UK’s First Nationally Significant Solar Farm - Clark Frost

In this episode of the Future of Solar Photovoltaics Podcast, Vikram Kumar speaks with Clark Frost of Heathcote Holdings about the civil engineering behind one of the UK’s largest solar infrastructure projects.

Clark shares insights from over 36 years in construction, starting with the UK’s Youth Training Scheme (YTS) and progressing into large scale infrastructure and renewable energy projects. The conversation explores the practical realities of building solar farms at hundreds of megawatts scale, including land preparation, piling, drainage and site logistics.

They discuss working on coastal alluvial ground, installing 12 metre screw piles, managing drainage across agricultural land and coordinating heavy machinery across a thousand acre construction site. The episode also covers the importance of enabling works, health and safety management and the increasing complexity of multi contractor solar developments.

As the UK moves toward much larger solar projects, this discussion highlights how solar farms are evolving into major national infrastructure, combining civil engineering, electrical systems and long term energy investment.

A rare behind the scenes look at how large scale solar farms are actually built.

Timestamps 

0:00 Introduction to the Future of Solar Photovoltaics Podcast  
2:30 Clark Frost background and YTS construction training  
4:30 Intersolar Munich and entering solar farm construction  
6:30 Heathcote Holdings and industry collaboration  
10:55 Civil works on the UK’s first nationally significant solar farm  
13:50 Screw piles and building on alluvial soil  
16:25 Moving 20,000 m³ of soil on a solar site  
19:40 50 MW vs 400 MW solar farm scale  
21:58 Managing logistics on a thousand acre site  
24:20 Solar scale and half a million panels  
28:00 Flood risk and agricultural land drainage  
30:28 Labour shortages and construction safety  
34:46 Electrical risks and quality control  
37:38 Battery storage and future solar projects  
40:17 Choosing reliable partners and contractors

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the Future of Solar Photovoltaics Podcast, my name is Vikram Kumar. Today I've got the absolute pleasure of having Mr. Clark Frost from Heathcote Holdings with us today. Welcome Clark Thank you, Vikram. Thank you for the invite. Well, our podcast started off as an amateur initiative with Matthew Xenakis from JA Solar. Now we've been listened to in over 91 countries. Solar is now a civilizational technology, especially what's happening in Iran with Strait of Hormuz We are again headed towards another energy crisis. We thought we were over it with Ukraine, with gas, which is affecting a lot of businesses worldwide, especially British businesses. And now, you know, our podcast has listened to in over 91 countries. know, the title of the The theme is the future of solar photovoltaics. know, solar is not new. Thomas Edison said it will be a water source of energy 100 years ago. So it's not something we're not reinventing the wheel. It's been going on for a very, very long time. Our podcast is UK focused, with a keen eye on global trends. There's over 22 gigawatts of UK solar now, about half of that is large scale. There's three terawatts of solar installed worldwide. That's three trillion dollars worth worldwide As of end of 2025. ah You know, and We are following the market trends with respect to the grid, with respect to EVs, with respect to batteries, you know, which can tap into wind as well when there isn't any solar. Why? Why are we so focused on the future of solar photovoltaics? is because according to the Office of National Statistics, we use about 1,644 terawatt hours of energy. That's all energy, primary energy. And about 300 terawatt hours of that is electrical energy, electricity. And just LED light bulbs have removed about a quarter of electrical energy use. And if we electrify everything that can be electrified, then... uh you reduce about 70 % of UK energy use. It would be a no-brainer because we are in an energy crisis. It's busting a lot of businesses. Farmers are facing difficulties. But why are we not accelerating? And labour shortage is one of the themes. The other theme is uh the fact that the grid can't keep up with enough connections. So we'll get all into that shortly. But do you want to start? with an intro theme about yourself, introduce yourself, talk about your early life, your background, uh your 36 years in civils and your current focus. Yes, not many people remember the old YTS scheme which I started out on, which was I think only people of my generation would understand that. But that was a stonemason back in the mid 80s. um But then progressed, I was then in construction, then it moved through life doing bespoke new builds, hotels, commercial buildings. um there was a lot of renewables, whether it be air source, ground source, but then we moved into doing rooftop, roof mounts, just within the buildings, obviously people want to cut down. then, was four years ago, I moved back up to Kent, started with Heathcote Holdings at FGS Pilcher to be their commercial