How Energy Storage Gets Built with Bex Sherwood (Field)

Hello, and welcome to transmission. Today, we're joined by Bex, who is the head of development of Field. We cover what has changed for Field since they were last a guest in twenty twenty three. How you develop battery storage sites, and particularly focusing on some of the regulatory changes in terms of Clean Power twenty thirty and connections reform. We take a site through from day zero through to operations, and we talk about the key challenges in that process.

We also talk about how you can encourage a more diverse workforce into the world of batteries alongside other STEM areas. Let's jump in.

Hello, Bex, and welcome to Transmission.

Hi, Ed. Thanks for having me.

And as always, let's start off with who you are, who are Field, and your role in the energy space.

Yeah. Thanks. So I'm Bex. I'm the head of development at Field.

Field is a developer, owner, operator, and now excitingly optimizer, of grid scale battery storage.

As head of development, I take projects through from origination, so finding the sites right up to handing them over to construction.

And I also have another role, sort of outside of field hat, and that's, I'm the chair of the planning working group for Regen.

And that's another really exciting role at a time when planning is a real challenge in sort of achieving CP thirty targets.

I mean, there is just so much going on within the energy space in terms of the amount of wind, solar batteries that we're ever adding to the system. Sort of planning, development has never been kind of more critical than it is right now and for the next sort of five and ten years. So it's a fantastic place to be. This is also not the first field episode we've ever had. We had Amit on, and I was doing some preparation, episode thirteen, back in March twenty twenty three. Have you have you seen that one?

Yeah. I have. I watched it back actually as prep, and really nice how much Field has done in that time. So when Ammit came on, our first project is a twenty megawatt project, Oldham at Manchester, was just in construction. In in those two years, we've now got four operational projects, so it's a hundred and eighty megawatt hours. We've got another six in construction and preconstruction, five of those in the UK and one of those in Germany. So we've actually gone international, in that time, and we've got a really big development portfolio behind that as well.

Okay. And that episode was particularly sort of looked like it was filmed in a jungle. It was kind of in in in deep in Shoreditch. There was a dog halfway through. It was had a lot of excite I mean, today, I would I can't promise anything, but I don't think we're gonna have a dog halfway through.

Yeah. It's it was very shortage. But now so another thing that happened is we actually did a really big fundraise. So we secured two hundred million pounds, investment from CVC DIF, a Dutch infrastructure fund, which is funding the projects that we're currently building.

And so with that, I guess, we sort of we grew up. We became a proper company. We now have a a proper office and things like that. So, yeah, there's a lot going on.

Very good. Okay. And so, obviously, your kind of key part of this is around, the development of projects. So maybe we could actually just go through that sort of that process of taking a project right from this from day zero through to the point where you handed over. So what what does that look like?

Yeah. So, batteries solve grid needs. Right? So all of our work starts with grid analysis of where are these things needed. And grid need means in terms of constraint management. So where are we paying to turn off a lot of wind farms, or where is the really high stability need because there's a lot of renewables on the system. So we identify where in the system they're needed.

And then, also, field is, as I said, developer, owner, operator of sites. So, ultimately, it's going to be us who goes on to build those sites. So we also cons consider constructability.

So for us, I an ideal site would be an existing substation with a spare bay so you can just connect straight in there.

Okay. But most of I mean, from outside of the development space, it feels like most of the substations with a spare bay, with a nice piece of land next to them have all vanished. So that's the that's the hard part. Right? Finding the the sort of next best site?

Yeah. They are vanishing, and I guess we we do have a couple. So Spital, for example, that's right up in the north of Scotland, sort of John O'Groats.

I actually now know the UK by substations, but realize that, not everyone does. So right up in the north of Scotland. And, again, that really fits in nicely with the high penetration of renewables up there. So some do still exist. There's also a lot of new substation build out as part of CP thirty, and then I think that also ties in quite nicely to one of the big things we're seeing at the minute of connections reform, of sort of trimming down that queue so that some projects actually can start to come online.

