For years, energy was largely viewed by many UK businesses as an operational necessity - important, but rarely strategic.

That position is rapidly changing.

Against a backdrop of geopolitical instability, conflict across the Middle East, ongoing volatility in global energy markets and rising pressure on industrial competitiveness, energy is becoming a defining issue for UK plc. From manufacturing and steel production through to AI infrastructure and data centres, the affordability, resilience and availability of electricity are increasingly shaping investment decisions.

The UK now faces a difficult balancing act.

Industrial electricity costs remain among the highest in the G7, with UK manufacturers often paying materially more than competitors in Europe, the US and China. At the same time, the country remains exposed to international fossil fuel volatility despite rapid growth in renewable generation.

Recent concerns around major AI and data centre investment viability due to energy costs and grid constraints have only intensified the discussion around long-term competitiveness.

Yet alongside those risks sits a significant opportunity.

The UK is simultaneously attempting one of the largest energy infrastructure transitions in its history - scaling domestic renewable generation, battery storage and wider energy resilience capability at pace. If successful, the transition has the potential not only to reduce exposure to international energy shocks, but also to create long-term industrial capability, highly skilled employment and exportable expertise across emerging energy sectors.

The challenge, contributors repeatedly highlighted, is no longer simply one of ambition.

It is one of execution.

Grid infrastructure, storage capability, planning timelines, workforce capacity and delivery speed are increasingly becoming the defining factors in whether the UK can build a cleaner, more resilient and internationally competitive energy system.

To explore those themes further, we spoke with finance leaders operating across two of the UK’s fastest-growing energy sectors - wind infrastructure and battery storage.

Wind Power, Energy Security and Long-Term Industrial Capability

GEV Wind Power operates within one of the UK’s most strategically important growth sectors, supporting the ongoing expansion and long-term operation of wind infrastructure across both domestic and international markets. As the UK continues to scale renewable generation capacity, particularly offshore wind, businesses such as GEV are playing an increasingly important role not simply in deployment, but in the long-term operational resilience and maintenance of critical energy infrastructure.

Haider Raza, Finance Director at GEV Wind Power, whose background spans manufacturing, industrial and operationally intensive sectors, believes wind generation is becoming increasingly important not just from an environmental perspective, but from a national resilience and energy security standpoint.

During our discussion, Haider spoke about the increasingly strategic role wind generation is playing in reducing the UK’s exposure to geopolitical fossil fuel volatility, particularly against a backdrop of instability across global oil and gas markets.

A recurring theme throughout the discussion was that the challenge facing the UK is no longer simply generation ambition, but the speed at which supporting infrastructure, grid connectivity and skilled workforce capability can scale alongside it.

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Why is wind becoming increasingly important from an energy independence perspective?

Haider Raza (GEV Wind Power):

“The strategic case for domestically generated wind energy is becoming increasingly clear. Reducing dependence on imported hydrocarbons lowers the UK’s exposure to geopolitical shocks and international energy market volatility.

As the UK continues expanding offshore and onshore capacity, wind has the potential to become not just a decarbonisation tool, but a long-term strategic asset supporting national resilience and energy security.”

The UK Government has committed to significant expansion in renewable generation capacity over the coming decade, particularly within offshore wind. However, contributors consistently highlighted that increasing generation alone is not enough.

‍What are the biggest barriers currently slowing deployment?

Haider Raza (GEV Wind Power):

“One of the biggest bottlenecks facing the sector is grid connection infrastructure and delivery timelines. The challenge is often not willingness to invest, but the pace at which projects can move through planning, infrastructure and connection processes.

Given the scale of expansion required, infrastructure execution becomes critical. Without corresponding improvements in grid readiness and delivery capacity, project timelines can extend significantly.”

That challenge extends well beyond generation projects themselves.

As electrification increases across transport, manufacturing and AI infrastructure, pressure on the wider electricity network is intensifying rapidly. The UK’s ability to scale clean generation must therefore be matched by equivalent investment into grid modernisation, storage capability and connection infrastructure.

Without it, delays risk slowing both industrial investment and energy transition progress simultaneously.

Yet despite those challenges, Haider believes the long-term opportunity for the UK extends beyond energy generation alone.

Beyond generation itself, where does the long-term opportunity sit for the UK?

Haider Raza (GEV Wind Power):

“The opportunity is not only in generating renewable energy, but in building long-term operational capability around it. Wind infrastructure creates sustained demand for highly skilled technicians, operations and maintenance expertise, and specialist engineering capability.

That creates an opportunity for the UK to develop exportable expertise and long-term industrial capability in areas where experience and operational track record are difficult to replicate quickly elsewhere.

As installed capacity increases, so too does the long-term need for operations, maintenance and infrastructure support - creating sustainable, highly skilled employment over decades rather than short-term project cycles.”

