The tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in west London demanded new ways of thinking about professionalism and ethics in the engineering sector. However, since that awful night in 2017, which saw the loss of 72 lives, fatal incidents and near misses have continued to happen: in Genoa, in Toddbrook, in Miami, and on many more buildings and structures around the world, we have seen regular reminders of the way risks can accumulate dangerously on engineered projects.

The ICE first reviewed safety in the sector in 2018, with the release of the report In Plain Sight. This emphasised the importance of understanding the ‘Swiss Cheese Model’ of risk, and established a need for a change in the culture of engineering. In 2019, Sir Martin Moore-Bick released Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s report, looking at the events of the night of the fire. This was followed in 2024 by Phase 2 of the report, considering how the tower had reached a condition where such a loss of life could occur.

The UK government released its response to the inquiry’s recommendations. At the same time, the Institution of Civil Engineers began work on its second report on the steps the sector should take to build a culture of safety, Building Safeguards. The authors, led by Paul Sheffield, described three key changes the sector should make: a new way of considering competence; an emphasis on sharing and learning from near misses; and a new approach to ethics and professionalism. The report’s recommendations are now being put into effect by a group of engineering professionals, led by Ohis Ilalokhoin. 

In this episode, Paul and Ohis join Engineering Matters to explain the recommendations in Building Safeguards, and to explain how the sector will take them forward. Next month, Engineering Matters will turn its attention to further efforts the sector is taking to ensure that those working on higher risk buildings are suitably qualified and experienced.

Guests

Ohis Ilalokhoin, trustee, ICE; engineering director, Cardinal Engineering

Paul Sheffield, lead author, Building Safeguards; past-president, ICE

The post #349 Never Again: Embedding Safety in Engineering first appeared on Engineering Matters.

In Europe, and around the world, renewable electricity generation is being built at pace. However, these sources of energy create a new challenge: they are intermittent, and will not generate power on dark, windless days.

One solution to the challenge is to install grid scale storage. If you’re building an offshore wind farm, with a view to serving distant industrial centres, megawatt- and gigawatt-scale storage may be the answer. 

But much of our energy use happens in the home, or in smaller businesses. Often, with the growth of domestic solar, the power we use in our kitchens is balanced by that generated on our rooftops. As energy supply and demand is increasingly distributed, wouldn’t it make sense to also make use distributed storage?

That’s the question that Mattia Secchi of the Technical University of Denmark is trying to answer. Many of us already have plenty of battery storage available in our electric cars. But these will require the adoption of standardised bidirectional charging, and new metering and grid technology. His work, and that of his colleagues, models community-based V2G, establishing how distributed storage can bring benefits across the economy.

Guest

Mattia Secchi, Department of Wind and Energy Systems, DTU

References

Secchi, M., Macii, D., Barchi, G., & Marinelli, M. (2025). Centralised vehicle-to-grid smart charging supported by PV generation for power variance minimisation at the transformer: A user’s perspective analysis. eTransportation, 24, 100394. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ETRAN.2025.100394

Secchi, M., Zepter, J. M., & Marinelli, M. (2025). Centralised Smart EV Charging in PV-Powered Parking Lots: A Techno-Economic Analysis. Smart Cities 2025, Vol. 8, Page 112, 8(4), 112. https://doi.org/10.3390/SMARTCITIES8040112

The post #348 Modelling Distributed Energy Storage first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Last week, at the end of September 2025, a study by Regen, commissioned by the MCS Foundation, found that biomethane had a limited capacity to replace natural gas in the UK’s domestic heating. The study emphasised the importance of focusing on electricity and heat pumps to keep our homes warm.

This means that much of the UK’s gas pipeline networks may not be viable in the coming decades. However, the backbone of the network and some local distribution infrastructure does have a future.

In this episode, first aired in April 2024, we look at the development of hydrogen generation and captured carbon storage, with a focus on Teesside, in England’s industrial north east. Here, existing pipeline infrastructure is being used for a new generation of gas transport projects.

These will carry carbon dioxide and hydrogen, along with ammonia and biogas. They will enable carbon capture, local hydrogen for fuel intensive industry and transport, and for export.

Governments around the world have struggled to develop these networks. The UK’s strategy is to create clusters of carbon emitters to make use of offshore carbon storage. These can take advantage of legacy pipeline infrastructure in historic industrial regions, and bring new opportunities to struggling economies.

