A View on the Future of Transmission & Distribution: A Q&A with Freddie van der Linde

The future of our world – economically, socially, technologically and environmentally – hinges on the evolution of energy systems, networks and infrastructure. 

There are some challenges slowing down society’s progression toward a decarbonized future include legacy issues such as regulation, misaligned governmental policies and regulatory frameworks and supply chains. However, it’s bright minds at Jacobs like Freddie van der Linde, our global solutions director for transmission & distribution, that see the opportunity in the challenge to help traditional utilities and clients across all end markets overcome reliability, efficiency, capacity and scale challenges they face today, and also plan for tomorrow. 

In this Q&A, we connect with Freddie to discuss the trends and opportunities ahead for transmission and distribution and how we’re tackling the energy challenge in a changing world. 

Tell us a bit about what a day in the life is like as Jacobs Global Solutions Director for Transmission & Distribution, and what we offer to our clients in this area.

Energy infrastructure, and electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) networks, are at the heart of decarbonization of many industries, but it’s also critical to the day-to-day operation of most economies. In my role, I help traditional utilities overcome the scale of the challenge they face to progress toward tomorrow’s decarbonization needs, while maintaining efficient and reliable power systems today. For non-utilities, I help them develop an approach to the infrastructure they require, that meshes efficiently (in terms of time and cost) with what utilities can provide. Often the key to an efficient approach is breaking down the traditional silos between energy generators, networks and consumers of electricity – in a sector that is tightly regulated all over the world, this requires a nuanced understanding of the structure of the industry in each country and often regions within countries. 

We also help develop the flexible approaches that allows management of uncertainty in other energy vectors (such as hydrogen) and technologies (such as carbon capture usage and storage(CCUS)) in infrastructure development and implementation. Delivering infrastructure in an efficient and dependable way while breaking down barriers is what it is all about for our team.

What are the biggest challenges in electricity transmission & distribution?

Capacity, supply chain constraints and a lack of digital capability. Globally, the rate of investment in T&D needs to roughly double, immediately from a standing start, and for some of our clients the increase is threefold. For any industry this would be a challenge, even more so for one that has had an incremental approach to investment in the last three or four decades. The steep increase in capacity and supply chain requirements means the industry must be smart about what we do, so developing digital solutions is essential to help us delay or defer investment through more efficient use of existing infrastructure, and it will help us deliver new infrastructure more efficiently.

There are some technical challenges as well with operating power systems dominated by solar and wind power. This has to do with the intermittency of these energy sources and managing low levels of inertia, both of which require new control methods and reconfiguration of equipment on the existing system.

Permitting and consenting is also a massive challenge, and while it is largely out of our hands as a sector, we can contribute by learning to better communicate the benefits the infrastructure brings and what the consequences are of doing nothing.

How do we help clients think differently to respond to future challenges?

Three ways of changing the way our clients think are:

1. Sharing the global expertise and best practice from what we develop and encounter.
2. Using cross-sector learning to improve infrastructure delivery and operations.
3. Breaking down silos within an industry that is often regulated to ensure segregation. 

The challenges the industry faces are global, so sharing learning globally is a powerful tool, as is identifying the reasons for differences and developing strategies that will help make the necessary transitions. As a global multidisciplinary business, we also can bring learning and solutions from other sectors to our clients, particularly digital solutions from sectors where adoption has been faster. Breaking down silos can be tough as many of the regulated utilities we support behave in specific ways because of how they are incentivized. The key to breaking theses regulatory silos is often to show how there will be financial benefit to the utility, and to get regulators on board, you also need to show how it produces enduring benefit to all users, including disadvantaged communities and individuals.

Future flexible power systems require a bottom-up rethink about how we structure and control networks. 

With all eyes on decarbonization as the world moves toward net zero by 2050, where do you see the industry heading? 

The scale of the challenge to develop electrical power systems that can support the transition to net zero means there will have to be a higher degree of standardization and modularization than previously applied in the transmission systems. We will also see continued growth in the number of interconnectors between countries and regions as renewable generation has a different geographical distribution to the conventional generation it’s displacing. It’s unlikely that the investment in large capital works can happen at the required pace, so we will continue to see financial incentives being introduced to change consumer behavior (for example encouraging the use of energy when output from renewable sources are at their peak) and the digitization of the power system to allow more efficient utilization of the assets as part of an integrated energy system. The rate of change in technologies such as hydrogen and CCUS and the scale of the challenge means there is uncertainty, not least as we will innovate our way around some of the challenges.

Where do you see Jacobs playing in the transmission & distribution space in the next few years? What are the biggest opportunities?

Our T&D team operates as a single global unit and this gives us unique opportunities to bring significant resource and expertise to large and complex projects. We also provide services from early advisory to construction, including being a member of construction joint ventures, that gives us unique insights in the end-to-end project life-cycle and puts us at the forefront of advising our clients on how to reform their delivery to be able to achieve the scale required. 

As a global and multidisciplinary organization, Jacobs is ideally placed to help our clients solve the more complex problems. Our size allows us to quickly scale up delivery for our clients in a variety of roles and that will continue presenting opportunities. As more network customers look to develop systems to scale their own facilities (e.g. data centers) and decarbonize their operations using combinations of demand flexibility, generation and energy storage – we’ll see more opportunities in these areas. This shift makes the interface with the utilities more complex and affects how the utilities plan, operate and build out their systems, presenting Jacobs with opportunities ranging from digital solutions to complex delivery models. These are all capabilities our global business has in abundance.

Tell us about a project you’re particularly proud of.

There are many excellent projects we’re delivering such Suedlink project for TransnetBW and Tennet in Germany and working with National Grid in the U.K. to secure funding, delivering feasibly studies, detail design, project management, environmental services for substations, overhead lines and other critical network components. But what I am most proud of is our longstanding relationship with some of the biggest and best-known utilities in the world, and how we’re working with them to make the transition required to execute their net zero commitments.