The United Kingdom’s journey to net zero is not just a matter of technology and policy; it’s about creating a future that works for everyone.

As we move through this once-in-a-lifetime energy transition, it’s essential that the benefits extend across all sectors of society, ensuring that no one is left behind.

This transition offers a multi-generational opportunity to deliver benefits for everyone and must be approached with a focus on people, places, politics and portfolio. Let’s break down what a people-centric strategy looks like in this context.

Think of communities as partners

One of the core elements of a just transition is ensuring that local communities are not only consulted but empowered to shape their energy future. The energy transition is not about imposing top-down solutions but about working with communities to unlock their potential and deliver local benefits. Communities should be made partners in the process of developing new infrastructure.

This includes building trust and communicating transparently about how renewable energy projects, like wind or solar farms, can bring direct economic and environmental benefits to the people living nearby.

For example, community energy schemes, where residents benefit from lower energy bills as a result of local renewable energy production, have seen growing demand. When these models are clearly communicated, local support for such projects tends to skyrocket. This approach fosters not only public support but ensures long-term sustainability by rooting projects in community interests.

Support workers and future-proof careers

 Another key aspect of a people-centric transition is addressing the workforce needs created by this shift. Traditional industries, such as fossil fuels, are declining, but the growth of renewable energy presents vast new opportunities. We must ensure the benefits of the transition are shared across generations, particularly by creating sustainable, long-term employment.

However, to fully realise this potential, a strong focus on reskilling is required. Programmes that provide training in green technologies, such as offshore wind, nuclear, hydrogen, and battery storage, will be critical to ensuring workers from declining sectors can transition smoothly into new roles. This is not just about job creation — it’s about creating meaningful, future-proof careers in industries that align with the UK’s net zero ambitions.

Make energy affordable and accessible

As the energy landscape evolves, it is crucial to ensure that no one is left behind, particularly when it comes to energy affordability. The transition offers the chance to make energy more accessible and affordable for all. The UK government’s energy policies must reflect this by investing in energy efficiency programs and affordable renewable technologies for low-income households.

Without targeted support, there’s a risk that wealthier households will adopt new technologies like heat pumps and solar panels, while others are left paying higher bills for fossil fuel-based energy.

The Great British Energy policy has emphasised the need to lower costs, but local initiatives, such as grants and subsidies for energy-efficient home upgrades, will also be essential in making this transition equitable.

We must build social license

 Gaining public support — referred to as a “social license to operate” — is essential for the success of renewable energy projects. The energy transition’s success depends on working with local stakeholders, including policymakers and the public. This means ensuring that the political framework around energy is aligned with the needs and expectations of the public.

For instance, the removal of barriers to onshore wind development, where local communities have a say in projects, can help accelerate deployment. By involving local governments and communities in the planning process, the UK can avoid delays, reduce opposition, and ensure smoother execution of projects.

Thinking beyond the immediate

Finally, the energy transition offers the opportunity to create lasting, intergenerational benefits. This demands the need for a balanced approach that delivers benefits across people, places, politics and portfolio.

This means thinking long-term and ensuring that policies enacted today will provide sustainable benefits for decades to come. It’s about not just achieving net zero but doing so in a way that improves quality of life, creates stable jobs, and protects the environment for future generations.

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In the next seven years, the UK plans to add another 37 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to hit its target of 50 gigawatts by 2030. This huge undertaking is a critical element of the country’s transition to independent and secure renewable energy supplies, made more urgent by the surging electricity prices that followed the geopolitical disruption of 2022. It can only work, however, if the transmission system to carry electricity from turbines in the North Sea to towns and cities is modernised as well.

In short, there is no transition without transmission.

To meet the challenge, National Grid has embarked on The Great Grid Upgrade, calling it “the largest overhaul of the electricity grid in generations.” This massive modernisation programme will entail, in just the next seven years, building five times more electricity infrastructure than constructed over the past 30 years.

If deployment lags, the implications could be serious. In his much-anticipated independent report, Nick Winser, the Electricity Networks Commissioner, acknowledges the “extraordinary progress” made in developing renewable and clean energy sources in the UK to date, but adds that this “magnificent achievement will be wasted if we cannot get the power to homes and businesses.” 

His warning is stark. “The implications of being able to build wind generation faster than the associated connections to customers will be serious: very high congestion costs for customers, and clean, cheap domestic energy generation standing idle, potentially for years,” he says.

However vital the rapid deployment of strategic transmission infrastructure is, it is also hugely challenging, not least because it will bring giant pylons and new substations within sight and earshot of hundreds of communities that will have understandable concerns about its impact.

Finding the right balance between addressing people’s concerns and facilitating the efficient development projects critical to the UK’s decarbonisation journey is central to a planned new consenting process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), but that will not arrive in time for this programme.

While the government considers Nick Winser’s recommendations for institutional change and until the proposed planning reforms for NSIPs come into force, work to modernise the grid must power ahead regardless.

The National Grid therefore needs to obtain, in record time and for a project of almost unprecedented scale and complexity, the necessary consents within the limitations of an existing regime that was not designed for speed.

It will be a tricky balance to strike — one that the private sector will be required to step up to meet.

Given the unprecedented scale and complexity of the task, infrastructure organisations will have to bring the best ideas, people and technical knowledge to the project as well as experience in the planning and delivery of large-scale domestic and global infrastructure projects — both within the energy sector and beyond — to meet the challenge.

In tandem, however, the government will need to consider and implement without delay the thorough but “bold” institutional reforms and recommendations that Winser makes in his report to reduce the delivery time to the required timescale of seven years.

While the private sector can rise to the technical challenges, winning people’s hearts and minds will be essential to avoid disruption and delay. Clear, public guidance around community benefit is one route. Another, as Winser points out, is a national information campaign that not only sets out the need for a grid refresh but communicates “the importance of this work to our country and to the environment.” In this, the government has a critical role to play.

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