Okay. And I really like the we'll we'll come on to connections reform and CB thirty in a second, but the one of the bits I really liked is kind of when you're describing what makes a site, interesting or sort of a good op a good opportunity.

You didn't kind of say, oh, it's just like the ability to run like a wholesale power price charge and discharge because that's almost like that's the accepted business model for batteries. You're thinking about the extra stuff, which is, you know, where can we go above and beyond just shifting energy to meet sort of consumers' needs. We're also thinking about constraints to how do we run the network better, and maybe there's a stability service that we can provide as well. So sort of within that one comment, there was a little bit of the evolution of the battery space onto batteries that are just doing so much more today than they were maybe three years ago.

Absolutely. And I think that's something that not everyone realizes of, like, how much batteries can do and all of the different markets that they're operating in. And so I think another change that we've really seen since Amit's Amit's last episode is, our latest site to go operational, is Octoraw. It's a fifty megawatt two hour site up near Loch Ness.

And when Amit spoke about that site to Quentin and said fifty megawatts, Quentin sort of gasps and says, like, woah. Big project. And, you know, now we're looking at two hundred megawatts, four hundred megawatt projects. And then the other funny thing about that clip is, that's our first two hour site, and Amit describes that as long duration.

I mean, longer duration might have been better, but, you know, now we're looking like, long duration batteries really are a a thing, you know, eight hours plus. And with the technology moving on, batteries are now sort of competing with pumped hydro and things like that as real long duration assets.

And I think if you if you look back at, say, like, twenty sixteen documents around grid planning, things around here, a one hour system was considered to be the absolute limit of where sort of batteries can get to. Now you're absolutely right. Eight hours feels very much within range. Eight to twelve kinda question mark and then sort of longer than that.

I think we're into mid and genuine long. Yeah. Maybe that that statement will not last the test of time. We'll be here in three years' time saying, oh, what an idiot.

Twenty four hours was totally foreseeable. So, yeah, very, very interesting. Let's let's go, let's I think we're really good to cover that. Let's make sure that we also also pick up the elements you were talking about in terms of CP thirty and connections reform.

So if people who are not in the know on those things, like, what what are they? But also what do they mean to you as someone who's developing those projects?

Yeah. So connections reform, I've sort of lived and breathed it as I think a lot of the industry have for the last sort of year. So I'll try and break it down into into layman's terms.

Basically, the UK grid system is highly oversubscribed, and so it's to cut down that to remove zombie projects.

And I feel the industry, I think, fully support that. We need to, the right projects need to be able to come online quicker, and that's to, you know, support the build out renewable CP thirty targets.

I think quite important in that is is the use of the term right projects.

So NISO described that as ready and needed projects, which, again, completely agree with. I think one of the challenges that we're seeing is the process has moved very quickly.

And as you've probably already picked up on from just the very brief intro that I've given, development is very complex, and there are a lot of nuances. And I think there's a risk that because the process has moved so quickly that there may be unintended consequences, as connections reform plays out.

And to sort of, to speak a bit more about that rather than sort of sounding, a bit, elusive is, particularly the spatial maps. So they define the capacity, that can be built out, in each area of of the UK. And, again, field, but I think a lot of people in industry, so hopefully sort of a lot of listeners, will agree is that those spatial maps don't necessarily match actually what the system needs. So, again, talking about the sort of the real high stability need in the north of Scotland, yet the spatial maps don't have the sufficient capacity within them, to sort of allow for that.

So going forward, you know, what can we do? I think NESO, Ofgem, industry worked really well together through the connections reform process. We saw changes come in as they listened to actually how does development work. And I think that has to keep happening, so that, you know, the regulators really understand, how the system works, how development works.

And so the next opportunity, this is the strategic spatial energy plan is the sort of how the spatial maps get refined. And so it's really important that collaboration continues so that the capacity is there to allow batteries to be and other technologies where they're most needed.

Okay. And so I think this is giving people a really sort of good overview of how do you think about developing in a particular location. So from the engineering principles of, like, the balancing needed through to the policy elements of, okay, well, some of this is centrally planned. So does it fit within sort of government and Nissan's plans to build this out?

