Rachel Millard, Jim Pickard and Simeon Kerr of the Financial Times report that delays in key equipment, like transformers, are threatening the UK’s 2030 decarbonization goals, with waits of up to four years for high-voltage gear, risking setbacks in the clean energy transition. They writes:
On a stretch of marshland a few miles from Tilbury Fort in south-east England, engineer Nick Mallinson surveys the network of wires and transformers that form the heart and lungs of a new battery storage site due to open in March.
The time it takes to get hold of this key equipment is climbing as international manufacturers face rising demand from countries trying to install new wind turbines, solar panels and batteries to meet their decarbonisation goals. […]
He noted that lead times for such equipment had doubled, or in some cases tripled, over the past decade. “It is challenging to see a scenario where transformers are not a bottleneck in the UK’s mission” of transitioning to decarbonised power by 2030.
Benjamin Boucher, senior supply chain analyst at the consultancy Wood Mackenzie, estimates that, along with longer lead times, global transformer prices have climbed 40 per cent to 60 per cent over the past three years, depending on their specification. […]
Kate Mulvany, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight, said: “It’s a little bit like whack-a-mole. There are solutions to supply chain constraints. But if you are trying to do something at pace it can hobble you.”
Read more here.