uh manager for civils And then we moved on from there. And now we're at stage, I suppose for the last, since October, November 22, we've been involved in solar, whether it be enabling works, um civil, electrical, and then we'll be doing the screw piling for the um foundations of the electrical and battery storage, which was good. So we would actually come in, soil test, pile test, manufacture, design, install, warranty. um Because the ground was alluvium, so that saved a lot in using concrete within the ground because they are reusable because they've got a... we can extend it to a 100 year warranty. if at any point you wanted to remove them, they can come out and be reused elsewhere. Which was a good system, very good system. And we're engaged with that. We have the exclusivity to that with designers in Finland. Absolutely. We're changing the way we're working because people meet each other uh very infrequently these days. COVID has changed how we all work. We don't visit customers three or four times a week now, three days out on the I should be. Now we started to do our monthly networking because we want to bring people together to deal with some of the uncertainties. So I think we first ran into you in Intersolar in Munich with Andy Nicholson last Yeah. was, yeah. That was an eye-opener, the size of it. We didn't expect it. Andy and I rocked up and we said, why is everyone wearing suits with the trainers on clouds? And then we realised after we'd done 67,000 steps, we're wearing Chelsea boots. That was a mission. We knew that, but... It was very educational and inspiring to be perfectly honest with you. Which has now obviously led us into, we are now... building out solar farms. We are constructing one at present. Decent size, 75 megs, it's electrical, mechanical. We're doing a lot of enabling works on other sites, which is good. And it's getting in doing the early enabling works with prior to other contractors coming in on site. Because it saves time, it improves health and safety. Everything's all there. It's ready to go. So that when the other contractors come in, or if we're in there doing a package, we can make it work. and we are responsible then, and we are responsible for our own health and safety which is paramount. One of the biggest focuses now is to build some credibility and trust in the industry. And you and Andy Nicholson are a great laugh, know, being a regular fixture in our networking events in London, in Birmingham. Of course, we've met in a different country. you know, so to build that trust with the market, you know, you want to talk about Heathcote Holdings, like, why should people trust you? I think, so it was a real eye-opener for me when I first came to Heathcote Holdings. Very family orientated and the services within the group. and how they support each other is fantastic. And we don't over promise we want to deliver. If we say we'll deliver it, we will deliver it. And you've got the support of, think, I don't know what it is now, but I think within the group there's probably over 1200 employees now. You can pick the phone up to any of the family. So whether that be Trevor, Martin, Nathan, you'll get the support. And we've got ecologists, we have everything. We've got it all in-house. it's all... We can support the EPCs on... saving money on their biodiversity and it gains and there's just so many elements to it. um Obviously we've got others here today that can actually bring those points in front of you but it really is a very close working company and we, people think we're just incorporating into Kent, we're not. We've got facilities all over the UK that we can actually call upon and it's all about the relationships that the Heathcote family have built over the years, whether it be farmers, suppliers, no matter what it is. Kent is a beautiful county and they have a nice lobster shack with good beachside views and oyster festivals. I've spent, I started my business to focus on family and it's been over 14 years, Ventus and worked with 3 gigawatts of .. solar farm in the UK, few select projects worldwide and solar's led me to some of the best experiences of my life. People say solar power, but all trees grow on solar power. And so these 3 gigawatts was .. solar process that we worked on, it doesn't sound like a lot in the general scheme of things, I think it's less than 0.7 % of the global install. we haven't got massive amounts of irradiance in the UK, but after March we do have long hours of daylight, and solar works in daylight, and it complements very well with wind. And so the three gigawatts that we worked on within large scale of over 10 gigawatts, majority of projects were 5 meg, 10 meg, 50 meg. We worked hard to reach that number. makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you think, you know, the UK's first nationally significant infrastructure project, NSIP, know, like Cleve Hill Solar Farm. Yeah. It's been a story going on since before COVID. You know, I've been following that site for over six years because it was originated by Wirsol which is one of our good customers, key accounts, you know, a great family business. They have a great