I think the the the the next element for me is okay. So once you've got the rough central plan and the rough need, how do you like, what is next in the development process? You you've selected a site. It's near Loch Ness, and you say, right.

I wanna turn this into a battery. What what do you do next?

Yeah. It's it's a nice little storytelling, actually, so hopefully works quite nicely. So as you say, you've, identified your site in terms of land and your grid connection. And so those two processes then run-in parallel, to ultimately get you to you've got your grid offer in hand, and you've got assigned land option.

Class is sort of ready. And that's when, from a development point of view, costs really ramp up. So, for transmission level projects, which is where a lot of our greenfield portfolio is in the UK, when you accept a a grid offer, you pay securities.

So that's if, for if the grid are doing reinforcement works on behalf of your project and for some reason you were to pull your project, they're sort of covered for that. And so a standard amount for that is you're paying a a thousand pounds a megawatt. So you're paying two hundred thousand pounds for a two hundred megawatt site, and those payments are annual.

So that so that's one side of it.

Then the other thing is, okay. So how how long is this process happening over?

And as I mentioned at the start, field developer, owner, operator. So we do a lot of work in development because, ultimately, it's gonna be us who takes on those those sites, and so we want them to be well developed and ready to go straight into build. There's also nuances. So there's different planning systems in different parts of the country.

So the English planning system and the Scottish planning system are quite different, Scottish system being a bit longer. And it those type of nuances that I said weren't originally reflected in the gate two process. Anyway, all that is to say, development takes a long time. From that sort of us first finding a site to planning secured, you're looking at sort of four years in Scotland.

Yeah. So two hundred k a year. You can do the math. Yeah.

We're we're at eight hundred thousand pounds. That's just on your grid. Right?

Then there's also the development and actually sort of planning side of things that goes along that. So field we would do, in terms of sort of what does good development look like. We would do ground investigations on a site. So that's understanding the ground conditions.

Does the site drain, or do you need, like, off-site drainage? What does your cut and fill look like? So what are your vehicle movements that then feed into your planning application?

So that's sort of sixty k, a hundred k there. Then you haven't actually started the planning application. So, with preparation of your technical assessments, Scotland has a high planning application fee. It's about three hundred and fifty thousand to prepare and submit a planning application.

So, you know, all in, you're sort of four years in, over a million pounds a project.

Yeah. It's it's an expensive business, and that's that's why, I think the protections in the gate two process for projects which have got planning permission planning submitted is really important to sort of recognize that level of commitment that projects have gone through.

Okay. And this is kind of even before you're even ordering the battery components that go on to the particular project. Right? So so this is just to get to the point of being, ready to start ordering your components to start building.

Yeah. Yeah. Completely. And I think, haven't even gone into there. There's sort of the challenges or something I do want to get onto, the challenges and delays that we're seeing in planning, but it it gives you some kind of idea of the timeline of these projects.

Right? So you you're four years in the development phase, Lead in times for really big transformers for sort of four hundred kV equipment, that's two years. So when we're thinking about CP thirty targets, they're projects that are, you know, in planning now. This change needs to happen right now to make sure that that's not further delaying things because those targets are already looking hard when you look at these time scales.

So four years planning, then you're ordering components. That's another two years. And then you're actually constructing the thing, which is, again, some we we actually looked at this from a moto perspective somewhere between, say, we had sort of sixteen months to nineteen months as being an, a rough figure, but two years again. So you you could almost say point to point eight years is my maths is getting getting getting there.

Okay. Yeah. And it's a for something where we're adding so many battery sites so quickly, and sometimes it kind of people look at development and they say, oh, someone's just chucked a load of battery sites out there and just, you know, try to make everything stick type thing. Actually, that's just not true at all.

There's this kind of eight year process with millions of pounds involved in it to actually get just to the point of giving the government and NISO options to have this flexibility the flexibility there. So I think that's a really fascinating, part of the the story. You you also mentioned the protections that exist within gate two. Let let's just kind of cover that off.

