmental consultants and lawyers. Even our most pressing and urgent “infrastructure projects of national importance” must conform to the requirements of applicable national energy policy statements. These set out numerous tests for new schemes to meet, with a major emphasis on the acceptability of a scheme’s environmental footprint. Program and cost necessarily take a sort of back seat; In order to be approved, developers must demonstrate how they will tread lightly in environmental terms while contributing to, or at least not harming, the net zero agenda.
When consents are obtained, contractors are appointed and construction begins, the emphasis necessarily changes. Program and cost take the driving seat. In today’s global economy, there are upward cost pressures, supply chain disruptions, and growing demands for renewable energy that are driving up delivery dates. Companies must deliver on time and on budget. In this challenging context, construction teams are often very frustrated by the legal parameters imposed during the previous consent process. These parameters may restrict their ability to adopt innovative designs or employ new construction methodologies, perhaps because they were not understood or anticipated at the time the consents were sought. “If only” is muttered far too often.
Targeting discouraged
In addition, the construction industry is often somewhat removed from the detailed consideration of a project’s environmental footprint or the political considerations that drive the permitting process. This may dilute or discourage focus on these important matters, which for all intents and purposes may be “resolved” (ie, “irrelevant”) by the time a company bids competitively for a contract to provide a new scheme.
Throughout their lives, the quality, pace and value of our projects often suffer from this inherent tension.
If those responsible for the detailed design and delivery of our larger projects were more closely involved in the consent process, for example through greater deployment of early contractor involvement, there could be significant gains for all. By allowing the engineers who deliver to contribute at a formative stage, they are both incentivized and empowered to develop better solutions from the start.
If innovative green solutions can be ’embedded’ in proposals at an early stage, their benefits can be considered and valued by decision-makers and reflected in the consent granted. This would speed up the consent process, facilitate delivery and result in a better caliber of project. Crucially, the construction industry would be closer and more incentivized to focus on what it could offer in terms of bright ideas to achieve or drive green energy policy goals at the point where evaluate and value.
If we want to meet the challenge of our generation, an efficient and effective transition to clean and secure energy, we need to make room for our innovators to participate when decisions are made and have their say heard.
