258. Turning power equipment procurement into a strategic advantage

As you're talking, I'm thinking, this feels like a rational response from developers, right? If you kind of know there's a shortage and a queue, you try and get in early.

And therefore, actually, you're kind of exasperating the problem.

Almost a parallel is the sort of connections queue in the UK grid, where you suddenly saw connections queue at 7, 8, 9, 10 years, because it made sense to try and get in there early before you even start developing or thinking more about your project.

It's like one of the issues.

It's almost just self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

A hundred percent.

This is some of the work we've been doing on the policy side with the good people at Ofstan, Desnes, and I guess whatever that shape is going to be going forward is what it is, right? We have to acknowledge that things might shift and I hope in the positive way, but we're doing a lot of engagement to say when you're assessing queue connections readiness and you're putting people through the queue and the next approval phase, Please ask them, what is the ability for them to secure a supply chain if they've thought about it? Because it's all very well to say first ready, first served, but a critical part of that has to be supply chain.

And I think we're seeing more and more, and certainly in Germany and Italy, that is starting to become the case.

We've sort of spoken in the UK there, but I know that you're kind of active in quite a few markets.

Is this something that you're getting a decent reception from governments when particularly thinking of we've got electrification agendas across Europe, we've got the Clean Power 2030 targets in the UK? Are governments switched on to the fact that actually supply chains could be the thing that makes or breaks them?

We've had fantastic engagement with some of the government arms that we've just spoken about.

I think there is seriousness.

The challenge, I think, is multifold and it's ironic what the challenge is.

The government and the thing we've heard is that we would love for this to also be, if we just combine Britain has one of the worst energy prices anywhere in the world, or at least in so-called developed markets.

It's horrendous.

So that stifles domestic manufacturing.

But if we don't, for example, unshown manufacturing, then perhaps that is not serving communities and we should bring the jobs here and then we should connect that to sort of growing electrification, expansion of networks, and then the sovereign AI agenda.

All of these things are usually spoken about very frequently.

We tend to find people are incredibly enthusiastic about what we're trying to do in terms of providing the demand signals for OEMs to expand capacity, for capping the downside, helping mitigate the risks that come with supply chain for the demand side, making visible using the intelligence that we have on demand.

scores of OEMs around the world, what is actually possible for demand side.

So that's very, very appreciated.

I think the thorny piece, and I think that's more of a European piece as well right now, is given the geopolitical landscape and the macro agenda, how realistic are we going to be about domestic manufacturing versus having strategic alliances with India, South Korea, even China to get our supply chain needs met and do the orchestration there.

I think that is a bit of a sticking point.

And that's where we'll have to see what Mr. Burnham is going to do, because we can't wait 10 years to establish manufacturing.

Even if we did, if we get all the pieces right, we've got to train people.

As you're talking, I'm thinking, this feels like a rational response from developers, right? If you kind of know there's a shortage and a queue, you try and get in early.

And therefore, actually, you're kind of exasperating the problem.

Almost a parallel is the sort of connections queue in the UK grid, where you suddenly saw connections queue at 7, 8, 9, 10 years, because it made sense to try and get in there early before you even start developing or thinking more about your project.

It's like one of the issues.

It's almost just self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

A hundred percent.

This is some of the work we've been doing on the policy side with the good people at Ofstan, Desnes, and I guess whatever that shape is going to be going forward is what it is, right? We have to acknowledge that things might shift and I hope in the positive way, but we're doing a lot of engagement to say when you're assessing queue connections readiness and you're putting people through the queue and the next approval phase, Please ask them, what is the ability for them to secure a supply chain if they've thought about it? Because it's all very well to say first ready, first served, but a critical part of that has to be supply chain.

And I think we're seeing more and more, and certainly in Germany and Italy, that is starting to become the case.

We've sort of spoken in the UK there, but I know that you're kind of active in quite a few markets.

Is this something that you're getting a decent reception from governments when particularly thinking of we've got electrification agendas across Europe, we've got the Clean Power 2030 targets in the UK? Are governments switched on to the fact that actually supply chains could be the thing that makes or breaks them?

We've had fantastic engagement with some of the government arms that we've just spoken about.

I think there is seriousness.

The challenge, I think, is multifold and it's ironic what the challenge is.

The government and the thing we've heard is that we would love for this to also be, if we just combine Britain has one of the worst energy prices anywhere in the world, or at least in so-called developed markets.

It's horrendous.

So that stifles domestic manufacturing.

But if we don't, for example, unshown manufacturing, then perhaps that is not serving communities and we should bring the jobs here and then we should connect that to sort of growing electrification, expansion of networks, and then the sovereign AI agenda.

All of these things are usually spoken about very frequently.

We tend to find people are incredibly enthusiastic about what we're trying to do in terms of providing the demand signals for OEMs to expand capacity, for capping the downside, helping mitigate the risks that come with supply chain for the demand side, making visible using the intelligence that we have on demand.

scores of OEMs around the world, what is actually possible for demand side.

So that's very, very appreciated.

I think the thorny piece, and I think that's more of a European piece as well right now, is given the geopolitical landscape and the macro agenda, how realistic are we going to be about domestic manufacturing versus having strategic alliances with India, South Korea, even China to get our supply chain needs met and do the orchestration there.

I think that is a bit of a sticking point.

And that's where we'll have to see what Mr. Burnham is going to do, because we can't wait 10 years to establish manufacturing.

Even if we did, if we get all the pieces right, we've got to train people.