So first of all, just gate two, just describe what that is, and then the the protections, do you want to just describe what they are as well?

Yep. I'll do my best.

So gate to to the whole queue, as it's known, is the sort of the start of what is going to be a rolling process, but it's to trim down the current grid connection queue that we've got. So everybody, unless you're a operational project, has to reapply for their grid connection.

And there are some protections under that. So projects that have an exact I think it's a twenty twenty six connection date will automatically get their, connection again because, obviously, they're quite through far through that procurement process. There's then a sort of series of protections beyond that. So if you've got, for example, a capacity market contract or if you've passed FID, you also have some protections.

And then the bit that we worked quite hard on, is making sure that there's also protections then for those projects at the planning submitted stage, because as I just described, you know, you're four years in, a million pounds deep. It's sort of and and, you know, not too woe is me. You know, development is a risk. But, if you've been doing development right and in the right places, it has taken you quite a long time to get there.

And so, ultimately, now those projects are protected, which is great.

And so the gate one and gate two, they kind of reflect the how far along, how advanced the project is as kind of the the the the take home message. And I think what's, what's really interesting is kind of then you're right that the twenty six projects will be protected and that they will kind of hold their date. Also, the twenty seven projects will hold their date as well. I think there's a there's a question mark that we the we've we've been thinking about from the Modo side, which is of the projects which have land and, land rights and and planning, there there are potentially quite a few projects coming through, from the battery side.

So maybe something like forty fifty gigawatts, which is quite a large number. If you go back to the, CP thirty, so the clean power twenty thirty plans, government was saying, well, maybe twenty three to twenty seven gigawatts of batteries we need. It looks like we're gonna get more than that. And so the kind of the real sort of question mark seems to me on this is, okay, government, are you are you sort of are you interested in listening that so many people have wanted to bring forward battery sites?

Maybe we need to think about beyond twenty thirty, how many more gigawatts of this are we going to build? I think that's probably a really kind of critical question, which is, like, how many more battery sites do we want to add to GB? How do Phil think about that? Do you kind of look at the twenty three to twenty seven gigs and think, well, that's done?

Or do you think, actually, maybe or like the the it looks like we need many more gigawatts of storage on the system?

Well, so so a bit of both. One, I think, goes back to my earlier point of we don't think those capacity pots are enough and particularly in certain regions.

So for example, NISO have just announced long term stability tender to provide stability services. And, from our analysis, there currently aren't enough projects in the right locations that are gonna get gate two offers to actually match the stability need that Nissan themselves have identified is needed. So I do think that there hopefully is gonna be change there. The other point is accounting for attrition.

So, it's really hard to get a project, a financial investment decision. You know, we have probabilities at each stage of drop off. So before you get your head signed, we say it's sort of fifty percent chance and go you know? And we had attrition. Right? And the projects that we've bought online so far have been acquisitions.

I cannot describe how many sites we have looked at and really analyzed, and there's only a handful that we've thought are actually sort of fit to build in terms of, you know, they're actually big enough or all of the land rights are got you know, you have all of the access that you need or it's a good grid connection. And so I think that's something that's really been overlooked of, like, yes. It might look like we have too much, but there's a very big difference between the number of projects with a gate two offer and the number of those projects that are actually gonna come online.

I think it's a it's a fascinating part. So when when you say the projects that they're not gonna come online, you're talking about this this concept of attrition that that some of these projects won't actually be built and come through. But but just to before we kind of talk a little bit more about that, I think the the this idea of transacting on projects that aren't yet built, we hear the term a lot in industry, which is kind of, quote, unquote, ready to build or RTB. What does that what does that even mean?

Yeah. And that goes sort of again back to my point of, like, how many of these sites that we've looked at are not actually able to, acquire or not wanted to acquire. So I think it's a a bit of a loose term, and it I guess it sort of depends on how how good a developer you are. And so, yeah, as I keep on saying, because field develop and build these sites ourselves, we're doing a lot of upfront design development work so that, you know, as you've heard, there is a really long time scale.

