speaker-0: Nexus, published by GHD, where ideas connect. Welcome to the Nexus Podcast, where we explore the ideas, innovations, and collaborations shaping the future of infrastructure, energy, water, and communities. I'm Ben Hall, Global Thought Leadership Manager at GHD. In this episode, we're tackling one of the defining challenges of the clean energy transition: how to modernize and accelerate electricity transmission networks so they can keep pace with our net zero ambitions. Today, we'll unpack what's slowing grid development. Why traditional project delivery models aren't always fit for purpose, and how more collaborative project delivery approaches could power a faster, more efficient energy future. Joining me is Carl Polongo, GHD's transmission and distribution leader for Australia and New Zealand. Carl has worked in the transmission and distribution industry for more than 28 years across Australia and internationally. Thanks for joining us, Carl.
speaker-1: Thanks for having me, Ben.
speaker-0: So look, the Nexus article you co authored with Craig Palmer starts with a clear warning the grid is becoming a bottleneck in the clean energy transition. From your point of view, how urgent is this problem and what's at stake if we don't address it quickly?
speaker-1: question. We do need adequate new electricity transmission infrastructure to be able to support the significant increase in renewable generation that's needed to displace fossil fuel generation. And what's at stake, you know, if we don't do that, well our decarbonisation targets are at stake. Our greenhouse gas reduction commitments are at stake. If we can't connect this new renewable generation, we have to be able to displace especially the coal fired power. power generation, if we don't displace it, we're not going to meet those targets. So there's a there's a fair bit at stake without being overly dramatic. And it does come back and we'll talk more about what it means in terms of the transmission infrastructure, which is clearly a bottleneck at the moment, and what it actually means in terms of how we actually get over that.
speaker-0: What the most significant barriers to accelerating grid development right now? And which of those do you think can be overcome the fastest?
speaker-1: Again, massive topic. There are some significant regulatory barriers and and obvious environmental, you know, land heritage barriers. And I do not want to understate those. They're probably some of the most significant barriers that we have in terms of developing new transmission infrastructure to be able to to be able to meet these targets.
speaker-0: Just getting them built, is that right?
speaker-1: Yes, it is. They they're they're difficult to overcome, th th these challenges. I would like to focus more about the on the program and project delivery barriers. So once projects are actually framed up, once we figured out what we actually need to do, how do we come out overcome those barriers and actual delivery of those projects? So here are some of the key ones. So resource shortages, engineering, design, construction, commissioning. We ha we are short of all those resources globally. There's no fast way to develop those skills overnight either. takes a long time to develop. And there are some good programs around working on that at the moment, such as the the Australian Power Institute, which which are help helping trying to develop some engineering skills to try and build that up faster. And it's now more difficult to shift people around in the transmission industry. You know, twenty years ago certain parts of the world had some good transmission builds. They could bring people in from other parts of the world, but they weren't so busy now, but this is happening everywhere at the same time. So moving people around, is this rubbing rubbing Peter to paper around the world, everyone's busy. So people, resources, that's one key challenge. Another one is that the traditional procurement mechanisms that procure in a series fashion. So you start off, you know, you do your specifications, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, they do present a barrier to faster delivery. So many require full design, then equipment procurement, then construction. H they have to happen in that way. This can be overcome by working differently and running some of these tasks ⁓ in parallel. Another challenge is plant and equipment supply. So Transmission network build is is ha again happening globally at the same time to support the energy transition and some manufacturers are at capacity. So everyone's trying to access the same resources, the same manufacturers for the same equipment at the same time. I do recognise that some of these manufacturers are now building new facilities. That's also taking some time to be able to do, but they are actually working on increasing capacity at as well. But it's still a challenge.
speaker-0: Yeah, we're gonna dig deeper into the ⁓ the delivery models in a minute. But you mentioned this ⁓ of talking about, you know, resources, et cetera. And I was gonna ask you about the supply chain squeeze. And we're seeing that lead times for critical components can stretch into I think you said seven years in in some cases. ⁓ is that correct? And how has this changed the way projects need to be planned and delivered?
