NET ZERO
EV infrastructure, end-of-life buildings and assumptions about futureproofing, where well-intentioned decisions can unintentionally add significant load. Without careful planning, this could make it harder to deliver heat decarbonisation at the pace required, particularly across complex acute sites with significant existing energy demands. But there is also an opportunity. Addressing grid
Staff EV charging needs may not be met on-site.
added benefit of enabling energy procurement strategies to interface this storage to time of use tariffs driving value and saving costs.
What this means for NHS estates teams For NHS estates teams, the practical lesson is clear: energy strategy needs to be brought forward into the earliest stages of project development. Grid capacity should be considered at the outset alongside clinical need, backlog risk, carbon impact, planning constraints, and affordability. This is particularly important where schemes are being developed across large or complex estates, where decisions made for one building can have consequences for the wider site. It also requires closer integration between estates,
Craig Anderson
Craig Anderson is a technical director and decarbonisation consultant at WSP, helping organisations navigate the practical challenges of energy transition and Net Zero delivery. Prior to joining WSP, he held senior sustainability and energy leadership roles at Hydrock, Vital Energi and ENGIE, and has worked across sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, and major infrastructure.
energy, finance, commercial, and clinical teams. Grid capacity is not simply an engineering question; it affects capital prioritisation, risk management, procurement strategy, and operational resilience. This is where integrated energy planning becomes particularly important, bringing together capacity assessments, demand forecasting, phasing, investment planning, and engagement with network operators so that decarbonisation plans are realistic, fundable and deliverable. Early engagement with network operators and independent connection providers is therefore becoming an important part of estate strategy. Understanding available capacity, likely reinforcement requirements, connection costs, and programme implications at an early stage can help Trusts avoid unrealistic assumptions. It also allows estates teams to test alternative scenarios before a preferred design becomes too fixed. This also means grid capacity needs to be visible
beyond the estates team. If electrical capacity determines whether a decarbonisation programme, new clinical building, or major refurbishment can proceed, then it should be treated as a programme-level risk. Boards and senior leadership teams need to understand not only the carbon implications, but also the cost, timing, and operational consequences of constrained capacity. Bringing this into governance early can help Trusts make clearer decisions about phasing, investment and risk.
Implications for Net Zero delivery The risk is that grid constraints slow or reshape the NHS Net Zero trajectory. If schemes are developed without a realistic understanding of available capacity, or if future demand is overestimated without being properly tested, there is a greater chance of delay, redesign, or compromised outcomes. This is particularly important for
78 Health Estate Journal October 2026
constraints early can lead to smarter, more resilient, and more cost-effective energy systems. It can encourage better data on estate energy use, stronger prioritisation of interventions, and greater alignment between decarbonisation, resilience, and clinical transformation. In that sense, grid capacity is not only a blocker to be overcome; it is also a prompt to think more strategically about how energy is planned, managed, and invested in across the NHS estate. There is also a stronger commercial case for early action than is sometimes recognised. A well-designed energy strategy can help avoid unnecessary reinforcement costs, reduce long-term operating costs, improve resilience, and, in some cases, create value from assets that would otherwise be passive. For NHS estates, the immediate benefit is often not revenue generation, but the ability to keep critical schemes deliverable, affordable, and aligned with programme requirements. For estates teams, the aim is not to predict every future load perfectly, but to build enough flexibility into the strategy to avoid locking in the wrong assumptions. The most useful planning process is therefore one that tests what is genuinely required, what can be reduced, what can be phased, and what needs to be escalated as a strategic risk. This requires good data, but also a willingness to challenge inherited assumptions about how energy has historically been provided across hospital sites.
Questions estates teams should be asking now n What is the current site import capacity, and how much is genuinely available?
n Which future loads are essential, and which are assumptions that should be tested?
n How much demand could be reduced through building performance improvements?
n Can heating, cooling, generation, and storage be planned as one system?
n Which projects depend on grid reinforcement, and what happens if that reinforcement is delayed?
n Do we have any export capacity n Can storage not only provide resilience but generate revenue/ avoid operational cost?
n Could phasing reduce the capacity needed at each stage?
Conclusion Grid capacity is becoming a critical enabler of NHS Net Zero and, if not addressed early enough, a potential blocker. The question for estates teams is no longer whether grid constraints matter, but how early and how actively they are identified, planned for, and managed. As the NHS continues to electrify heat, transport, and wider estate operations, the organisations that make the strongest progress will be those that treat energy infrastructure as central to delivery from the outset. Net Zero will not be achieved through technology choices alone. It will depend on joined-up planning, early engagement, realistic phasing, and a clear understanding of the infrastructure needed to support long-term change. In practical terms, grid readiness is becoming a measure of Net Zero readiness.
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