We at Transmission Investment (TI), are thrilled to introduce Dan Clifford as our new Investment Director who will be leading our entry into the onshore competition (CATO) market. To welcome him to the team, we sat down with him for an interview to explore his professional experience and his ambitions with TI.
Could you share your professional experience thus far?
I grew up in a small town in North Queensland, Australia, where I helped out on the family farming business before moving to Brisbane for university and working part-time in the Infrastructure Department of the Queensland Government.
I was then fortunate enough to join Aecon, Canada’s largest publicly traded construction company, shortly after moving to Halifax, Canada with my spouse. During that time I was able to work on some iconic university and office buildings. After spending some time working estimating and then in project controls on a multi-billion dollar hydroelectricity project in northern Ontario, I moved back home to Brisbane, Australia five years later (2013).
I then joined Australia’s largest construction company, CPB Contractors, and spent three years working on a major LNG project, the $50bn+ AUD Ichthys LNG project in Darwin, Australia, handling project planning, project controls and commercial claims.
From there, I transferred to CPB’s sister company, equity investor and project developer Pacific Partnerships, where I worked in transaction management / leadership on some of Australia’s largest transport and social infrastructure PPPs including the ~$11bn North East Link tunnel project in Melbourne. In 2020, I started looking after Pacific Partnerships’ energy sector interests, and helped create its energy development business.
In 2022, I moved to Lumea, the commercial arm of Australia’s largest network business Transgrid Group, where I was initially responsible for establishing its large-scale contestable transmission project business; but my role developed into including accountability for its energy storage development business and property portfolios.
Since then, I made the decision to move to Europe and have now joined TI!
What Attracted you to TI as a company?
I was attracted to TI by its historical success in the OFTO market and other energy sector adjacencies (including interconnectors and grid stability assets) and its clear appetite to bid, win, develop, delivery and operate large-scale transmission projects in the UK to be delivered under the CATO regime. I believe TI can successfully enter the large-scale contestable transmission sector here in the UK and I wanted to be part of this journey.
I also felt that TI’s values of excellent, committed, challenging and supportive were very much aligned with my own- and I was excited to join a company with such a great culture.
What are you looking forward to accomplishing as Investment Director?
I’m excited to build on some of the lessons learned bidding large scale contestable transmission projects in Australia and apply them in my role here as Investment Director, leading TI’s successful entry to the CATO market.
We have an excellent team in place and I’m eager to ensure we are best placed to be successful in the upcoming first CATO tender round.
I am also really keen to engage more broadly with the energy industry here in the UK and help advance the energy transition in any way I can.
What are the challenges and opportunities you see in this industry?
The key issue I see facing the industry is getting the right supporting regulatory, procurement and commercial frameworks in place to deliver much need transmission infrastructure to support the UK government’s decarbonisation goals and realise its Transmission Acceleration Action Plan.
From what I have observed to date in relation to the good work that the DESNZ, Ofgem and NESO are doing to advance the CATO procurement process, I believe the UK are on track to deliver competitive transmission infrastructure, as quickly as possible. I look forward to engaging with those parties to help shape the next level of detail in relation to the CATO procurement process and hope to suggest some industry lessons learned from similar recent procurement processes I have been part of in the Australian market.