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely it does. So this challenge it emphasizes the need to understand the key plant and equipment requirements very early in projects. So you have specs need to be developed early, orders placed with suppliers, which is they're usually on the critical path, and now they're definitely on the critical path, some of these key pieces of plant and equipment. So if you don't place those those early, whereas before a l sometimes they weren't on the critical path. Now you have to do them very, very early. So it's often difficult to do that because a certain amount of engineering needs to be done to be able to work out the requirements to develop the specifications in the first place. Now, in terms of what some strategies that are that are that are ⁓ in place to get plant and equipment ordered early and get get it off the critical path or get it done early, but usually still on the critical path anyway. Most transmission utilities have have what they call drawdown contracts anyway with suppliers for key plant and equipment. So the suppliers know the specifications and roughly how many of each item will be required under a contract. And there's a bit of flex in that. They can get some more or less ⁓ over time. But this this does speed up delivery if orders are placed early and speccause specifications are already done. So creating those sort of period order contracts is is a really good way of doing that and ⁓ be able to get them off the critical path or at least reduce the amount of time it takes to procure them. Example a good example that I've got is the Marinus Link project in in Tasmania, which is the new H V D C cable connection between Tasmania and Victoria. It's an undersea H V D C connection. So you've got undersea cable. And you've got HVDC converter stations, two items of plant that are very highly sought after in the world, and only a few manufacturers in the world make them. So very much on the critical path of this project. So so what did they what did they do? They actually developed the specifications early and they placed the the orders for those two packages very early in the piece. And it is quite bold because it was done pre pre financial close. So this is the other thing. Some of these orders, if you if you don't at least place them early. And there may be penalties if you don't actually fulfill those orders. But if you don't place them early, then you're not going to get your project done in the time frame that you need. It's going to extend out. So it's a risk there, but sometimes it's a risk that clients are going to have to take and and going forward if they're going to meet these these the the project timeframes. So there are some different ways of of actually procuring these days to to be able to to be able to secure these production line slots that are highly sought after globally.
speaker-0: So there are very h highly complex logistics and problems to overcome before you even get started. So it's probably a good time to g to dig into the the delivery models and and I know that you sort of believe that traditional sort of engineering, procurement and construction or EPC models and other conventional project delivery models can often struggle to deliver at the speed and the complexity we discussed ⁓ to meet transition demands. Are there any situations where they still make sense?
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. But there are definitely situations where APC makes sense. So if you've got well defined scopes, scopes of work and there's adequate time for project delivery, and there's good competition in the in the market for contractors and and ⁓ and and others that you need in in to be able to deliver in an APC fashion, then it does actually actually make sense. You can get a a sharp price, you can get your your time frame, you can actually push some risk to the APC contractors. By what we're seeing. is with with compressed time frames, it's becoming a bit of an issue to be able to do it full EPC in a serious fashion. Yeah. Because obviously when the market's hot, there's lots of work. There are fewer contractors who can actually bid on it in in the first place. And they're going to gravitate to the projects that are that are less risky. Or if they're pricing your your project, they're going to they're going to price in more more risk because they've got more work than they than they can handle anyway. So the clients are going to be paying more. There are some issues with the sequential nature, I suppose, of of EPC when you're trying to go really fast with projects, but they do have their place. And they st and like I said, they will continue to have their place. So I'm not I'm not here to say, no, don't do EPC. Absolutely not. It has its place. It's more about choosing the right delivery model and con contractor model ⁓ for your project or your program of work.
speaker-0: Mm. And you mentioned that that that int integrated project delivery and alliancing are are good alternatives. And I think you mentioned you think that they they can work and in practical terms, ⁓ these models can change outcomes, can't they? Is that still your your case?
