AECOM announced that its joint venture with Arup has been appointed as a design and consenting service partner for the UK National Grid's Great Grid Partnership. The Partnership is expected to deliver a design and construction program to connect clean energy to homes and businesses throughout England and Wales by 2030, playing a critical role in theUK's energy transition. It forms part of a £9 billion supply chain framework which will also support infrastructure projects beyond 2030.

Through nine projects that sit within the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework, this major grid modernization program will deliver five times more electricity infrastructure over the next six years than has been constructed over the past 30 years. It will see planned renewable energy facilities, including wind farms in the North Sea, benefitting from improved infrastructure to the backbone of the UK?s power system and enabling the transition to net zero, which will ultimately lead to cheaper energy and less reliance on fossil fuels. The joint venture?s scope of work will include delivering the consents for individual schemes within the program.

These consents will be through Development Consent Orders (DCOs), which entail technical and environmental design and preparation, as well as stakeholder engagement on the plans.