Insight
From Ambition to Execution: Reflections from All-Energy 2026
Members of the Optimat team attended this year’s All-Energy Exhibition and Conference in Glasgow, the event celebrating its 25th anniversary. Across two days of sessions and conversations, there emerged strong themes centred around a phase change for the energy transition from ambition to execution.
The political framing of the transition is changing
Net zero has lost some its initial clarity and direction as the fundamental strategic impetus of the energy transition. Greater momentum outside of the sector is being built through more politically durable language: energy security, industrial resilience, lower bills. Clean Power 2030 was positioned repeatedly across sessions not as an environmental target but as an economic programme. That reflects where the political centre of gravity now sits after successive geopolitical shocks to fossil fuel markets further highlighting exposure to fossil fuels and energy markets aligned with their pricing.
The transition remains fundamentally green, but the argument that wins is increasingly framed around self-sufficiency and long-term cost benefit for financing and delivering these projects.
Scotland’s industrial position is a genuine strategic asset
Twenty-five consecutive years of All-Energy in Scotland feels less coincidental and more emblematic. The country has an arsenal of renewable technologies already deployed including offshore wind, onshore wind, pumped hydro and (some) transmission build-out happening at genuine national scale, underpinned by a supply chain with decades of transferable oil and gas expertise. That industrial base, translational into hydrogen, CCUS and offshore wind, is a unique asset to Scotland and a competitive advantage that extends well beyond geography.
Capital is no longer the binding constraint
The investment case for the transition is largely made. The Deloitte Energy Transition Investor Survey 2026 showed confidence holding firm, with battery storage and solar attracting the strongest appetite given deployment speed and revenue visibility. But the conversation has moved decisively from whether to how. The bottlenecks are now operational: electrical engineers, welders, commissioning specialists, overhead line engineers. Companies are already recruiting laterally from telecoms and the military because the sector cannot grow the skills it needs organically at the pace required. Execution risk has become the central strategic challenge, and it deserves the same level of boardroom attention that financing once commanded.
Grid and transmission costs are reshaping project economics
Contracts for Difference remain one of the UK’s most effective policy instruments and that consensus held across the conference. But project economics are being quietly undermined by grid and transmission costs that have, in some cases, increased by several hundred percent since original conception.
In Scotland particularly, transmission charging represents a structural disadvantage that is materially affecting project viability. Grid risk is no longer a secondary consideration for developers. It has become a core underwriting variable sitting alongside construction and revenue risk.
There are signs of more coordinated whole-system thinking
The decision not to pursue zonal pricing disappointed parts of the industry, but the broader direction felt more encouraging. The forthcoming Strategic Spatial Energy Plan signals a meaningful shift away from technology-specific deployment targets and toward more integrated questions of where infrastructure belongs, how generation and demand should be co-located, and how industrial strategy and energy planning should align. That represents a genuine evolution in approach, even if the practical implications will take time to work through.
Hydrogen is entering a more pragmatic phase
The tone around hydrogen was notably more grounded than in previous years. There was broad acceptance that it remains a first-of-a-kind industry facing real commercial and infrastructure challenges, and that early offtake demand from chemicals and heavy industry is softer than previously assumed.
The more credible near-term momentum sits in industrial decarbonisation clusters, particularly where existing infrastructure and private-wire renewables can improve project economics. The strategic logic remains intact, but expectations around pace and scale are being recalibrated.
The consumer dimension remains the hardest problem to solve
Community energy and built environment sessions highlighted something the broader industry can underweight: the transition will ultimately succeed or fail at the level of the household. Affordability is the immediate concern for most consumers, and flexible local energy markets and community-owned infrastructure, while promising, are not yet closing that gap at scale. Bridging the distance between system-level ambition and tangible public benefit remains one of the sector’s most consequential challenges and one that does not yet have a clean answer.
Closing thoughts
All-Energy 2026 reflected an industry that has largely moved past the question of whether the transition will happen and is now confronting the far harder question of how to deliver it at speed and scale. Strategic direction feels settled. The variables that will determine outcomes are execution capability, infrastructure coordination and policy consistency. Organisations that recognise delivery risk as the defining challenge of this phase, and position accordingly, are likely to be better placed for what comes next.
If you would like to discuss any of these themes in more detail, please do get in touch with our team.