Rolton have led a number of roundtable discussions and meetings with key players in the energy and infrastructure industry. This report is a summary of our conversations with developers, planners, investors, innovators, brokers and stakeholders from the public sector. I’m grateful to everyone for their input.
Our first roundtable coincided with the announcement that Blackstone were investing £10bn to build one of Europe’s largest AI data centres in Blyth, Northumberland. This landmark project will revitalise the former Britishvolt site, provide the infrastructure investment for wider economic activity, strengthen the UK’s standing in the global AI sector and put up to £20bn into the local economy.
However, projects like this one raise important questions about the role of sustainable energy and infrastructure in attracting investment to the UK, and the challenges our industry faces to power the industrial and data-driven needs of the future. In fact, the government has been consulting on a 10-year plan for the UK’s modern industrial strategy, Invest 2035, which perfectly captures the challenges many businesses are facing, and highlights the barriers to domestic and inward investment.
I was an advisor to the UK government when the EU Renewable Energy Directive came into force in 2009 with its target of 20% renewable energy by 2020. It was always my view that rather than off-set, we needed to engineer the solution with better technologies, a viable business case, and a strategy to reduce costs with scale.
Some of these topics are discussed in the following pages – but this isn’t a government document or a document of consensus from all our stakeholders. It brings together insight and experience from a wide range of industry experts, and highlights the opportunities for regional authorities, companies and other stakeholders to grow the UK economy – and spells out the actions we need the government to take to help make it happen.
Peter Rolton
Executive Chairman, Rolton
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Our paper begins with a fundamental truth – that if we are to have the energy we need to ‘power the 2035 industrial and data-driven revolution’, we need to focus on delivering sustainable energy and infrastructure for the UK.
Join us at MIPIM for the official launch of Rolton’s white paper on delivering sustainable energy and infrastructure to power the industries of the future.
Rolton today announced the launch of a new service line focused on the design, construction, commissioning, handover and in-use support of advanced lift technology, championed by leading expert Tim Piggott.