Voices of the future: Lessons from Covid

The energy industry has laid the foundations for net zero but it is the next generation of sector leaders that will be responsible for ensuring the 2050 target is achieved. From shifts in energy demand to how we deal with vulnerable customers, Covid-19 has resulted in a number of big changes this year. In the second of a series of articles, Adam John speaks to the winners of the Young Energy Professionals awards and asks them what lessons they think will be learned from the pandemic

Yesterday Utility Week introduced the winners of the Young Energy Professionals (YEP) awards 2020. All five have less than 10 years’ experience in the industry and have been recognised for their outstanding contributions and achievements.

In this latest piece, the winners discuss their learnings from the pandemic, and what lessons they believe the sector should take going forward.

Both Rajan Patel and Gemma Harvey-Cole point to the fact that the sector has been able to carry on working despite major disruption caused by the pandemic and point to a sense of an irreversible change taking place.

“From a personal and professional point of view, we have defined new and exciting ways to try and carry on stuff that we weren’t able to do but in a different way”, says Patel. “The main point for me is to try and keep things as stable as possible, the energy sector is a really important sector, we can’t pack our bags and go home, we have to find interesting ways to try and keep things moving.”

Harvey-Cole says the sector’s way of working was thrown “completely out the window overnight” but adds that it has shown real resilience, dealing with the new way of working very well.

She says: “At National Grid we have been looking at ways and means to reduce travel times – bringing different people to site at the same time. We are looking at technologies where we can do that virtually, so we haven’t got people that need to come from different  countries to look at different pieces of equipment. We’ll have the technology where we can do that with someone just walking around with a camera. That’s moved that forward a lot more quickly than we anticipated.”

Rubina Singh believes improvements in air quality will help shift attitudes on climate change, with more people recognising the need for urgency in tackling the issue.

She says: “I think what we and customers all over the world have noticed is a remarkable improvement in air quality with the reduction in transport use. I think what this shows is the urgent need to address climate change and while things might be a little slow right now, we need to keep our focus and work towards the decarbonisation of the energy and transport sectors.”

She adds: “The other lesson, and I think this is more of an opportunity, is to build back a diverse workforce. We have seen some groups have been more negatively impacted. Women in the workforce have been more negatively impacted, there has been research on that. Despite the horrors of the pandemic, we have this opportunity to pause and think, and when we start ramping things up again, we need to set up a system that is not only low carbon and more innovative, but also more diverse.”

Matthew Young and Rodney Williams also see opportunities for the sector to build back better following the pandemic. Both believe the sector can unlock the talent of people up and down the country, as more opportunities to work from home present themselves.

Young says: “There is a wealth of talent from young people scattered all around the country who maybe don’t have the same advantages that some of us have had. I hope that we shift to not going back into the office, not to the old ways of working and also bring in more raw talent from different places. That wealth of new ideas, especially from millenials and Generation Z, could actually provide some of the answers for how the sector can recover and grow from this.”

Williams points to the fact that three graduates have recently joined his team, with the process taking place entirely remotely.

“I live in London, one of them lives in Glasgow and our HQ is in Warwick. The fact that we can actually onboard people remotely, build connections over technology and still deliver on our day-to-day jobs is fantastic and I think that’s a big opportunity that will hopefully make the industry a bit more accessible to people.”

Coming up on Voices of the Future:

In our next piece, Utility Week will explore the issue of diversity and the challenges it poses for recruitment. With the five working in an industry that will be crucial in getting the UK to meet its net zero goal by 2050, the final piece will look into the net zero challenge.