reputation. Many of those have started Boom Power now. Yeah. And, know, to think, you know, 373 megawatts DC in one single That's nearly over 10 % of what we worked on in 14 years across one site. to put into, and a lot of this is public data, know, it's the site maybe over a thousand acres. Yeah. I was doing a calculation, you know, several hundred football pitches. I did a calculation with Jason at Tongwei you can have 12 and a half thousand football players on Cleve Hill's solar farm. So, you know, there's a massive site. So talk to us about specifically. which areas did you, because a lot of this is public data. It was highly confidential before. But now it's public. You know, you've had people singing your praises, know, Colin Freeman, you wrote on LinkedIn. You're the next, you're the fourth emergency service. You know, so a lot, there's a lot of smokes and mirrors in solar. And, know, this is an amateur podcast and this is about educating and informing as well as talking about our businesses. Tell us specifically, what was your scope at Cleve Hill Solar Farm? And without breaking any confidentiality clauses, what exactly did you get involved with? So we... We're involved in the beginning with the land preparation. We've done some pile testing and then we've done the pile testing within the electrical compound, which was carrying all the switchgear buildings, harmonic filters, blast walls, so on. And then the BESS Our designs then led to that being the foundation for the whole site. Well, I say the whole electrical site. There was so many elements that we were involved with down there. Working with UKPN to remove the 11 KVA overhead power line, re-channel and obviously joint bays right the way across, I think it's two kilometres at the site. Which all went very, very well. Then we were doing, there was earth moving, there was habitat works, there was wetland creations. We've got hundred acre wetland creation down there over two phases. um which was overseen wasn't overseen, there was partial design by the RSPB because they've got Seasalter next door and that was a very big project that we'd done there. ah There was a lot of earth moving. uh And really a lot of innovation that we were trying to bring into the site because of the height of the tables and it's obviously working at height was a big factor there and fortunately, yep, it got built and it's now producing power. Right. You know, we looked at civil designs. We've done mechanical under one contract. yeah, mean, I think across the whole site, I don't really think there was anything that we didn't actually contribute to. um From the early engagement before anybody was on site, right way through to even now, we are PC down on the BESS just whilst as an interim, um which is... It's great. We still fully support the client down there and we still work very closely with them. I think the biggest issue down there was the ground conditions because of the rain, because of... So health and safety was paramount. Making sure that the walkways were in place and ensuring that not just other contractors but our guys on site were safe. um You have to have the banksmen, you've got to have... which was all put in place. It wasn't put in place by us but it worked and it did get over the line um and we were very proud to be part of it. Fantastic and you know a lot of people work in finance you know these are the gods of industry that raised the money to build all of this. And you know so talk to us about you know 12 meter screw piles I've got the notes here in front of me and you know soil being alluvium you know what does that all mean? So, alluvium, I don't know the technical term, but if you imagine you'll go down to probably a metre, there about 900 to a metre, and it's almost like lava. That's the easiest way to describe it. So we would have to design the piles so that... uh just to get a 275 kilonewton bearing, each pile was, the helix had to be a certain thickness. The pile itself had to be a certain thickness. And you put a sacrificial layer within that steel to ensure the life expectancy of it because of the salt, it's literally the other side of the wall is the sea. um So there was a lot to do with that. then obviously they're installed with a digger head. you have various, and it's set on a torque setting, which then gives you... the reading that you need, but the digger heads have a halo on them. So you know that they're always going in level. They're all precision um marked. You install your first six meters, bolt them, and then install the second. Because there's just not a machine that you could reach to that height. We still have to put an extra boom and extension on the end of a 13 ton machine. And we installed... think probably, it was about two and a half thousand parts, at 12 metres. uh across the whole battery storage area. And it's just a great system. You can use these for anything. You can use them for the MV stations. If you're on soft ground, they can be used. But what a lot of people make a mistake of is they call them a ground screw. A ground screw is like a wood screw. I wouldn't use them to put a garden shed up. You can't just