Reframing Asset Management as a Strategic Lever

At International Energy Week in February, Greg Jackson (CEO of Octopus Energy) said something that stuck with me: the cost of our energy isn’t the fuel for generation anymore, it’s the system itself. The UK is pouring investment into new transmission, distribution and generation infrastructure over the next decade – over £100 billion expected – but are we confident that we have optimised the full value from what we already have and aren’t locking in unnecessary costs for customers for decades to come?

Asset management is an increasingly strategic business priority and it is a lot more than just completing maintenance. It’s about harnessing every ounce of capability from existing infrastructure to deliver business objectives at the lowest possible cost for customers. To do this, we must reject the age-old expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” in favour of a more rigorous approach to optimisation.

Many technological advances are already helping to reduce constraints and better manage the UK’s energy flows: dynamic line ratings using weather conditions to calculate power capacity, advanced conductors that out-perform traditional materials, AI-enabled predictive maintenance that spots likely failures… the list goes on. But technology alone won’t get us there. The innovation required spans operational practices, business models, cultural mindset, and new forms of partnership.

Achieving optimised asset management requires blending data with deep operational grip, investing in human capability, and creating a culture that demands results, not just within one organisation but across the value chain. And doing all this while optimising for the demand of tomorrow – with more EVs, heat pumps and data centres on the network – not just the demand of today.  It requires getting people who speak different professional languages to work together towards a shared goal.

The reality is messier than the theory suggests. Most operators know they need to use data better, but asset information often sits in one system, workforce data in another, task management in a third, and policy documents as PDFs scattered across an intranet. Connecting these systems is both a technical problem and an organisational one, but the breakthrough comes when you can link it all in one place. Suddenly, patterns emerge that were invisible before. Then, the real value of designing solutions jointly with the policy engineers who write the procedures, the field teams who actually do the work, their supporting functions and the OEMs can start. And critically, creating feedback loops so that when something doesn’t work in practice, that intelligence flows back to inform future decisions.

This kind of work requires an understanding of the lived reality of geographically dispersed teams. It means co-designing solutions that work for your frontline teams as well as your business support functions, and not just on paper. And it demands measuring and incentivising the right things so that people stay invested in whether the changes stick and the business sees the measurable improvements in their performance.

Then, asset management philosophies can change. Preventative schedules written years ago – often embedded in regulatory commitments – may no longer reflect actual asset condition or criticality to the network. Moving towards data-backed condition-based and predictive approaches means focusing resources where they’ll have the greatest impact on network performance and customer outcomes, not just ticking boxes on a schedule. This may require some capital outlay on sensors and instrumentation, but this will become increasingly valuable in an AI-enabled world where turning multi-format data into insight is increasingly accessible.

All of this requires honest conversations about risk. Wael Sawan (CEO of Shell) said that “our future energy system must be built for resilience, not perfection.”  In this context, optimisation means accepting that not every asset needs to operate at 100% reliability i.e. if failure doesn’t materially impact customers or can be managed through operational flexibility.  However, in some instances failure is unacceptable. Dynamic risk ratings and real-time monitoring create options that didn’t exist when maintenance regimes were first designed: these can enable evidence-led updates to asset condition analysis and corresponding FMEA (failure mode and effect analysis) to form a modern foundation of risk-based decision making.

Collaboration matters too.  At International Energy Week, Cordi O’Hara (President, National Grid Electricity Distribution) spoke about DSOs and the new flexibility system, emphasising working across transmission and distribution operators, generators, the supply chain and energy customers to deliver the innovation and resilience we need in a smarter and more electrified system.  Making this work requires a new set of cultural and behavioural norms across organisations. At Masdar, they talk about being “driven by partnership” and “achieving the impossible” as core to their identity. For UK operators, that same mindset is needed – but it requires overcoming decades of siloed working and risk-averse cultures. That’s hard to change.

Only once we have optimised existing assets and understand the true residual capacity can we confidently size the additional infrastructure needed for growth. This approach won’t eliminate the need for new investment, but it will ensure every pound spent delivers maximum value and that the energy system is putting affordability at the heart of its ambitions.

The organisations that will thrive in decades to come are those willing to do the difficult work of optimisation to turn asset management into a strategic advantage. The question isn’t whether to optimise – it’s whether your organisation has the ambition, capability and culture to make it happen.