11th August 2026
One of the UK’s leading strategic manufacturing specialists is tapping into the UK’s unprecedented investment in upgrading the electricity grid.
PP Control & Automation (PP C&A), which has more than five decades of experience building complex control systems and electrical assemblies, has won £20m of orders from clients looking for greater flexibility and the ability to scale up production to meet demand.
The Cheslyn Hay-based firm is working in partnership with civil and structural engineering partners to make protection and control panels, SCADA and RTU systems, LVAC and DC battery charger panels, switchgear controls and decentralised energy and storage.
“Our approach is intended to reduce unnecessary handovers, improve buildability and give project teams access to scalable manufacturing capacity when internal or incumbent resources are under pressure,” explained Richard Spears, Industrial Markets Specialist at PP C&A.
“It also allows engineering and manufacturing activities to progress in parallel, helping reduce delays without compromising the quality and compliance expected from critical infrastructure.
“The grid upgrade represents an enormous opportunity for the energy sector and the wider UK economy, but investment targets will ultimately be judged by what is successfully built and connected. That’s where we aim to come into our own and it appears the market is responding to our expertise, with £20m of energy projects currently underway at PP C&A.”
Britain’s electricity grid is entering one of the most significant periods of expansion and modernisation in its history
Between Ofgem, National Grid, SP Energy Networks and SSEN Transmissions, over £77 billion is being spent on electricity transmission projects, new major substations and hundreds of KMs of upgraded or replaced lines.
However, a significant investment programme does not automatically produce additional skilled people, production space, test capability or experienced suppliers.
Grid projects rarely arrive in a smooth and predictable sequence. Multiple substations, renewable developments, storage schemes and industrial connections may progress simultaneously, creating peaks in demand across the same specialist supply chain.
Richard picked up the story: “Expanding permanent internal capacity may be expensive, slow and difficult to justify where project volumes fluctuate. Spreading work across multiple smaller suppliers can add interfaces, inconsistency and coordination risk.
“A more resilient model is to develop long-term relationships with manufacturing partners that can add scalable capacity around the core project team. It is this positioning that has secured PP Control & Automation a considerable share of energy sector work and it is growing.
He went on to add: “Importantly, this doesn’t mean outsourcing responsibility. The basis for the relationship is centred on creating a more integrated delivery structure in which design, procurement, manufacture, assembly, testing and documentation are considered together.
“Standardisation and modularisation can also play an important role. Where repeatable architectures, approved components and defined build standards can be established, project teams can reduce engineering duplication, improve consistency and make it easier to manufacture at scale.
“Protection and control may be largely hidden from public view, but it will be central to whether Britain’s grid ambitions move from an ambitious vision to operational reality.”
As Britain accelerates investment in grid infrastructure, protection and control capacity could become a critical delivery constraint.
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