In this episode, we speak to pipeline and energy experts about the technical and project management challenges of building these new networks.

Guests

Laure Hughes, energy sector director, Costain

Sean Gleeson, project manager, PX 

Niku Nobakhti, project manager, Costain

Ewan Brodie, consultancy and advisory manager, Costain

The post #347 Revisited: The Pipeline to Net Zero first appeared on Engineering Matters.

It’s a simple fact of chemistry that cement cannot be produced, without also producing carbon dioxide. But this does not mean that the sector—and its clients in the construction industry—cannot decarbonise. The equally simple solution is just to capture and store the carbon dioxide, before it can enter the atmosphere.

The challenge is how to deliver those carbon capture systems. To fully decarbonise the sector, new chemical processing facilities will need to be installed at every cement plant in the world. In Brevik, Norway, Heidelberg Materials’ first cement plant with carbon capture attached is now operational, and carbon dioxide is being loaded onto ships for storage.

The next plant to be built will be Padeswood, in Wales. Here, Heidelberg Materials UK will be capturing carbon dioxide, and piping it directly into the HyNet storage hub. This hub is one of a series of carbon storage clusters around the UK, each bringing together a number of tough-to-decarbonise industries.

This work will take considerable investment, in equipment, in construction and logistics, and in people. To fund this work, Heidelberg Materials needed to find a way to sell carbon-free cement around the world. It is doing this with a new product, evoZero, that matches locally-produced cement with reliably tracked carbon credits.

It’s an approach that is winning the support of major public sector clients, including the UK’s National Highways. The agency aims to reduce the carbon emissions from one of its largest new projects, the Lower Thames Crossing, by as much as 70%. The lessons learned from this project, and from Heidelberg Materials construction of these first carbon capture plants, will be spread throughout the supply chain, establishing a scalable part to carbon free cement.

Guests

Iain Walpole, Head of Process and Sustainability – Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage, Heidelberg Materials

Nina Cardinal, Technical Strategy Director, Heidelberg Materials

Andrew Kidd, Director of Environmental Sustainability, Lower Thames Crossing, National Highways

Partner

Heidelberg Materials is a leading supplier of heavy building materials to the construction industry, producing aggregates (crushed rock, sand and gravel), ready-mixed concrete, asphalt, cement and cement related products, and recycled materials.

Through ground-breaking innovation, Heidelberg Materials pioneering carbon capture and storage, and transforming the construction industry. By introducing the world’s first carbon captured net zero cement, evoZero, construction partners have the opportunity to build a better tomorrow.

The post #346 Scaling Carbon-Free Cement first appeared on Engineering Matters.

When launching a satellite into orbit, getting the positioning right is of paramount importance. As humanity sends more satellites into space, the vast space above our heads has become hazardously busy.

State-of-the-art positioning technology has helped to counter this problem, with existing systems able to track the location of satellites to an accuracy of metres. Now, a new approach, Fugro’s SpaceStar technology, works with GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) to enhance that accuracy to a matter of centimetres.

The technology optimises safety and minimises risk in space by improving collision avoidance. But it also goes way beyond that, enhancing earth observation applications and enabling faster and more accurate positioning of satellites. It helps detect GPS spoofing, a problem that has been seen with increasing frequency over recent months.

And SpaceStar has the potential to open up whole new business opportunities for companies willing to invest and innovate. One such possibility is to establish a permanent and stable platform in orbit, where satellites can—thanks to the ability of SpaceStar to pinpoint locations—be docked to receive automated maintenance.

Guests

Simon Baksh, VP Product Development, Javad GNSS

David Barnhart, CEO and Founder, Arkisys

James Bartle, Business Development Manager, SpaceStar®, Fugro

Cyril Botteron, CEO and Founder, SpacePNT 

Partner

Fugro is the world’s leading Geo-data specialist, collecting and analysing comprehensive information about the Earth and the structures built upon it. Through integrated data acquisition, analysis and advice, Fugro unlocks insights from geo-data to help clients design, build and operate their assets in a safe, sustainable and efficient manner.

The post #345 Pinpoint Precision in Space Positioning first appeared on Engineering Matters.

When flooding happens, damage and disruption ripples out across assets and infrastructure. Private businesses and homeowners can insure themselves against direct damages to buildings. But the impacts on the local economy go much further: debris can block transport networks, causing businesses to fail and reducing tax revenues, at a time when increased local government spending is needed to finance recovery.