We want to move as quickly as possible from planning into construction and ultimately into operation. So we probably set quite a high bar of that really is, you know, you could put a spade in the ground and go. That's not necessarily the case, if if you, you know, had tried to if you were gonna flip on a project and you tried to get consent sort of as cheaply as possible, and maybe then you know that the design needs changing and there's some access right issues and things like that. So I think there really is a a varying scale across market of what is a true RTB site.

Yeah. And I think the then going on to the attrition side, so from your point of view, the sites that are really well thought through, really well planned and developed, those should be in a pretty good place from an attrition point of view. Those that have perhaps been rushed to get there, you think might have higher attrition, and so a few more of those might drop out. When you look at the plans in the future and you see maybe we've got forty gigawatts at gate two, Do you have a feeling of, attrition being one percent, ten percent, fifty percent? Do you do you have an idea of, like, where that number might be?

I'm not an expert on this, but we did some sort of back of the five packet calculations.

And I think the figure that we were quoting was about one in seven projects as in make it through, not a trite.

That's what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it's I mean, if it's if it's not the word, then it's close enough.

Good. Okay. So then, we've kind of been spending a lot of time talking about how stuff develops, how it comes through the development process, and it gets to this point where it gets built. You also mentioned that Field of Done have have sort of added on this ability to be operator and optimizer. And so do you want to talk about the journey you've made in terms of the optimization?

Sure. Also definitely not an expert on this. So there's a whole in house optimization team. But at at a very high level, we've launched Gaia, which is our in house optimization platform. So that was a a platform that was built in house by our technology team, to ultimately operate our assets for us. So, it's monitoring energy markets, grid conditions, weather conditions, bringing all that information together, and then working out how best to optimize our assets.

And it also monitors our assets to check that they're performing sort of as we're expecting them to. So, that went live at the end of last year. Really exciting. And we have Oldham, so the our first project that we built, that's online and being optimized by Gaia now. That's doing really well, and so the plan is that we will bring more of our projects online onto that over the coming year.

It's one of those really big questions that comes up a lot, which is people who own assets, or looking at the space say, well, hold on. When do I when do I bring this all in house? Should I bring it all in house? And there's definitely some people going down the road of saying, nope.

I really like the optimizers. I'm gonna stay with the optimizers, and that's a very I'm very happy to to not be in that space. There are definitely people who are looking at it and going, look, when I get to this size, and that's three hundred megawatts or five hundred megawatts, whatever it might be, they say, oh, I'm over a tipping point, and then I want to also do some of this optimize optimization myself. The other example that springs to mind is Gore Street.

They also do a bit of their, optimization in house as well. I'm discounting the utilities here, obviously, because they kind of do a bit of everything. But, yeah, really interesting to hear they kind of feel to have made that that shift. Let let's go back to delivering battery projects, which you are very much an expert in.

The the key challenges then, if we were to kind of write down this top list of of, like, what the challenges are, because I think from Nissan's perspective, government's perspective, this is what they need to hear. So what are the key challenges? What do we need to fix?

Yeah.

It is hard. It's it's very fun. I love my job, which is nice. There are challenges.

So I think the biggest one, and and it's nothing new, but it's planning. The plan planning is really struggling. We've got, like, an an inefficient, unpredictable system. It's not a surprise.

There's more infrastructure coming online than ever before. You know? We're asking local authorities to do more than ever and with less resource than ever. But I think there are solutions, and, you know, planning can't be the reason or shouldn't be the reason that we don't meet CP thirty targets.

So in terms of and I said, I'm I'm chair of Regen's planning working group. I I love the work that Regen do. I I think they're great, and that that working group, you know, is coming up with a lot of solutions, possible solutions.

There is also there's change in government coming, so the planning and infrastructure bill is currently going through. That's that's great. It's not gonna happen quick enough, as I've said, on on the timelines. Like, the projects for CP thirty are in planning now.

I think and even when the planning and infrastructure bill comes in, there's a lot of secondary legislation which needs to come with that, but, you know, how the process actually works. And some stuff that's really missing from the bill at the minute is things like statutory time frames. And that's the thing that we have the problem with now is, like, you know, we aren't able to meet those. There aren't there aren't the time frames, or we aren't able to meet them.