buy them off the shelf. You need to have proper ground tests in designs so you can do a compression, you pull out your laterals to ensure that you have the correct pile for the correct loadings. If you don't, it's going to fail. Absolutely. One of the things I noticed about Heathco Holdings is that you guys are proper civils people with the massive diggers and machinery and I've got here in the notes you're moving 20,000 meter cube of soil. I hope I'm saying that right. You and when you talk about wildflowers and ecology and things as well shortly, because there's an element of NIMBYism as well, we don't want it in our backyard, but you know, having coal power plant is not going to be any better, know, that destroys more of the countryside, you know, especially with this controversy around biomass and things. But what does a National Significant Infrastructure Project mean in practical terms? We've got some data, because it's the NSIP, National Significant Infrastructure Project, a lot of data is in the public domain, because it's in the public interest. We're installing a thousand acre solar farm. You can see from the press releases, it's the East-West system, 5 modules in portrait, around 655 watt modules. can see, oh tell us in practical terms. What does a National Significant Infrastructure Project mean in terms of size and scale and what's involved? How do you move 20,000 meter cube of soil? It's a logistical nightmare, but if the logistics are right and down to the EPC, they get the logistics right and you work together. It's all about collaboration. cannot have um contractors working against each other. It just doesn't work. You just end up falling at the first hurdle. And it's all about... Yeah, I mean, it was good because every morning at 8.30 there was a site meeting. Everybody knew their areas. Everybody knew what was being done. And you've got to take your hat off to the EPC for doing that because they did manage that very, very well. especially in the conditions in the winter. they managed it. Whether it be with Trackmap, whether it be any form of rolling road, they managed it. you could have it. a lot of issues if you didn't on that type of ground. But they managed it and we assisted with that. when we've got to shift 20,000 cubic material across a live site, it took a lot of doing. And this is where we incorporated it with the FGS Agri side of the business. They came in rather than using track dumpers. We did have track dumpers, but we also used tractors and trailers with floatation tyres. And we just had to make sure we had our banksmen in place. In all fairness, there was no... um crossover to cause huge concerns. Everyone worked as a team and it was organised to where it needed to be, mainly health and safety. It was absolute paramount and fortunately the site went very well. Obviously the industry is changing enormously because... um I think we've wasted, for good or for bad, some families are split over the Brexit referendum, some people voted in, some people voted out, but it's been 10 years of slowdown productivity. I remember the time from 2012 to 2016, we ran out of printer paper, there were so many solar orders coming through, and now the projects are few and far between, but they're very large. So talk to us a bit about the difference between almost a 400-meg NSIP project and a 50-meg solar farm. how do you paint a picture about the difference? I've got the notes, you see the differences are immense but a lot of people never set foot on a NSIP solar farm. They don't and there is so much more that you need to take on board. You've got, I mean it's all to do with, mean the way that we work it is... you've got to bring authority and you really do and everybody has to be on point. Because it doesn't matter, I don't think it really matters on the site, you're just scaling it up. And when you're scaling it up, there's obviously a lot more management in. incorporate into that. Whereas a 50 meg site, you're going to have a small management team. NSIP projects, you're going to have a huge management team. And they've all got to be responsible for their areas. And I think if you can ensure, and everyone takes ownership of what they're doing, fundamentally they're the same, but... the risk is higher on health and safety. The risk is higher on logistics. And it's just about managing that. it's accessing across the site as well. You've got to ensure that you have all of those procedures in place. It's exciting on a big project because it's so immense compared to a small project. um I found it quite exhilarating. for me, I actually enjoyed it and Andy enjoyed it. Andy Nicholson You know, I coached a grassroots football team for around eight years and you know, I'm very well aware how the weather changes from summer to winter. Yeah. So on a scale of a project of, you know, thousand acres, how do things change between summer and winter? How do you prepare for wet weather? The... All your internal roads are already in. They're in. your enabling is done, but you cannot help the transfer of mud from the grass to the tracks. You've got to ensure that only wheeled machines, vehicles, stay