Meet the expert: Spencer Thompson, CEO

We kick off our new expert series with our CEO Spencer. He gives insight on what he thinks is needed to enable the energy transition, and who he’d most like to sit down to dinner with!

Can you give some background on yourself, what you do at Eclipse Power and what got you into this sector?

I’ve worked in the electricity sector ever since I graduated from Northumbria University in 1991. I learnt my trade in electrical engineering at a substation manufacturer and have gone on to be involved in project management, procurement, contracts, and asset and investment management for the National Grid, Network Rail, Western Power in Australia, Amey, Vinci Energies, and Enso Energy, among others. Eventually joining Eclipse Power in March 2022.

The most challenging project I have worked on was getting large amounts of cabling in the ground ahead of the 2012 Olympics for the London Power Tunnels project. It was a fast, complex project with a tight budget. I’m proud to have been involved with it because it was challenging. Learning about the tunnelling industry was fascinating too.

As CEO of Eclipse Power, I drive the direction of the company’s strategic aims, investment, management and performance. I work with my senior team to ensure that Eclipse Power remains focused on agility and simplicity. It’s our job to guide customers through the electricity connection process, argue their case and get connected in a timely, cost-effective way.

What challenges are your customers facing when it comes to enabling the energy transition?

The biggest challenges in facilitating the energy transition come with the need to upgrade electricity grids. The UK grid was built in the 1950s and 60s and while it has grown steadily in the meantime, it’s no longer capable of growing at the scale and pace needed for the energy transition. Its growth has exploded since we started to transition from centralised electricity generated using fossil fuels towards distributed energy assets relying on renewable generation and energy storage.

The transition from fossil fuels means that instead of connecting large power stations to the grid we are now connecting solar, wind, hydrogen and battery storage, electric vehicle (EV) charging hubs and electrifying thousands of industrial, commercial and domestic assets.

It’s a huge transition that’s going to span 30 years, despite the challenges, it represents a fantastic opportunity to invest in infrastructure that will have a 20-40-year asset life with good returns.

How do you think the energy sector is evolving/what trends are you seeing/what challenges are still to be faced?

An encouraging trend is the growth of innovation in the transmission sector. While generators are encouraged to connect their assets closer to demand centres like the South-East, planning inevitably gets in the way of this as there’s a lot of greenbelt land between London and the wind farms in the North Sea and Scotland. To get around these onshore restrictions, developers are increasingly looking to offshore submarine cable interconnectors. There are interconnectors from Glasgow to Liverpool, another planned from Edinburgh to the Humber and others to Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands. The prospect of having an offshore transmission network is becoming a reality.

However, today the GB transmission market is controlled by just three large regional monopolies. Their structure means they can be a barrier to delivering the kind of agility and innovation that the energy transition desperately needs. What would really boost innovation in transmission networks is increased competition to drive regulatory and industry change, and ultimately connect customers faster and more cost-effectively to the network. In contrast, the distribution market has been shaken up by awarding licenses to a handful of independent DNOs as well as the traditional regional DNOs.

What piece of advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?

I’ve enjoyed every minute of my career. I highly recommend the industry to any young engineers today – it’s a fascinating sector with many exciting things happening.

Just do it! Join this fantastic industry and experience as many different facets of it as you can.

The electricity sector is absolutely on a roll and will be the fastest growing sector imaginable. You’ll be at the centre of the biggest and most exciting developments for the next 40-50 years. There won’t be anything like it. So, I would say join it with an open mind and look for opportunities to further your knowledge of the technology and people. You’ll be amazed at what the sector will become, and you can be right at the heart of it.

If you could invite 3 people to dinner, who would you choose and why?

Jack Nicholson is in many of my favourite films, so I’d begin by inviting him.

Next, I’d invite Einstein. I recently read his biography – such a fascinating life and very different to Jack Nicholson.

I would also invite Muhammad Ali because of what he achieved early in his career and then later during the civil rights movement.

Everyone seems to be sneaking a fourth person in, so I’d include Jacques Anquetil, a cyclist from the 60s who dominated the sport with strength and determination that far outweighed everyone else.

Talk to Eclipse Power. Electricity Connections. Simplified.