The commercial reality of the UK's clean energy shift
Dr Kirsten Oliver, Managing Director for Energy
| WSP
The UK’s clean energy ambitions are bold, and the opportunities are enormous. To ensure success, businesses need clarity, certainty, and practical solutions – from grid bottlenecks to skills gaps – and that initiatives like NESO’s Strategic Spatial Energy Plan will help unlock the sector’s full potential.
The UK has rightly set out a bold and impressive policy vision for the energy transition, aiming for a decarbonised power grid by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. The journey is not a matter of a single decision, but of a thousand daily choices and investments. From our vantage point within the energy industry, these aren't just targets on a page; they are the foundation for business cases, investment decisions, and long-term strategy. The opportunities are real, but so too are the risks. To move from ambition to delivery, we must candidly address the practical challenges facing those tasked with planning, building, and financing the new energy system.
The opportunity: UK plc's growth dividend
The energy transition is an engine for growth, and British businesses are positioning themselves to be global leaders. The UK's pioneering experience in offshore wind, carbon capture, and smart grid technology is already in demand internationally. A stable, successful domestic market proves and refines our technologies, allowing us to commercialise intellectual property and services on the world stage. With the creation of Great British Energy earlier this year, the UK has a new platform to demonstrate leadership and build a stronger industrial base.
What is sometimes lost in the narrative is that the transition also promises to create a new skills economy. From data scientists modelling grid resilience to technicians installing heat pumps, a long-term, consistent approach will allow businesses to invest in the talent pipeline needed to create high-quality, sustainable careers. Great British Energy's new 'Energy – Engineered in the UK' £1bn fund, launched in early December, specifically aims to strengthen the domestic supply chain, focusing on manufacturing capabilities for key components like offshore wind to support over 10,000 jobs by 2030. This is not just an environmental shift, but an industrial strategy in action, with the potential to generate jobs and economic value across the country.
The risks: navigating market uncertainty
Investment and innovation thrive on certainty. When that erodes, so too does confidence, slowing progress and raising costs. Energy projects operate on long cycles, often spanning a decade or more, and frequent changes to support mechanisms, planning rules, or market structures create damaging uncertainty for investors. As we approach the 2030 clean power deadline, the single most powerful signal we can send is a consistent, long-term regulatory framework. Every shift in policy risks stalling projects already in flight.
Another practical risk on the ground is the bottleneck of grid connections. The queue for connections remains longer than ever, with some projects facing waits well into the 2030s. Ofgem’s queue management reforms are a welcome step, but delivery on the ground is still far too slow. A major overhaul of the grid connections process is now underway, led by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) with the publication of the new connections delivery pipeline, combined with the new powers via the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to create a pipeline of prioritised, "shovel-ready" projects and reallocate stalled capacity. For every day a project sits in limbo, investment is delayed, and costs rise. Overcoming these chokepoints is not just a technical issue, but a commercial imperative.
The challenges: towards practical delivery
The UK excels at innovation, but the gap between lab-based breakthroughs and large-scale commercial deployment is too wide. The latest offshore wind Contracts for Difference round highlighted how fragile the route from innovation to deployment can be when market signals misalign with investor needs. In response to the lack of bids in the 2023 auction (AR5), it is positive to see government implementing major reforms for the ongoing Allocation Round 7 (AR7), which opened in August 2025.
Key changes include extending contract lengths from 15 to 20 years for offshore wind, floating wind, onshore wind, and solar projects to provide greater revenue certainty and attract investment. Administrative Strike Prices were also raised significantly to reflect real-world cost pressures, with fixed-bottom offshore wind set at £113/MWh and floating wind at £271/MWh (in 2024 prices). To boost competition, fixed-bottom offshore wind projects in AR7 can now apply without full planning consent, provided they have reached an advanced planning stage.
Targeted support mechanisms that de-risk the later stages of technology development are essential. Smarter, faster ways are needed to prove promising concepts at scale, bring down costs, and get them to market.
In reality, the energy transition is a vast, interconnected puzzle. The success of one element – such as electric vehicle rollout – depends on others, like charging infrastructure and electricity distribution. To aid EV uptake, in the Budget, the Chancellor extended the Electric Car Grant to 2029-30 and added £100m for public charging, though she also confirmed a new mileage-based tax (Electric Vehicle Excise Duty) will be introduced from April 2028. For businesses, this means navigating a complex ecosystem of standards, technologies, and evolving consumer behaviours.
Looking ahead, initiatives like the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP) being developed by NESO (the full plan is expected in Autumn 2027) will provide businesses with much-needed clarity on the location and timing of new electricity and hydrogen infrastructure across Great Britain. Once implemented, the SSEP will serve as a national blueprint, coordinating generation, storage, and transmission planning between 2030 and 2050, helping companies plan investment, reduce risk, and capitalise on the growth opportunities arising from the energy transition. We need a clear, joined-up strategy that ensures all parts of the system move in lockstep towards the same goal.
Delivery discipline – the real test
The UK has defined the destination; the next phase is about the route and the pace of travel. This is a journey that must be undertaken in close partnership with the private sector supply chain. The expertise of businesses on the front line of delivery – navigating market forces, managing risk, and investing in new technology – is invaluable in ensuring we reach our end point.
The Budget also made significant changes to how legacy costs are funded, announcing that 75 per cent of the Renewables Obligation scheme cost will be moved from household bills to general taxation for three years from April 2026, and the Energy Company Obligation scheme will end, saving typical households around £154 a year. While this offers immediate bill relief, industry experts have raised concerns about the reduced long-term funding for home energy efficiency upgrades, highlighting the ongoing tension between short-term cost management and long-term net-zero investment.
The real test now is delivery discipline. Predictable policy, investment in infrastructure, and a renewed model of public–private partnership will decide whether ambition translates into growth. The UK has the chance not just to meet its clean power and net-zero targets, but to build a world-leading industrial base in the process. The opportunity is great, but success depends on moving beyond aspiration and addressing the commercial realities of delivery – with urgency, consistency, and collaboration.
About the author
Dr Kirsten Oliver is Managing Director for Energy at WSP UK&I. She has extensive development and operational consulting experience across conventional and offshore energy for public and private sector clients, as well as asset management and brings a deep understanding of the practical and commercial challenges facing the sector.
