Insights
Most of the public conversation about the energy transition is about policy, targets and ambition. Inside the organisations that have to deliver it, the conversation is different. The direction is largely set; the constraint is execution. Networks, suppliers and market bodies are being asked to deliver an enormous programme of change, and whether the transition happens on anything like the intended timeline depends far more on delivery capability than on further policy.
By Christopher Fagan
Treating the transition as a policy question keeps attention on debate and targets. Treating it as a delivery question puts attention where the real risk sits: on whether the programmes, the systems, the data and the people can actually deliver the change at the pace required. For an organisation with obligations to meet, the second framing is the useful one.
The transition asks organisations to deliver a large volume of change on top of running the existing system reliably. Delivery capacity, not ambition, is usually the binding constraint, and it is the one least often planned for honestly.
Much of the transition depends on data and systems, on the network, on assets, on flexibility, that were not designed for the demands now placed on them. The unglamorous work of getting that foundation right paces everything built on top of it.
Transition programmes frequently depend on central bodies, other participants and shared timetables, which means much of the delivery risk sits outside any single organisation’s control. This is the market wide delivery problem, and it needs managing as such. See market wide change.
Much transition change arrives as regulatory obligation with fixed deadlines and evidentiary requirements, which turns it into a delivery and assurance problem as much as an engineering one. See regulated markets.
Organisations that deliver transition change well treat it as the major, sustained programme it is: honest about capacity, disciplined about data and systems, active in managing dependencies they do not own, and assured independently so the board sees the real state rather than the optimistic one. The ambition is the easy part. The delivery is the job.
We help energy organisations deliver, assure and de risk major change. See energy and utilities and delivery excellence, or get in touch.
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