The UK clean energy market is experiencing a surge of rapid growth and government action. The government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, published in December 2024, outlines a strategy to ensure at least 95% of Great Britain’s electricity generation is from clean sources. This involves significant investments (an estimated £40 billion per year to 2030, largely private), and policy reforms.
Major developments happening in this sector across the UK include funding for the Sizewell C nuclear plant and carbon capture projects, and investment in offshore wind. The National Grid is also working on the largest overhaul of the electricity grid in generations under the Great Grid Upgrade, and the government is launching a new £1 billion Clean Energy Supply Chain Fund under Great British Energy.
Alongside this, the UK government has made significant updates to its onshore wind policy in 2025, focusing on removing the de facto ban in England and implementing a comprehensive onshore wind strategy to double capacity by 2025. Also, there is significant investment coming through in modular nuclear reactors for energy production, with the UK selecting Wylfa in North Wales to host the country’s first SMRs, a project backed by a £2.5 billion investment from Great British Energy-Nuclear and Rolls-Royce SMR.
What is clean energy infrastructure?
Clean energy infrastructure is the physical and organisational systems that generate, transport, and store energy from low or zero-emission sources like solar, wind, and hydropower.
Renewable energy, green energy, and alternative energy all refer to sources that minimise environmental impact. These energy types, such as solar, wind, and hydropower, form the basis of clean energy systems. Clean energy infrastructure supports the generation, transmission, and storage of these low-emission energy sources.
The UK’s transition to clean energy is being driven by a combination of climate commitments, energy security, and economic opportunity. Legally binding targets to reach net zero by 2050 require deep cuts in emissions, while recent energy price shocks have highlighted the need to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels and expand home-grown renewable power such as wind and solar.
At the same time, clean energy is seen as a driver of growth and jobs. Falling technology costs, government support, and strong public demand are accelerating investment in renewables, low-carbon technologies, and modern energy infrastructure. This is positioning clean energy as central to the UK’s future economy and energy security.
Examples of clean energy infrastructure
- Renewable energy generation: Solar (PV panels, concentrated solar), wind (onshore/offshore turbines), hydropower (dams, run-of-river, pumped storage), geothermal (plants, heat pumps), biomass (biogas, biofuel plants), marine (tidal, wave, ocean thermal).
- Energy storage: Includes batteries (lithium-ion, flow, solid-state), mechanical storage (pumped hydro, flywheels, compressed air), thermal storage (molten salt, phase-change materials), and chemical storage like hydrogen or synthetic fuels.
- Grid and transmission infrastructure: High-voltage AC/DC lines, smart substations, microgrids, virtual power plants, and resilient grid technologies like fault current limiters and wildfire-hardened lines.
- Hydrogen and power-to-X: Hydrogen production via electrolysis or biomass, storage in pipelines or underground caverns, fuel cells, and Power-to-X technologies like green ammonia, synthetic fuels, or heat.
- Energy efficiency and demand management: Building insulation, heat pumps, smart thermostats, industrial waste-heat recovery, efficient motors, and demand-response systems that shift or reduce energy usage.
- Clean transportation infrastructure: EV charging stations, hydrogen refuelling, electrified rail, sustainable aviation fuel facilities, and infrastructure for e-bikes, buses, and autonomous electric transit.
- Carbon management & negative emission: Carbon capture at power plants or industrial sites, direct air capture, carbon utilisation (e.g., fuels or concrete), geological storage, and nature-based solutions like reforestation or soil carbon projects.
- Digital and control systems: SCADA, energy management systems, digital twins, grid monitoring (PMUs), predictive maintenance, smart home hubs, and secure communication networks for energy IoT devices.
What’s shaping the clean energy market?
Energy security and Net Zero ambitions are underpinning political decision making and policy setting on clean energy. The need for economic growth is also a significant factor, reflected in both policy setting and central government investment which are generating opportunity for creation of new clean energy infrastructure and assets.