That point may ultimately become one of the most strategically important aspects of the transition.

The UK is not simply building renewable assets. It is potentially building long-term capability in engineering, operations, storage, infrastructure and energy system management that could itself become internationally valuable.

Battery Storage, Flexibility and the Infrastructure Execution Challenge

While renewable generation often dominates headlines, contributors repeatedly highlighted that generation ambition alone will not solve the UK’s competitiveness challenge without corresponding investment in flexibility and system resilience.

Fidra Energy operates within one of the fastest-scaling areas of the UK energy market, focused on developing large-scale battery storage designed to support a more flexible and resilient electricity network. The business is playing a key role in the transition towards a renewable-led energy system, with its first project being the redevelopment of the former Thorpe Marsh coal power station site near Doncaster into Europe’s largest battery storage facility.

Leading the finance function is Tony Julius, who brings more than 20 years’ finance leadership experience across the wider energy sector. His decision to join a startup PE-backed, high-growth storage platform reflects the increasing strategic importance of flexibility infrastructure, not only in supporting the UK’s transition towards cleaner energy, but also in helping address future electricity demand growth, grid resilience and longer-term energy independence.

Against this backdrop, a consistent theme across the sector is that the binding constraint is no longer technology or capital availability, but execution speed, particularly grid connection timelines and wider infrastructure bottlenecks.

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How significant an issue is UK energy pricing becoming in terms of international competitiveness?

Tony Julius (Fidra Energy):

“The UK does face a clear competitiveness challenge when it comes to energy pricing. The cost of electricity to heavy industrial consumers is one of the highest in the world as policy costs to encourage renewable generation and system resilience are charged on top of the wholesale price, which is still mostly set by fossil fuels despite the significant growth in renewables. Fidra Energy’s battery storage strategy plays an important role in dampen price spikes and making use of surplus electricity from renewable sources.”

The point around pricing structures is important.

Despite rapid renewable growth, electricity pricing remains heavily influenced by fossil fuel markets due to the way wholesale pricing mechanisms currently operate. This leaves the UK exposed to international energy volatility even as renewable penetration increases.

For contributors, the long-term solution lies not only in increasing renewable generation, but in building a more flexible and responsive system around it.

Where does battery storage sit within that system challenge?

Tony Julius (Fidra Energy):

“In transforming the UK towards renewables generation, the build out of generating assets is not enough. In a renewable-led system, storage becomes a critical enabling layer to manage intermittency, reduce curtailment and ensure the system can operate reliably at scale. This in turn reduces overall prices and flattens price spikes for consumers.

Storage takes surplus electricity at times of low demand or high generation and enables it to be available when it is needed most. That fundamentally improves both system stability and the investability of renewables over time. The UK Government ambition is to increase battery storage capacity from approximately 7GW today to 27GW by 2030 to balance the increase in renewables. This ambition will require around £11bn of investment.

This expansion is already visible in practice, not only with more battery storage assets being built but also much larger assets being constructed. The biggest so far being our 1400MW Thorpe Marsh development.”

The scale of investment required illustrates how rapidly the sector is evolving.

Yet, again, contributors stressed that the challenge is increasingly practical delivery rather than investment appetite itself.

What is currently limiting the pace of deployment?

Tony Julius (Fidra Energy):

“The biggest constraint is increasingly not technology or investment appetite, but infrastructure execution - particularly grid connection timelines and capacity constraints.

Even where projects are ready and capital is available, delays in grid access can significantly extend delivery timelines. That bottleneck is now one of the most important factors determining how quickly the UK can scale a flexible, renewable-led energy system.”

For many years, discussion around renewables focused primarily on technology viability and funding availability.

Increasingly, however, the conversation is shifting towards practical delivery capability - grid infrastructure, planning reform, workforce availability and supply chain capacity.

Conclusion

The UK energy transition is increasingly moving beyond environmental ambition and into the heart of economic competitiveness, industrial resilience and long-term infrastructure strategy.

High energy costs, exposure to geopolitical volatility and grid bottlenecks remain genuine risks to UK competitiveness at a time when investment decisions are becoming more globally mobile.

At the same time, businesses operating across wind generation, storage and wider energy infrastructure are already investing heavily into the systems, skills and operational capability required to support a more resilient and domestically secure energy future.

The opportunity for the UK extends beyond cleaner energy alone.

Done successfully, the transition has the potential to create highly skilled employment, attract infrastructure investment, strengthen energy resilience and develop exportable expertise across engineering, operations and energy system management.

The challenge now is less about whether the UK has the ambition to transform its energy system - and more about whether infrastructure execution can keep pace with that ambition.

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Dale Spink

dale@pratappartnership.com

07596856678