speaker-1: ⁓ they can and they have their place. When you've got to get something done where there hasn't been scoped that well, you need to get it done quickly. ⁓ it's better to have a more collaborative approach with a client and and the delivery partners. And it may be a number of diff delivery partners, not just a contractor, there might be a designer involved, there might be others. So having a more team based approach then actually works. You can do a number of things in parallel. I think that's that's the key with the the case for collaboration and doing having alliancing or integrated project delivery teams. Is that you can actually do a number of functions in parallel. You have to manage the risk as well, because whenever you do anything in parallel, there's more usually more risk involved to make sure that you actually get the right outputs from each of the phases at the right times. But there are certain things. You don't need to do a full design in most cases before you go and get a price for construction. So with the integrated project delivery team, for example, or an alliance, you could do enough design to be able to then get a price from a contractor to be able to do a package. for the entire work, depending on your project or program. And then you can move on in a parallel, you can complete the actual detailed design. The contractor may not need that to do the pricing, but they obviously need it later on in the project, but doesn't need it up front. So you get your contractor on board, to take some time. Plant and equipment can be ordered early, and then deliver some of the delivery can start to happen in parallel with that. And you can get things done at the at the right time a as you need it through the project.
speaker-0: Hm. Just ⁓ just quickly explain to us for those that don't know the difference between ⁓ integrated project delivery or IPD and alliance thing. I know they're same same, but they're different, aren't they?
speaker-1: Yeah, that they are there's is is a continuum of of delivery models really. It's not sort of one or the other, if you know what I mean. It's sort of it sort of continues all the way through to to to EPC where you're pushing risk out to a contractor. But integrated project delivery teams may be similar to more of an EPCM, which is engineer, procure, construct management model, where where a client might get a delivery partner on board, a consultant on board to work with them to maybe do some of the design as well. frame up the designs, order order a plant and equipment, produce packages for for construction, depending on the project, how many packages you actually need, and then help manage the actual construction part and and usually see the whole project through. So whether that's EPCM, whether that's integrated project delivery team, that's sort of how that works. Alliancing is similar, but it's more of a s more of a combined approach where you have a a contractor, say a consulting party, depending on I give it in depending on what you're doing. And the client themselves all getting together and working out common KPIs, signing up to a to a common contract under a common charter, often with pain gain mechanisms and and and risk reward, that everyone's in it together. So it's it's a little bit different to the to the other approach where you've you still have a contract for it for say EPCM services or as an integrated project delivery team. The alliance is more of an all in approach with all parties having it having a really clear stake under one contract.
speaker-0: Yeah, it seems like you're making the point that also the the correct delivery model for a project depends on the context. So what what factors should should yes should decision makers weigh most heavily on when when they're choosing an execution strategy? What should they be looking for to decide which project delivery model they want to go for?
speaker-1: It's a good question. Does depend it does depend on your your actual project delivery model. It really comes down to risk. I think at the end of the day, what are your key project risks? What we would tend to do is actually for want of a better term, project delivery mechanism workshops with the client to actually try and work out which del delivery model will be best for this that particular project or program. Factor in all the risks, factor in all the stakeholder requirements. There's a whole bunch of stuff that goes in. Think of it as a funnel, everything goes into a funnel. You have a look at all that, perform a multi criteria analysis based on all all those requirements. And you often have a number of different stakeholders in the room for those workshops as well, not just the clients. Sometimes you can bring in other stakeholders too. And then what comes out of the funnel is is the probably the most beneficial model for that particular project or program, or models, depending on what they're doing, that's actually best and suits suits their requirements. So it is that sort of multi criteria analysis approach to try and meet meet all the requirements for that specific project or program.
speaker-0: Mm. And if we were gonna fast forward to say twenty thirty or even beyond that, let's let's not sort of limit the time frame, what needs to change to solve this big picture problem?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's look, it's a it's a good question. A lot more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and upgraded to support the energy transition. So what is you know, what does success look like in in say twenty thirty or twenty thirty is not far away now, probably beyond because these projects take a long time to deliver.