And so what can we do short term now? I think it's really invest in planning.

So, when I first started in planning sort of twelve years ago, some local authorities did offer PPAs.

That's, planning planning performance agreements, not power purchase. Yes.

I was gonna say it's a very confusing acronym. Yeah.

And what is a PBA in the planning world?

And and so that is where you would pay a local authority for dedicated resource and so that they would deliver within a require within an agreed time frame so you had some certainty. A lot of planning authorities have stopped doing that, and that's mainly because they don't have the resource now. They just can't commit to those time frames. But I really think something like that can still work.

So for those that do have the resource, great. Allow you know, I'm sure developers would absolutely throw money at it if it meant that they could guarantee their project was gonna get through planning in a certain amount of time. You know? It would really increase investor confidence in the industry.

If they don't, you can pay to outsource that, and, you know, that can be a completely independent consultancy, a preferred consultancy of the local authority's choice so that it remains completely independent, but it get a, you know, sort of dedicating that that resource.

And I think another really important thing is skill set.

So batteries is actually quite a new technology.

And this is not sorry. This is not within so you're saying within within planning, there's kind of this kind of the PPA potential or this potential to sort of work with planning authorities to bring sort of more money into the process to move more quickly. And there's also legislation coming as well.

And then skill set is that is then moving outside of planning, or Or no still within the Yeah.

So still still within planning. I think, there are there are some experienced people in planning. But if if we're gonna bring on this sort of host of, new people into planning, they're probably not gonna have that renewables experience. And also really, like, batteries are still quite a new technology, and so that and so I think there's two things.

One is that you train up those planners that are in house in local authorities. And then another solution is that you could have this sort of, like, centralized hub of specialist renewable planners. And so it's sort of, you know, the local authority do their okay. I get this.

And as soon as it sort of, oh, I'm not not sure about this. Like, how do you decommission a battery? What does that look like? They've got that specialist knowledge base that they can go to.

Yeah. If you're listening GB Energy, this could be a good use of your money.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. Very good. Okay. So going on from the planning side, what are the other big challenges that you see?

Yeah. And so this is probably my, contrarian opinion is, is is what's being called in the media as sort of the uprising against renewables.

And that's sort of the real change in local sentiment to renewable energy. And, actually, you know, maybe that's been common in some parts of the country, and now we're really seeing that, like, everywhere.

And my contrary opinion is, I get it, if I'm honest. So I personally recently have been in some very threatening, very unpleasant, public consultation events, and, you know, that's that's not okay. But taking back from it and on reflection, anger isn't anger isn't a primary emotion. It's a it's a cover for something else.

And so those primary emotions, you know, these people, they're scared. What does this mean for property prices of my house? Or they're sad. It used to be a nice hill out the window, and now it's a solar farm.

I used to walk my dog there, and now there's a lorry delivering batteries.

And so, like, I really do get it. And and so what is perhaps an unpopular opinion in the industry is, I think industry really needs to be recognizing those communities that are hosting this infrastructure, and they need to see some benefits from that.

And that's particularly in in relation to community benefits.

Okay. And I I think, I definitely hear where you're coming from, and the industry can sometimes get tunnel vision around stuff, which is that we're building solar parks, we're building wind farms, and we're building battery storage sites. And these are the things, by the way, that are taking gas off the system. They're taking coal off the system.

They mean that we no longer have emissions in your communities. Like, these are the things that are gonna make us an independent and clean power system. Does doesn't everyone want that? And yet, like, we can get so tunnel visioned on that that we forget about some of the logistics of how we actually do the the transition.

Absolutely. And I think, we probably are looking at it from quite a bias point of view. You know? We get it. We really want I I'm really passionate about climate change. You know? We really wanna hit these targets.

If you look at it from tunnel vision of the other boat, like, people might not have that that same passion. And actually, to go back to what I said, you know, what they see is my life as I know it is changing because of something that's out of my control and that you're doing to me.