on the whole roads. Anything tracked stays on the grass because that's what pulls in all the mud. Then it's picking up the stone. Then it's spreading the stone. You're losing it. then you've got a maintenance team then constantly clearing.. the roads and which adds to your logistics. That's causing delays on people moving across site, so you've got to ensure that that's done in the process. If you can isolate the two areas, it makes it a lot simpler. I know it's not always practical, but it is a better way of doing it because you've got to... You're always on a deadline. You have that deadline to meet. And if you're delayed because of roads, because of mud, you've got to forward think everything. You've got to ensure that you've got track mat in place. We supply a lot of track mat. We put it across the sites. I think they take it... I'm sure it's... the MegaDeck up to about 700 tonnes. I mean they're huge. They take a lot of load ground-bearing. If you've got 1000 containers arriving, sync. so you've got to ensure you've got the right CBR values in the roads and access to where the MV stations are going and containers. And that is all in the planning, that is all within the enabling works. But yeah, it is just choosing the right vehicles. really is. Summer, fantastic. Anything can go across there. But when the winter comes, as we all know on any solar farm, that everybody's experiencing, you've just got to make sure those logistics are right. Absolutely, know, energy prices is the story of the hour now because, you know, people are paying up to 30 pence per kilowatt hour and, know, a terawatt hour of energy is 300 million pounds at 30p. Yeah. And if you're 300 terawatts of electricity, and that's a small part of our overall energy. Yeah. So people are not appreciating the scale of what's to come, you know, and this is all in the public documents. If you've got 655 watt modules, over 373 megawatts DC, you can have over half a million solar panels. And so the scale of it is enormous, but this is just a starting. There are 530 meg projects in the pipeline now with East Yorkshire to come from the same developer, Boom Power that was previously Wirsol., so , so talk to us a bit about how do you manage the thousands of piles that will be involved? How do you incorporate automation? And also Clive, who was on our earlier podcast, he's getting into module handling business. How do you get panels to five meter height? So that is one of the the difficult so you we um made trailers which were had a turntable in and then we had a pulley wrapped because obviously it is working at the rear they were quite high If Clive's the Ozzie module handler was around that would have been the key to it because that will aid any project working at high, any site that's in a flood risk, they're always going to be taller. And that's where his equipment comes into. And I've been there, I've sat on a digger, I've tried it and it works. And I'm not a perfectly skilled operator on an excavator, but I can operate one. And I had just went on the trial and it works. It was great. See the thing that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up is, know, Clive was involved with the last fully successful solar farm and this was under normal conditions. You know, we had feed-in tariff rush in those days, but it was nothing like the labor shortages we faced post Brexit and COVID. Clive was the lead project manager at Shotwick Solar Farm, which was 72 megawatts. know, Cleve Hill is 300 megawatts bigger than that, approximately. And Cleve Hill's a baby compared to what's on the horizon. East Yorkshire's 530 megawatts. I don't know if it's DC or AC, but people can look that up themselves, you know. there's talk about people doing two gigawatt solar farms. you start doing landscape changes. I feel strongly about the farming industry as well, which is a topic for another day. But you're not going to be allowed to build on prime agricultural land. And so you're going to naturally get land which is prone to flooding, brownfields and so on. How do you deal with a one in a thousand year flood protection event, which is part of the planning documents? There is a sea defence wall as well. oh I mean you got a 1 % chance over 30 years of any flood. know, 3 % in 100 years. I think the only... there is the risk is... it's there, but you know I think the way that the site is constructed... shouldn't be an issue but personally I don't think it will be an issue down there. think there's you know on any site where they have this issue. You know I was talking to somebody not so long back about a project down in Gloucestershire and that was the same and there was that was it does flood to 1.5 metres annually so it was quite a high But one in a thousand years sounds like we don't need to worry about in our lives, lifetimes, but I see the site full of water That's to do with land drainage So that's the next point in your question because I imagine I've got lot of your notes that you haven't got in front of you. But how do you design drainage of flood resilience on flat agricultural land? So the core business within FGS Pilchers, one of the core