speaker-0: It's gonna hit us pretty fa pretty hard and fast, isn't it?
speaker-1: It it it does. So look, success in the transmission space is about building enough infrastructure and obviously fast enough to enable this this transition. So I'm not here to advocate overbuilding transmission either, because if you overbuild transmission, someone's gonna pay for it. And it's it's almost always the the consumers at the end of the day, whether it's a a one off consumer that's a mining company that's doing it for themselves or whether it's done as part of an infrastructure as part of an integrated network and all all c or customers connected to that network pay for it, someone's got to pay for it. Or a government's got to go put money in and g guess where that money comes from? It comes from from taxpayers and consumers. So at the end of the day, someone's going to pay for this. So it's it's very easy to go and say we're going to need to go and build all this extra infrastructure and go and build it. The regulatory systems are there for a reason to make sure that we don't overbuild and that c consumers pay a fair price for for for what they're getting. So success is going to be building just enough just in time. Sounds a bit tried. It it sounds simple. Now now it's not. Well so what needs to change, I've talked a bit about some of the the delivery model challenges and the the constraints which we're seeing in the industry. I think the clients and and developers of of these new renewables projects that include transmission and also new grid build above the utilities and others, they're gonna need to have a have a good look at some of these different delivery models. Look at other industries that have done it differently. We've had massive Mining booms and oil and gas infrastructure built in very short periods of time that use different delivery models like alliancing and EPCM integrated project teams. Haven't seen a lot of it in the transmission space yet. We've seen a little bit, but not a lot. So I think looking at different delivery models that will actually benefit projects and programs in the transmission space to be able to compress the time frames, because we are we do need it quicker. We absolutely need it quicker. Absolutely. So how can we do more more with less, more in parallel? that's that's what it's all about. We haven't got the resources really, I'd mentioned that before, to be able to do what can we do differently, what can we learn from other from other industries? Is is probably a the key point from me.
speaker-0: Mm. That's a great summary and ⁓ it's probably a good way to finish this one off. Carl Palongo, thanks very much for your time there.
speaker-1: No problems at all, Ben. Thanks for having me.
speaker-0: That wraps up this episode of the Nexus Podcast. A big thanks again to Carl Polongo for joining us and sharing his views on what's holding the grid back and how we can move faster. Thanks for listening. I'm Ben Hall and this has been the Nexus Podcast. Brought to you by Nexus, published by GHD, where ideas connect.
speaker-1: Thanks for having me, Ben.
speaker-0: So look, the Nexus article you co authored with Craig Palmer starts with a clear warning the grid is becoming a bottleneck in the clean energy transition. From your point of view, how urgent is this problem and what's at stake if we don't address it quickly?
speaker-1: question. We do need adequate new electricity transmission infrastructure to be able to support the significant increase in renewable generation that's needed to displace fossil fuel generation. And what's at stake, you know, if we don't do that, well our decarbonisation targets are at stake. Our greenhouse gas reduction commitments are at stake. If we can't connect this new renewable generation, we have to be able to displace especially the coal fired power. power generation, if we don't displace it, we're not going to meet those targets. So there's a there's a fair bit at stake without being overly dramatic. And it does come back and we'll talk more about what it means in terms of the transmission infrastructure, which is clearly a bottleneck at the moment, and what it actually means in terms of how we actually get over that.
speaker-0: What the most significant barriers to accelerating grid development right now? And which of those do you think can be overcome the fastest?
speaker-1: Again, massive topic. There are some significant regulatory barriers and and obvious environmental, you know, land heritage barriers. And I do not want to understate those. They're probably some of the most significant barriers that we have in terms of developing new transmission infrastructure to be able to to be able to meet these targets.
speaker-0: Just getting them built, is that right?