New approaches to public sector insurance can provide cash for debris removal and infrastructure repairs. Parametric insurance pays out within days when specific conditions—flooding depth, rainfall—are met, without the need for damage assessment.

To purchase adequate cover, and to build resilience ahead of incidents, local governments need to have a clear understanding of the risks they face. In New Jersey this spring, Fathom provided catastrophe modelling tools to Grid Advisors, who employed them within a systems engineering analysis, to understand the risk to assets owned by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

In this episode, Grid Advisors’ Rallis Kourkoulis joins Fathom’s Peter Slater and Olivia Sloan, to explain how this analysis is developed and used. Jackie Higgins, head of public sector solutions for Fathom’s parent company, Swiss:Re, in the US, describes the challenges facing local authorities, and how the insurance industry can support their resilience planning and risk assessment.

Guests

Peter Slater, account manager, engineering and the public sector, Fathom

Jackie Higgins, head of public sector solutions, North America, Swiss:Re

Rallis Kourkoulis, managing partner, Grid Advisors

Olivia Sloan, catastrophe model product manager, Fathom

Partner

Fathom gives risk management professionals the most scientifically robust intelligence to understand the climate’s effects on water risk. By publishing cutting-edge peer-reviewed academic research and applying it to real-world challenges, Fathom enables stronger decision-making for (re)insurance, civil engineering, corporate risk, financial services, disaster response and government.

The post #344 Networks Under Water: Transport, Flooding and Resilience first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented the punch card as a means of inputting control data to one of the earliest automated technologies, the weavers’ loom. A generation later, Charles Babbage used this innovation as part of his design for an ‘analytical engine’, and Ada Lovelace demonstrated how sets of instructions could be written for the engine to enable any computing task. 

Almost two centuries on from Babbage and Lovelace’s invention of computing hardware and software, IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) have evolved into parallel threads. On the production line, automation engineers use visual languages, based on electrical relays, on rugged computers, or PLCs, that lack connections to the wider internet. In the office, software developers write code using text-based languages, with sophisticated systems for deploying updates, and the ability to connect over the internet to AI powered services.

Now, the warp of IT and the weft of OT are being woven together. Software-defined automation links machinery on the production floor to IT systems, and the wider Internet. Control code can be written in text-based languages using object-oriented programming, and deployed to factories around the world at a click. Automations, human-machine interfaces, and all other aspects of control systems can be developed and tested on simulated equipment, rather than waiting for prototypes to be built. 

Easy data exchange fuels efficiency and value. In this episode, we learn how automation engineers like Loupe are using a software-defined approach to speed the development of cutting edge industrial systems. We discover how a new organisation, SASE, or the Society of Automation Software Engineers, is helping define this new interwoven specialism. And we explore how one industrial automation specialist, MTS, is openly sharing open source frameworks they use to engineer their machines, allowing for industry to be transformed by the same community development approach that has driven the success of the tech sector.

Guests

David Nichols, CEO, Loupe; founder, SASE, the Society of Automation Software Engineers

Jan Bajorat, head of business line, efficient engineering, Siemens

Peter Kurhajec, CTO, MTS

Partner

Siemens Digital Industries (DI) empowers companies of all sizes in the process and discrete manufacturing industries to accelerate their digital and sustainability transformation across the entire value chain. Siemens’ cutting-edge automation and software portfolio revolutionizes the design, realisation and optimisation of products and production. And with Siemens Xcelerator – the open digital business platform – this process is made even easier, faster, and more scalable. Along with our partners and ecosystem, Siemens Digital Industries enables customers to become a sustainable digital enterprise. Siemens Digital Industries has a workforce of about 70,000 people worldwide.

The post #343 Weaving Software into Automation first appeared on Engineering Matters.

The metaverse is often thought of as an alternative virtual space, a world separate from reality where we can hang out with avatars of our friends and families, or shop at virtual stores. But the industrial metaverse ties the physical and the virtual much more closely together, with a focus that is less on photorealism, and more on using connected data to solve real world problems. 

Velia Janetzky is project lead for the industrial metaverse at Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen. Here, her team has been developing processes that marry the real and the virtual, to achieve ambitious efficiency and sustainability goals. Rather than relying on resource intensive physical methods to train robots, for example, they can now use virtual environments for the same training, cutting implementation times for automation projects.