business, is we use Mastenbroek Trenchers, which are all GPS guided. So we use a, I think it's called FarmWorks, It's a Trimble system. survey the field and they can either be done by drone or we'll actually survey it manually. That shows us the field and now as long as you've got a water core somewhere if not then it has to go into a pump whatever whatever system needs to be the outfall needs to be but we can drain the field but the problem is you have all these land drains that go in you can't You're piling the whole site. You cannot help but hit the existing land drains. And you can't repair them because that's where the piles sit. So you've got to try and enable a design that will help with that. But when you've got all the cable routes, everything's within the ground. It's causing you issues. then the design becomes lot more difficult. It's still simple enough to do and they do work. You look at any agricultural field that's been land drained. You can go on Google Earth, look at anywhere in Kent. Mainly down on, let's say, what we call the marsh, Romney Marsh. You look at the fields down there. As you go back on years, you'll see, say last year, this field could be flooded by an acre. We've been in there then in the summer or at the end of the summer. land drained it, you look at it again a year later and you'll see there's no water sat there. Because it does work. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a farmer and I don't have a farming background, but that's where it all comes from and it is a very big thing across, I think it's a lot of South East, a of Lincolnshire, Scotland and it's a system that's been around for the, I don't know, it's got to be over, yeah, best part of 100 years and it works. And then put into perspective for people that want to work with you, approach you for, know, some BBC quotes and, you know, about mobilizing, you know, it's a matter of public record, know, with Brexit, you know, Labour became difficult, with Covid, Labour's become difficult everywhere. There's been the great retirement. A lot of people, you know, decided to take early retirement because the Covid gave them time to think. And so how many machines and operators, you know, are active at peak construction and secondly the health and safety and regulation aspect, how do you ensure that you've got compliant labour on your solar farms? So currently we're a system where, so our labor force comes through, we go through the home office, we check everything. When they first do their induction on site, they have to bring their passport so the passport gets loaded into index. So thereafter, every day, if the face doesn't match what's on the index, they're not allowed on site. So we ensure that everybody is... current and they can have a working permit and they do ah as we request. So they have to sign up to the RAMS Then you have your machine plant check sheets. So they have to have check sheets on all the plant. We have to have banksmen. We ensure five point PPE. We want these guys to go home at end of the day and that's it. Of course, we want them to do their work safely, go home to their families every day and that is paramount. We invest in this. This is something that we want them to feel comfortable with. And so, you know, We've got a huge project in construction alongside solar like HS2 and Hinckley. They're hoovering up a lot of the labour. You know, so how do you manage multi-contractor risk? You know, how do you coordinate between the other people that are operating on site at the same time? It's collaboration, daily briefings and ensuring that everyone signs up to their ramps. Everyone insure... If you've got, the problem is you can have someone, oh that's his fault, I wasn't allowed for this, and I don't stand for that. You sign up to what you do. If you don't sign up to it, I don't want you on our sites because I don't want the problems we need to go, we're employed to deliver and we deliver. We're not going to go there to cause problems. yet, when you've got multiple contractors on site, if they don't... fall in line with what the EPC's requirements are, I'm more than vocal. I will make my point very clear that this person, and we'll have it out in the morning meetings, and everything's back on track. And it is most definitely collaboration. So I get daily requests, know, do you know anyone selling solar farms? For the last 10 years, the market's been very developer heavy, which is an important area. know, someone has to go do the grid connections, find appropriate land, do the deals with landowners, do all the ecological assessments, the geotechnicals. A lot of people don't understand in EPC, there's a lot of work happens before a shovel's lifted. It's actually a term in the industry, because is it shovel ready? Is it ready to build? But there's going to be a shock for the industry to gear up towards construction. So what does the industry need to do to improve structurally when it comes to delivering projects of 300 to 400 megawatts in scale? I- It's all upfront. It's all the enabling works. I think if you can get your enabling works in, contractors in on a set times and ensure that