speaker-1: Yes, it is. They they're they're difficult to overcome, th th these challenges. I would like to focus more about the on the program and project delivery barriers. So once projects are actually framed up, once we figured out what we actually need to do, how do we come out overcome those barriers and actual delivery of those projects? So here are some of the key ones. So resource shortages, engineering, design, construction, commissioning. We ha we are short of all those resources globally. There's no fast way to develop those skills overnight either. takes a long time to develop. And there are some good programs around working on that at the moment, such as the the Australian Power Institute, which which are help helping trying to develop some engineering skills to try and build that up faster. And it's now more difficult to shift people around in the transmission industry. You know, twenty years ago certain parts of the world had some good transmission builds. They could bring people in from other parts of the world, but they weren't so busy now, but this is happening everywhere at the same time. So moving people around, is this rubbing rubbing Peter to paper around the world, everyone's busy. So people, resources, that's one key challenge. Another one is that the traditional procurement mechanisms that procure in a series fashion. So you start off, you know, you do your specifications, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, they do present a barrier to faster delivery. So many require full design, then equipment procurement, then construction. H they have to happen in that way. This can be overcome by working differently and running some of these tasks ⁓ in parallel. Another challenge is plant and equipment supply. So Transmission network build is is ha again happening globally at the same time to support the energy transition and some manufacturers are at capacity. So everyone's trying to access the same resources, the same manufacturers for the same equipment at the same time. I do recognise that some of these manufacturers are now building new facilities. That's also taking some time to be able to do, but they are actually working on increasing capacity at as well. But it's still a challenge.
speaker-0: Yeah, we're gonna dig deeper into the ⁓ the delivery models in a minute. But you mentioned this ⁓ of talking about, you know, resources, et cetera. And I was gonna ask you about the supply chain squeeze. And we're seeing that lead times for critical components can stretch into I think you said seven years in in some cases. ⁓ is that correct? And how has this changed the way projects need to be planned and delivered?
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely it does. So this challenge it emphasizes the need to understand the key plant and equipment requirements very early in projects. So you have specs need to be developed early, orders placed with suppliers, which is they're usually on the critical path, and now they're definitely on the critical path, some of these key pieces of plant and equipment. So if you don't place those those early, whereas before a l sometimes they weren't on the critical path. Now you have to do them very, very early. So it's often difficult to do that because a certain amount of engineering needs to be done to be able to work out the requirements to develop the specifications in the first place. Now, in terms of what some strategies that are that are that are ⁓ in place to get plant and equipment ordered early and get get it off the critical path or get it done early, but usually still on the critical path anyway. Most transmission utilities have have what they call drawdown contracts anyway with suppliers for key plant and equipment. So the suppliers know the specifications and roughly how many of each item will be required under a contract. And there's a bit of flex in that. They can get some more or less ⁓ over time. But this this does speed up delivery if orders are placed early and speccause specifications are already done. So creating those sort of period order contracts is is a really good way of doing that and ⁓ be able to get them off the critical path or at least reduce the amount of time it takes to procure them. Example a good example that I've got is the Marinus Link project in in Tasmania, which is the new H V D C cable connection between Tasmania and Victoria. It's an undersea H V D C connection. So you've got undersea cable. And you've got HVDC converter stations, two items of plant that are very highly sought after in the world, and only a few manufacturers in the world make them. So very much on the critical path of this project. So so what did they what did they do? They actually developed the specifications early and they placed the the orders for those two packages very early in the piece. And it is quite bold because it was done pre pre financial close. So this is the other thing. Some of these orders, if you if you don't at least place them early. And there may be penalties if you don't actually fulfill those orders. But if you don't place them early, then you're not going to get your project done in the time frame that you need. It's going to extend out. So it's a risk there, but sometimes it's a risk that clients are going to have to take and and going forward if they're going to meet these these the the project timeframes. So there are some different ways of of actually procuring these days to to be able to to be able to secure these production line slots that are highly sought after globally.
speaker-0: So there are very h highly complex logistics and problems to overcome before you even get started. So it's probably a good time to g to dig into the the delivery models and and I know that you sort of believe that traditional sort of engineering, procurement and construction or EPC models and other conventional project delivery models can often struggle to deliver at the speed and the complexity we discussed ⁓ to meet transition demands. Are there any situations where they still make sense?
speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. But there are definitely situations where APC makes sense. So if you've got well defined scopes, scopes of work and there's adequate time for project delivery, and there's good competition in the in the market for contractors and and ⁓ and and others that you need in in to be able to deliver in an APC fashion, then it does actually actually make sense. You can get a a sharp price, you can get your your time frame, you can actually push some risk to the APC contractors. By what we're seeing. is with with compressed time frames, it's becoming a bit of an issue to be able to do it full EPC in a serious fashion. Yeah. Because obviously when the market's hot, there's lots of work. There are fewer contractors who can actually bid on it in in the first place. And they're going to gravitate to the projects that are that are less risky. Or if they're pricing your your project, they're going to they're going to price in more more risk because they've got more work than they than they can handle anyway. So the clients are going to be paying more. There are some issues with the sequential nature, I suppose, of of EPC when you're trying to go really fast with projects, but they do have their place. And they st and like I said, they will continue to have their place. So I'm not I'm not here to say, no, don't do EPC. Absolutely not. It has its place. It's more about choosing the right delivery model and con contractor model ⁓ for your project or your program of work.
speaker-0: Mm. And you mentioned that that that int integrated project delivery and alliancing are are good alternatives. And I think you mentioned you think that they they can work and in practical terms, ⁓ these models can change outcomes, can't they? Is that still your your case?
speaker-1: ⁓ they can and they have their place. When you've got to get something done where there hasn't been scoped that well, you need to get it done quickly. ⁓ it's better to have a more collaborative approach with a client and and the delivery partners. And it may be a number of diff delivery partners, not just a contractor, there might be a designer involved, there might be others. So having a more team based approach then actually works. You can do a number of things in parallel. I think that's that's the key with the the case for collaboration and doing having alliancing or integrated project delivery teams. Is that you can actually do a number of functions in parallel. You have to manage the risk as well, because whenever you do anything in parallel, there's more usually more risk involved to make sure that you actually get the right outputs from each of the phases at the right times. But there are certain things. You don't need to do a full design in most cases before you go and get a price for construction. So with the integrated project delivery team, for example, or an alliance, you could do enough design to be able to then get a price from a contractor to be able to do a package. for the entire work, depending on your project or program. And then you can move on in a parallel, you can complete the actual detailed design. The contractor may not need that to do the pricing, but they obviously need it later on in the project, but doesn't need it up front. So you get your contractor on board, to take some time. Plant and equipment can be ordered early, and then deliver some of the delivery can start to happen in parallel with that. And you can get things done at the at the right time a as you need it through the project.
speaker-0: Hm. Just ⁓ just quickly explain to us for those that don't know the difference between ⁓ integrated project delivery or IPD and alliance thing. I know they're same same, but they're different, aren't they?
speaker-1: Yeah, that they are there's is is a continuum of of delivery models really. It's not sort of one or the other, if you know what I mean. It's sort of it sort of continues all the way through to to to EPC where you're pushing risk out to a contractor. But integrated project delivery teams may be similar to more of an EPCM, which is engineer, procure, construct management model, where where a client might get a delivery partner on board, a consultant on board to work with them to maybe do some of the design as well. frame up the designs, order order a plant and equipment, produce packages for for construction, depending on the project, how many packages you actually need, and then help manage the actual construction part and and usually see the whole project through. So whether that's EPCM, whether that's integrated project delivery team, that's sort of how that works. Alliancing is similar, but it's more of a s more of a combined approach where you have a a contractor, say a consulting party, depending on I give it in depending on what you're doing. And the client themselves all getting together and working out common KPIs, signing up to a to a common contract under a common charter, often with pain gain mechanisms and and and risk reward, that everyone's in it together. So it's it's a little bit different to the to the other approach where you've you still have a contract for it for say EPCM services or as an integrated project delivery team. The alliance is more of an all in approach with all parties having it having a really clear stake under one contract.