In this episode, Velia is joined by Jon Heidorn, head of analyst relations at Siemens, and Ryan Martin, research director at ABI Research, to explain the innovations being made at the cutting edge of the industrial metaverse. We learn how factory owners can develop their own industrial metaverse strategy, by focusing on productivity gains in the real world. We discover how entire supply chains will soon be viewable through a ‘single pane of glass’, allowing improvements to be made within factories, and informed by data collected from suppliers and customers.

Guests

Velia Janetzky, project lead Industrial Metaverse, Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen

Ryan Martin, senior research director, digital transformation and AI, ABI Research 

Jon Heidorn, VP, analyst relations, Siemens Digital Industries

Partner

Siemens Digital Industries (DI) empowers companies of all sizes in the process and discrete manufacturing industries to accelerate their digital and sustainability transformation across the entire value chain. Siemens’ cutting-edge automation and software portfolio revolutionizes the design, realisation and optimisation of products and production. And with Siemens Xcelerator – the open digital business platform – this process is made even easier, faster, and more scalable. Along with our partners and ecosystem, Siemens Digital Industries enables customers to become a sustainable digital enterprise. Siemens Digital Industries has a workforce of about 70,000 people worldwide.

The post #342 Real Solutions and the Industrial Metaverse first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Alan Lusty founded adi Group, a multidisciplinary engineering business supporting major manufacturers. He is part of a group that offers engineering services in 23 sectors, with over 750 employees. But he left school at 16 without qualifications, instead pursuing an apprenticeship.

At adi Group, more than 10% of employees are apprentices: double the rate set as a target by The 5% Club apprenticeship advocacy scheme. As a Platinum member of the scheme, adi Group has a clear track record of supporting apprentices. In 2018, prime minister Theresa May and chancellor Philip Hammond visited adi Group and met some of the apprentices. In the Commons, May noted that this demonstrated the opportunities offered by apprenticeships.

But despite these successes, recruiting apprentices was a challenge. Alan’s solution was to establish a pre-apprenticeship scheme, targeting 13- and 14-year olds. As part of the scheme, children would be brought into adi each week, and introduced to engineering.

After COVID, the scheme was taken up by the King’s Norton Boys’ School. At the school, deputy headmaster Jonathan Butcher took the lead in organising entry to the scheme. He explains that it has opened up new choices and career path ways for pupils. It has also opened the eyes of parents and teachers to the real world of engineering, showing that this is a sector with real opportunities, that inspires young people’s problem solving skills.

Guests

Alan Lusty, founder and chairman, adi Group

Jon Butcher, deputy head, King’s Norton School for Boys

The post #341 Opening the Door to Engineering – Engineering Matters Awards winners first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Electrification of construction equipment is an ongoing and necessary part of the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and restrict global warming. Sixty years ago, Fugro developed the first commercial cone penetration testing equipment to run on electrical power, and today it is continuing on that journey by electrifying the machine that carries it. What is more, it is employing this battery technology onto a new state of the art machine that goes deeper than ever before to get more data about the ground beneath our feet.

This journey of innovation is not one that it has undertaken alone. Working in partnership with Dutch heavy lifting specialist Mammoet, the project benefitted from Dutch government investment to support their investigation into electrification of the CPT equipment. In this episode, we explore this new product and look ahead to how remote operations and innovations in battery technology could be incorporated in future machines.

Guests

Niek Bezuijen, global sustainability advisor, Mammoet 

Femke De Jager, innovation director, Europe, Fugro

Peter Salome, engineering manager, Fugro

David Tindall, product manager for geotechnical equipment land, Fugro

References

NEN 9140 Veilig werken aan e-voertuige (Safe working on e-vehicles)

Innovation realised with Schoon en Emissieloos Bouwmaterieel (SSEB) subsidy provided by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management

Engineering Matters 276: A deep understanding of the ground beneath our feet

Partner

Fugro is the world’s leading geo-data specialist, collecting and analysing comprehensive information about the Earth and the structures built upon it. Through integrated data acquisition, analysis and advice, Fugro unlocks insights from geo-data to help clients design, build and operate their assets in a safe, sustainable and efficient manner.

The post #340 Diving Deep into Electric Machinery first appeared on Engineering Matters.