Keeyask Generating Station, Manitoba, Canada. Built by Bechtel, Barnard, and Eliis Don. Image: Bechtel

A 鈥檓ore of everything鈥� approach is needed to service the significant global increase in energy demand, especially as we electrify everything from transportation to heavy industry to AI driven solutions.

At Bechtel, we are delivering virtually every aspect of the energy transition, from supporting mining companies to deliver the raw materials for the energy transition; developing and delivering solar, wind, nuclear, combined cycle with carbon capture generation assets; to the provision of energy storage through batteries and building large-scale energy storage solutions like pumped storage hydro.

We鈥檙e seeing investments in renewables ramp up but we鈥檙e unable to harness all of it because of a lack of storage infrastructure and because, all too often, grids are at capacity.

Unlocking renewables鈥� full potential

National grids around the world are reaching capacity. For example, in the UK, 拢58 billion (US$73 billion) of investment is desperately needed to accommodate distributed energy resources and storage systems, so energy can flow between sources of energy, storage facilities, and consumers.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution: batteries are coming down in cost and getting more efficient, but are currently best suited to short term storage and smoothing hour to hour fluctuations.鈥� Compressed air energy storage provides several days of storage but are often less efficient than pumped storage hydro (PSH) which remains the most popular solution for large-scale long-term storage. The UK鈥檚 recent cap-and-floor mechanism will help remove barriers to building new long-duration energy storage.

Darren Mort is President of Bechtel鈥檚 Global Infrastructure Business. Image: Bechtel

However, the average time it takes to develop and build a pumped hydro storage facility is seven to fifteen years and up to five years of that will be taken up by complex and time consuming regulatory, planning and permitting processes. An overhaul of regulatory frameworks is critical to speeding up delivery and meeting ambitious clean energy targets.

Addressing supply chain constraints for materials, equipment, and core commodities is also essential. Bechtel operates in a global market, and we see supply chain constraints almost everywhere we work.

What does the industry need? A sustained pipeline of projects that create confidence in the market to invest in supply chains which relieves the bottleneck.

People are central to decarbonisation

The most critical constraint that our industry faces is the people and skills required to deliver projects and solutions at scale. The energy transition offers a wealth of opportunities for economies and holds the promise of significant numbers of new skilled jobs. We need to act now and decisively to take advantage of this.

New jobs will emerge for the large-scale delivery of renewables, hydrogen, carbon capture utilisation and storage, and new nuclear. However, the skills needed to build, to transport and to operate and maintain new assets are in short supply.

National programmes for people currently working in traditional energy sectors are needed to capture the expertise and transferable skills that will power the drive to decarbonise. From our experience constructing solar facilities across the US, we know that on-the job training has helped many talented engineering and construction professionals from a range of sectors thrive in a new industry.

The UK construction industry has enormous experience pivoting to upskill people for specific jobs. For example, our teams on the Elizabeth underground line in London invested to address an industry shortage of people proficient in underground construction 鈥� and those people have gone on to build other major underground infrastructure at HS2 and the Thames Tideway super sewer. This talent has also been exported abroad, including by Bechtel for metros in Sydney, Australia and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

Pinnacle Wind, West Virginia, USA. Bechtel and Reed & Reed. Image: Bechtel

A radical transformation of the education system will also be needed to address the challenge. People from a young age need to understand the pathways to clean energy careers, in order to help the industry benefit from a steady stream of STEM graduates. Curriculums, qualifications and apprenticeships need to be reformed to better reflect the changing needs of industry.

But these programmes don鈥檛 happen in a vacuum: the industry needs a clear, long-term pipeline of energy transition projects to invest in people and training. Project uncertainty is a killer.

I鈥檓 often asked if the ambitions of the governments we support are achievable. And my answer is yes, if we consider and act through a long term and a holistic strategy; if we can see a way through unnecessary red tape to expedite development and delivery; and if we put people at the heart of everything that we do.

Darren Mort is President of Bechtel鈥檚 Global Infrastructure Business