Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change The £60 Billion Plan To Rewire Britain | Ep227: John Pettigrew
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Oct 8, 2025 John Pettigrew, the outgoing CEO of National Grid, reflects on his 35-year career, discussing the ambitious £60 billion investment plan aimed at rewiring Britain's energy system. He delves into the challenges posed by the surge in demand from AI data centres and the balance of decarbonisation, reliability, and affordability. Pettigrew shares insights on the race to build offshore wind transmission and lessons learned from significant outages in Spain and at Heathrow. He emphasizes the exciting transformation within the energy sector for new graduates.
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Spain Blackout Reveals Stability Gaps
- Spain's blackout showed renewables alone may not supply essential stability products like inertia and reactive power.
- Rapid recovery proved competent system operation, but gaps in obligations and ancillary procurement were exposed.
Heathrow Substation Failure From A Missed Process
- A missed manual process in 2018 left a defect unrecorded and led to the North Hyde substation fire this year.
- The failure destroyed the substation and exposed coordination gaps with Heathrow's private network switching time.
Define Resilience Levels And Who Pays
- Decide differentiated resilience levels for critical infrastructure rather than one-size-fits-all design standards.
- Assign accountability and funding for higher resilience where needed, e.g., airports or military sites.