The largest components of the growth of clean energy infrastructure are rapid growth in clean energy deployment and upgrades to grid infrastructure required to move that power around the UK.
Our director of business development, Daniel Reynolds, comments: “Clean energy generation and the networks that transport it must now grow together. As new developments and technologies advance, the grid must be ready to handle future capacity needs and expand and improve the national electricity grid.”
We believe this is why the Government’s Strategic Spatial Energy Plan will be critical to these developments, as it provides clarity for communities, certainty for investors and a long-term view of clean energy availability that supports regional economic growth.
With this in mind, we’ve highlighted the opportunities, challenges and risks the sector must navigate to accelerate clean energy delivery:
Clean energy challenges and opportunities
Visibility is key for delivery
The whole supply chain requires greater visibility, including into the strategic plans that can underpin investment and into the delivery timescales. The better the visibility, the greater the investor confidence and the more likely the plan is to successfully deliver on its aims.
Daniel adds: “This confidence can then spread to the supply chain for the development, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure, helping suppliers plan for skills development, workforce growth, and working with training providers to bring new talent into the industry.
“This is one of the strongest ways to keep projects on track, but leads us on to the challenges of skills shortages.”
Skills shortages need to be addressed
The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) has long been reporting on the capacity gap and skill shortage in the sector, with both retention and recruitment headwinds facing the industry. We anticipate that this position will be compounded as investment in nationally significant infrastructure projects is unlocked in support of UK Government growth plans.
As clean energy infrastructure projects increase, specialist skills, particularly ecological and environmental, are becoming harder to find and secure. Daniel adds: “The scale of energy transmission development is unprecedented, and having sufficient resources to deliver these schemes is likely to be a challenge. If resources can’t be found for certain aspects of a project, this could impact the overall delivery.”
To secure these scarce, high-demand resources, contractors should engage with supply chain partners earlier than ever before.
Early partnerships are vital
Daniel comments: “Early engagement helps identify constraints and create teams who can deliver more efficiently. Daniel comments: “The more lead time, the better placed to procure supply chain partners effectively and the greater the likelihood of building an effective, functioning team. Having all the key players together, working as a well-coordinated team, will improve delivery efficiency, which in turn improves cost efficiency.
With demand for specific skills rising, this approach is becoming business-critical for grid operators, contractors and design consultancies.
Planning and consultation is critical
From an environmental perspective, it’s clear that underestimating timelines is a major bottleneck to delivering clean energy infrastructure projects efficiently.
Stakeholders often underestimate long lead times for land access, seasonal ecological windows (missed windows can delay programmes by up to 12 months), increased survey requirements from statutory authorities, and the need for very early engagement and consultation to reduce planning risk.
Daniel adds: “Ultimately, we need to invest in skills with the same urgency we apply to infrastructure. Without enough skilled people, even well-funded plans will struggle.”
Alongside this, long-term visibility into future programmes, from government, developers, and network operators, will be essential to giving suppliers, including SMEs, the confidence to scale.
Clean energy infrastructure case study: Thomson Environmental Consultants and Ørsted
On the Hornsea 3 OWF onshore cable route project, Thomson Environmental Consultants supported Ørsted in completing multiple species surveys along a 50km route, including water vole surveys. The team prepared protected species licence applications for badger and great crested newt, which were approved by Natural England, who issued letters of no impediment (LONI) to support their successful DCO application.
Thomson’s low-impact class licence holder prepared the applications in liaison with the client, local stakeholders, and Natural England to create an innovative mitigation solution that maximised benefits for the species and minimised disruption to the project. This included collaborating with the Norfolk Ponds Project to restore ‘ghost’ ponds in locations affected by their onshore cabling. This mitigation solution offset any negative impacts of the cable route installation on GCN by restoring lost ponds in Norfolk, rather than spending money and risking delays by trapping and translocating amphibians with amphibian fencing.
If you’re looking for consultancy support on your clean energy project, please contact our experts: https://www.thomsonec.com/contact-us/
