27. March 2026

The Transition Is Also a Commercial Capability Challenge

Much of the conversation around the energy transition focuses on technology. Offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and electrification dominate the discussion. Increasingly, nuclear energy is also returning to the centre of the debate as countries look for reliable low-carbon generation alongside intermittent renewable sources.

But beneath the technology sits something equally important: Commercial capability.

For decades, the North Sea oil and gas industry developed some of the most sophisticated capabilities in the world for delivering complex engineering programmes under difficult conditions. Projects routinely combined: large capital exposure, demanding regulatory frameworks, complex international supply chains and challenging offshore environments.

To succeed, organisations developed strong disciplines in procurement strategy, contract management, risk allocation and commercial governance. Those capabilities do not disappear simply because the energy mix evolves. In fact, they may become even more valuable.

Offshore wind developments now operate at unprecedented scale. Carbon capture infrastructure requires long-term commercial frameworks that span multiple industries. Hydrogen systems involve new combinations of technology, regulation and market risk. New nuclear programmes require delivery environments capable of managing extraordinary complexity over long time horizons.

All of these programmes share something with the projects that shaped the North Sea industry: They are commercially complex long before they become technically difficult.

This is why the energy transition should also be understood as a capability transition. Regions such as the North-East of Scotland possess decades of experience managing the commercial realities of large, complex energy programmes. That experience developed through oil and gas is directly relevant to the delivery challenges now emerging across offshore wind, carbon capture, hydrogen and nuclear.

The challenge ahead is not simply building new energy systems. It is ensuring that the commercial disciplines required to deliver them are carried forward into the next generation of energy infrastructure.

The transition to new energy systems is often framed as a technological challenge. But the success of these programmes will depend just as much on the commercial disciplines developed over decades in complex energy projects, disciplines that will be just as critical in the delivery of offshore wind, carbon capture, hydrogen and nuclear infrastructure.