Substation Planning Support – (£100M+ Projects)
Overview
Project Planning Ltd. was engaged to support the delivery of a £100+ million onshore substation forming a critical part of the infrastructure required to connect a new offshore wind farm to the national electricity grid. Initially appointed on a short-term basis to provide programme support during a particularly challenging phase of the project, our involvement was expected to last only a few weeks.
More than a year later, Project Planning Ltd. remains an integral part of the delivery team, providing planning and project controls expertise that has helped stabilise the programme, accommodate change, reduce delivery risk and focus efforts across the project.
Our Contribution
Following design and timing changes, we re-structured key areas of the schedule to better align construction sequencing with evolving client requirements. Our work enabled the project team to incorporate significant client-driven changes while maintaining programme control.
Through clear programme analysis and collaborative engagement with the delivery team, we helped facilitate the re-agreement of Sectional Completion Dates, providing a realistic path to completion.
Our input was recognised with a further project supporting the grid. In this we were asked to mobilise quickly to supply a planning and project controls service to another £100+ million project in England.
Both of these projects are still ongoing with our support.
Results
Our planning and project controls support has:
- Improved programme clarity across the project team
- Supported the successful re-alignment of key project milestones
- Reduced delivery risk by identifying critical areas requiring management focus and improving procurement schedules
- Enabled informed decision-making around programme changes
The value delivered led the client to retain Project Planning Ltd. on the project for the long term. As a result of this success, we have also been appointed to provide full-time planning and project controls support on a second substation project associated with another power development.