I thought there was a really interesting article on BBC, be a month, month and a half ago, where they interviewed some people who live next to us as a solar park. And I think it was interesting because it wasn't sensationalist news. It was like visiting somebody who lives nearby, and they said, oh, like, what's your experience of living next to a solar park? And they were like, it's just it's no change.

It's absolutely fine. Not not sort of box office news that they were hoping for. But actually, I think perhaps some of the stories that need to come through, which is I I I do definitely hear what you're saying in terms of I think people definitely see the the change and they are worried about the change. But, also, I think perhaps in your contrarian view, you're saying, well, look, what can industry do about it?

There's this element of we need to really make sure that people feel like, a, there's not that much change. It's really not that bad. And and to your point that we need to make sure that we're making benefits that come back to the community as well.

Yeah. So so I really, Desna's consulted recently on community benefits and making those mandatory, which I feel fully support. But that that wasn't gonna come in until twenty twenty nine earliest if it happens. And, you know, hopefully, the message you got across now is is things need to happen quick to hit targets.

And so, there's a long way to go on it in terms of how do you find how do you define a community? What do the community really want? And so it's definitely something that needs to be done. It needs a lot of collaboration, you know, like GB Energy being involved in things.

I think that really could be a thing, understanding actually what the community wants. But, yeah, I think community community benefits should could and should be a really big thing. And then also to tie it back to my planning resource point, you know, these community benefit pots, they could be at different levels. So you could have the local level of, like, okay, local community, you are actually impacted.

And so, you know, here is some compensation for that. But also regional part, hear local authority, fund your planners, upscale, like, make planning cool again. Yeah.

Yeah. Make planning cool again. I don't I like yes.

I've always thought it was cool. But, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely, that was definitely within the statement, wasn't it? And look, I mean, look, if we can get if if we can get money coming out of battery solar wind deployment that's also filling in potholes, I it's just gonna it's that's gonna be really sensationalist.

Well, that's the thing of, like, you know, find people's why of, like, you know, are the are the local communities really upset about their potholes? Great. Like, we wanna help.

Great. I love it. And then one, last part on on, which kind of does come up in in other episodes, and I'd be interested to kinda get your take on it. Just the skills for delivering batteries on sites.

So is this something that you come up against where you think, right, this battery is now ready to go. I've spent millions to this point. We've done all of the work to get this battery to this point, and now we need someone who is a sort of skilled electrician or or a wire, whatever it might be, to actually deliver this project and get it to go live. Do you think we have enough people who can cover that, or is it kind of a space where it's crying out for more support?

Yeah.

Today is not been something that we've struggled with, but I think, to go back to my earlier point in terms of, like, planning, that's definitely an area that needs more skills. And then also if you look at the industry as a whole, so you look outside of just batteries and the renewables energy, the amount of new people that we need coming into that space to be able to deliver what we're what we actually say that we want to do is huge. And so within that, I think, STEM and particularly women in STEM is something that I'm very passionate about, and I think that feeds quite nicely into that.

So let's let's talk about that. How do we get more women into these engineering roles, into the battery space, into these kind of critical parts of delivering this transition?

Yeah. I completely agree. So, there there aren't enough women in STEM. Powerful Women is a a organization set up to sort of try and help this, like, bring this up, more, and they've set targets.

So they want forty percent of women in middle management or leadership by twenty thirty. And that just isn't happening. Like, there has been progress, but it it's just glacial. And so not only is it important, as I said, to, you know, make sure that the skills are there, it's important for companies too.

Right? Like, you've still got all male boards, like, company. You're going to perform better if you've got a diverse skill set, there. And so, they've actually just recently released their sort of state of the nation, which they do each year.

I think they said to to hit the targets that that they want to hit, the top one hundred companies, each need to recruit five females into leadership roles and thirty eight females into, middle management roles, to get there. So, you know, that's quite the leap.

But, like, I really I think there's stuff that we we can do about it, and I think it it falls into two categories. One is, like, pipeline of, make sure that the skill is actually there and and coming up, and then the second is retention and opportunities for females who are in the industry.

