Thursday, December 19, 2024
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When transport and energy infrastructure collide

James Rowntree, Partnership Director for WSP, explains the lessons to be learned from the transport sector in the Great Grid Upgrade.

With the UK’s ambition to meet net zero by 2030 fast approaching, our infrastructure needs to keep up. Our biggest challenge comes from the energy sector: the need to build the energy transmission network at a faster pace than has been done previously. This is essential to meet the demand of renewable energy providers, be that solar or wind farms, and to meet increasing consumer needs driven by electrification.

But by driving efficiency through collaboration, both between and within organisations, the road to net zero can be a smooth one. When we step back and take a holistic approach to the energy transition, we understand that our expertise overlaps and so to do the learnings we can take from a broad spectrum of sectors, including from transport. As a multi-disciplinary business, our team at WSP can draw upon this broad expertise from past and present ventures, stepping into projects like the Great Grid Upgrade with a truly collaborative approach.

Supply chain collaboration

For major infrastructure transformation like the Great Grid Upgrade, the Project 13 model will be fundamental. The “Project 13” delivery model proposed by the Institution of Civil Engineers, underscores the interconnected nature of modern infrastructure development and delivery. It seeks to develop a new enterprise model, rather than the traditional transactional approach, bringing together owners, partners, suppliers and advisors to form long-term alliances. The results aim to encourage investment in innovation, new ways of working, and skills.

We have already seen Project 13 in action; Highways England’s Smart Motorway Alliance, which has been ongoing since 2020, is a truly collaborative project consisting of seven partners working together to drive the modernisation of our motorways. WSP is a part of this, working as a design partner along with Jacobs. This collaboration has seen the right skills applied at exactly the right stage in the programme. For example, contractors are increasingly engaged in the early-stage design which has helped to take account of practicalities of construction and transportation coordination. These are the teams out on the road, building the designs we, as design partners, develop, and their early engagement in design is fundamental to making sure we are a learning organisation driving safety and efficiency into construction.

This is exactly the type of learning that can be applied to new projects, like the Great Grid Upgrade. Like the Smart Motorway Alliance, throughout the Great Grid Upgrade, we will have the privilege of working with seven partners and of course National Grid, to constantly learn from each other’s skillset. It is designed for collaboration and speed of delivery.

A more efficient DCO process

Another key lesson to take with us into the Great Grid Upgrade is the need for a more efficient development consent order (DCO) process. WSP is proud to have been involved in between 25-30% of all DCOs in the UK to date, helping to secure consent for nationally significant infrastructure projects, overcoming the inherently complex process that DCO’s are infamous for.

A recent example of this is the Herring Bridge River crossing in Great Yarmouth. Our work here resulted in the opening of the £121m dual carriageway bascule bridge which links the A47 at Harfrey’s roundabout directly to the port and new enterprise zone on the other side of the
River Yare, improving journeys and supporting wider growth for the local area.

To increase the speed of the DCO process, our design teams collaborated on outline designs so Norfolk County Council could procure a design-and-build contractor early. With specialist contractor BAM Farrans JV appointed, the council could incorporate the bridge design and construction details into the project ahead of the Development Consent Order (DCO) application, saving time and money by keeping the project on track and alleviating construction risks.

Beyond Project 13 though, this achievement is still possible. Our work on Drax Power was the fastest DCO ever completed. With only nine months to deliver the DCO application, our team devised a dynamic strategy, integrating teams across various sectors to identify, avoid and mitigate any major impacts to the project, significantly increasing speed of delivery.

These small adjustments in process and skill deployment, can and will be taken forward into our work on the Great Grid Upgrade and will be key to delivering results at speed and to the highest quality.

Modern methods of construction

We have completed a significant number of projects within the transport sector in which we moved from traditional design and construction to “design for manufacture and assembly”, that is modern methods of construction (MMC). The use of the phrase first arose in 1998 following the publication of the Rethinking Construction / the Egan Report. The report put forward recommendations on how to modernise the industry through standardisation, prefabrication, preassembly and off-site manufacture (OSM).

This has been, and will prove to be, crucial to improving productivity and efficiency of asset delivery. Aspects of MMC can be applied across a range of industries; but can be particularly useful with such large-scale project such as the Great Grid Upgrade. The Regent Street flyover is
a clear example of MMC at work. Working with Balfour Beatty, we undertook as much off site as possible, enabling us to demolish and replace half the bridge at a time, keeping traffic moving around the works.

Meanwhile, our digital bridges team deployed design for manufacture and assembly techniques on HS2 Enabling Works Contract. We provided design input to a modular abutment system developed with Laing O’Rourke, which saved one month of construction time in the bridge programme for the M42 crossing. In both projects we learned how we can save time and costs, as well as improve safety and create social value. Due to these successes, we are now looking into how this could be translated to National Grid assets.

The Great Grid Upgrade represents the most ambitious overhaul of the UK’s electricity transmission grid in generations. As we transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, significant new infrastructure is needed to connect renewable energy generated by onshore and offshore energy projects, including solar and battery storage, and offshore wind, to homes and businesses across the country. This transformation will create jobs, stimulate economic growth, and safeguard our national energy security. By embracing cross-disciplinary learnings and innovative collaboration, we will be able to deliver efficiently to accelerate our transition to net zero.

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