Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

We are in a new phase of investment in electricity infrastructure. There is a major step change coming in PR6 up to 2030 and beyond that. There are some ingredients that will help deliver that infrastructure. We mentioned in our opening statement things like having certainty for our supply chain. We depend not only on recruiting our own resources but also on our contract partners and their having sight of these investment programmes for the years ahead so that they can invest in, for example, plant and machinery, resources and developing their own skills and capabilities. Having regulatory certainty around the investment programme is fundamental and is what gives the supply chain confidence.

Another area is the acceleration of key substations - high-voltage substations - that need to be built in the coming years. One of the matters we have been in discussions with a range of stakeholders on is access to land to build those substations. Before going into planning, the issue is getting access to land, particularly in urban areas where we are seeing the biggest growth. We have been talking with various agencies about getting access, where we can, to State land to help accelerate these projects. There is a real urgency needed in delivering this infrastructure as quickly as possible because of the level of demand growth we are seeing.

These are a couple of the concerning factors, as well as continuing to manage the supply chain. We have seen some lead time for key equipment like electrical transformers being pushed out. The positive thing in PR6 is that there is a clear plan for what we need to do, both at transmission and distribution levels, to invest now and see the graph going up in the level of delivery. That is where we are focused now.