Totally agree. I think some of the stats for much larger businesses always feel, tricky for me because, obviously, Modo is a business with sort of seventy, eighty people. Feel this of a similar size, I would say.

Bigger now.

Bigger. Of course. Of course, you're bigger. God. That was a mistake. So, you know, just kind of this kind of concept of twenty eight middle managers feels like it feels like a lot.

So so how does a how does a small business think about this or a smaller business think about this?

So, to go back to then each of those areas, so in terms of pipeline, there are, like, outreach programs that you can do. So I personally am a STEM ambassador. So STEM learning is a, again, a program that's set up, and that means that you volunteer some of your time to work with young adults, young people, and just, like, bring STEM to life for them. Like, help them understand what the opportunities are and also, like, fulfill their potentials potential. So, for example, I did an assembly, recently at my local primary school for their World Science Day, and it's because, asked them what is a scientist.

Oh, it's it's a male in a lab coat.

And when I said to them I was a scientist, honestly, I felt like a celebrity. They were like, an actual scientist lives around the corner from us. And so just that sort of, you know, myth busting but also role model thing. So that's something, that, you know, I think everyone can do.

Something that Phil specifically, has done that I championed was, as a sort of a a quasi community benefit. We also launched a school's program. So, it's like an educational pack that we developed with with a company, to sort of, again, bring the renewables energy to life of what do careers in renewable energy look like? What skill sets might you have to have to go into each of those things?

And then we targeted that at schools in close proximity, to our to our sites. And then so that successfully launched for the school year last year and reached, over two and a half thousand pupils over last year. And then now that's gonna be done annually, but this year, we've sort of upgraded it. And so as well as the school's pack, we're turning it into, like, a parent's pack so that, like, you know, a parent can also help advise their child on, you know, this is this is what you could do if you're interested in that.

Yeah. I I love this. This is all, like, really well thought through turning things into action. I would maybe also add in kind of an extra bit that if you are someone who is looking at the space and thinking, god, is is energy for me, or is that just for this particular type of person?

Take take like, just talking about Moto Energy's transmission, we've had a whole range of guests on. Take a look. Have have a look. See what episodes they've done.

Have a listen to what they do. If it sounds interesting, then, yeah, you can definitely go and do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's in this pack because it doesn't just look at, you know, scientists who've come into it. Like, you can work in finance, but still want to make a difference in the renewable energy space.

So there's there's a whole way so that you can get involved in it.

And this is all sort of on YouTube now. You you don't have to be kind of right place, right time, you know, nephew or niece of ex. You know, you can actually just go YouTube and you can you can kind of experience this. So I think it's it's rich really important work. Now I know we have two final questions. One one of which is a sort of contrarian opinion, of which you've released that early. So so let's let also, let's go to just the the the final question, which is, is there anything you'd like to plug?

Yeah.

It's really cheesy, but it's true. And and and then it's field. Like, field is a vibe. Like, I love my job, and I realize I am very fortunate to be able to say that.

But, you know, looking back on what's happened in two years since AMIT came on, like, we have done so much. So we have we have four values, and one of those is move fast. You know, and we've really done it. And I was a really early joiner at Field.

And now and when we were going out to our first battery tender and we were sort of begging tenderers, like, you know, please come work with us. And like you say, we were in a Shoreditch office full of dogs and trees, and now can go to events. You say you work for Fields, and people are like, oh, yeah. Like, yeah.

I know you. And so I think because we've moved fast and and we've shown that we're doing things, that's attracted people. You know, and people, again, also want to be involved in the energy transition.

And so, like, it's we're such a great team, that surrounded by so many talent so much talent that it sort of it's also not threatening. It's sort of you wanna bring your a game, but also everyone sharing knowledge. We're innovating, and you're learning. It's it's a great place.

With Second This, everything we do with Field is great. Please do check out check out the company if you're looking at roles in the space. Bex, you've been a fantastic guest. Thank you very much for your time and coming on Transmission.

Thanks.