speaker-0: Yeah, it seems like you're making the point that also the the correct delivery model for a project depends on the context. So what what factors should should yes should decision makers weigh most heavily on when when they're choosing an execution strategy? What should they be looking for to decide which project delivery model they want to go for?
speaker-1: It's a good question. Does depend it does depend on your your actual project delivery model. It really comes down to risk. I think at the end of the day, what are your key project risks? What we would tend to do is actually for want of a better term, project delivery mechanism workshops with the client to actually try and work out which del delivery model will be best for this that particular project or program. Factor in all the risks, factor in all the stakeholder requirements. There's a whole bunch of stuff that goes in. Think of it as a funnel, everything goes into a funnel. You have a look at all that, perform a multi criteria analysis based on all all those requirements. And you often have a number of different stakeholders in the room for those workshops as well, not just the clients. Sometimes you can bring in other stakeholders too. And then what comes out of the funnel is is the probably the most beneficial model for that particular project or program, or models, depending on what they're doing, that's actually best and suits suits their requirements. So it is that sort of multi criteria analysis approach to try and meet meet all the requirements for that specific project or program.
speaker-0: Mm. And if we were gonna fast forward to say twenty thirty or even beyond that, let's let's not sort of limit the time frame, what needs to change to solve this big picture problem?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's look, it's a it's a good question. A lot more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and upgraded to support the energy transition. So what is you know, what does success look like in in say twenty thirty or twenty thirty is not far away now, probably beyond because these projects take a long time to deliver.
speaker-0: It's gonna hit us pretty fa pretty hard and fast, isn't it?
speaker-1: It it it does. So look, success in the transmission space is about building enough infrastructure and obviously fast enough to enable this this transition. So I'm not here to advocate overbuilding transmission either, because if you overbuild transmission, someone's gonna pay for it. And it's it's almost always the the consumers at the end of the day, whether it's a a one off consumer that's a mining company that's doing it for themselves or whether it's done as part of an infrastructure as part of an integrated network and all all c or customers connected to that network pay for it, someone's got to pay for it. Or a government's got to go put money in and g guess where that money comes from? It comes from from taxpayers and consumers. So at the end of the day, someone's going to pay for this. So it's it's very easy to go and say we're going to need to go and build all this extra infrastructure and go and build it. The regulatory systems are there for a reason to make sure that we don't overbuild and that c consumers pay a fair price for for for what they're getting. So success is going to be building just enough just in time. Sounds a bit tried. It it sounds simple. Now now it's not. Well so what needs to change, I've talked a bit about some of the the delivery model challenges and the the constraints which we're seeing in the industry. I think the clients and and developers of of these new renewables projects that include transmission and also new grid build above the utilities and others, they're gonna need to have a have a good look at some of these different delivery models. Look at other industries that have done it differently. We've had massive Mining booms and oil and gas infrastructure built in very short periods of time that use different delivery models like alliancing and EPCM integrated project teams. Haven't seen a lot of it in the transmission space yet. We've seen a little bit, but not a lot. So I think looking at different delivery models that will actually benefit projects and programs in the transmission space to be able to compress the time frames, because we are we do need it quicker. We absolutely need it quicker. Absolutely. So how can we do more more with less, more in parallel? that's that's what it's all about. We haven't got the resources really, I'd mentioned that before, to be able to do what can we do differently, what can we learn from other from other industries? Is is probably a the key point from me.
speaker-0: Mm. That's a great summary and ⁓ it's probably a good way to finish this one off. Carl Palongo, thanks very much for your time there.
speaker-1: No problems at all, Ben. Thanks for having me.
speaker-0: That wraps up this episode of the Nexus Podcast. A big thanks again to Carl Polongo for joining us and sharing his views on what's holding the grid back and how we can move faster. Thanks for listening. I'm Ben Hall and this has been the Nexus Podcast. Brought to you by Nexus, published by GHD, where ideas connect.