they, logistically, they have access to the areas they need to work. Ensure that everything, you know, and ultimately that responsibility is with the EPC. You know, we can only say we need this because we can't get to this point. And most of the time it gets, okay, we'll sort this for you. And they do it. But they've all got to fall in line otherwise you just end up with complete mayhem. It just goes back to the days of sort of like the Wild West as it was however many years ago. People losing their exhausts on solar farms. Definitely not my 3 Series. What I want to ask you about is, you guys do mechanical install with the piling, you do the civil engineering, you actually build roads, you do drainage, can dig trenches for people. so the amazing thing is, we shouldn't forget why we're doing this. It's a power plant at the end of the day. Especially when it's connected to 400 kV, the inverters are growing in power, the modules are growing in power. Yeah uh We haven't talked about the electrical side of it at all. So naturally when you're ramping up, you will have issues with cable faults, diversions that will cause the health and safety issues from an electrical point of view, which is the silent killer, so to speak. It's not so obvious when you're busy moving tens of thousands of tons of soil around. what is your perspective about diverting cables if contractors hit live cables? How do you manage the health safety aspect with respect to the electrical hazards. straight away we've got to ensure, we could be doing electrical and mechanical on site, we put in cables and we've got our connection and testing teams that come in and commissioning. But if there's anything obviously we've got to ensure that you've got to do it right the first time. And I appreciate you may have other contractors on a site of big scale and they've got to be exposed. But it is quality. is solely quality. And if you don't have on a large scale, you need constant... quality. mean we use a system, everything gets uploaded, we can see and it'll show any NCRs that required. So we know where everything is, so that we can actually go out and improve that. And we make it very transparent so the client can see it as well, or the EPC, so they can see exactly what's going on. So if you've got pile refusal, you know, or we're not getting the embedment depth on a pile. So we'll then go back to the manufacturer say what is your preferred method, we're in this depth, we might only be 300mm away from the surface or we could be one and a half meters at the top of the ground, but because you can't get it in the ground. but there we set those processes in place and we've got to make sure that we test everything and if we have to dig back, which not that that's wood, we haven't had to do that yet, but if it happened it'd be investigated and... we would have to set our processes in place. We shouldn't underestimate that these are 20 year commitments for the people getting involved with these solar farms and we're to move on to your colleagues shortly to uh introduce the company in a bit more detail and what sort of things you do, what is the background and how people can engage with you. But before we get on to that, would you like to talk a bit about the battery storage element um and also mention what do you expect from your partners, what kind of people, kind of clients you want to be working with. I think with the BESS with the civil side of things, we can do this. I mean, we have done a mock tender for a client and that mock tender they were extremely impressed with. Their pipeline of BESS is in 27, maybe the third quarter of this year, but maybe 27. We've done the whole narrative. It was delivered to them very well. Where we're at, Obviously we've done all the foundation works. But we haven't actually, we've got I think two BESS sites that we own. um I mean no doubt Martin will tell you about that. we... We can do it, we have the capability and we have the connections and the collaboration of other contractors to work alongside us. And which kind of clients do you want to be working with for the next year? The clients have got to be fair and reasonable. need to have... A good... um It's easy for me, but a credit rating because you get somebody that's got a very good great credit rating in Europe, but they just started in the UK, their credit rating is not very good. We're a very high turnover business. Some of the procedures they put in or their terms that they put into their contracts is just ridiculous. Yeah, we all agree we need a contract, the client needs safety, the EPC needs safety, but also we do. But sometimes it's all very one-sided. So we're in a fortunate position that we can sort of pick who we want to work with. And I mean, of our current EPCs we're working with, we have a very good relationship and hopefully we'll continue that very good relationship with a lot of work ahead of us. So, but I think we do, we do, we are fortunate enough to pick who we want to work with. I just don't want be exposed to any risk. And in terms of partners, what do you expect from your suppliers and your contractors? um Reliability, quality and honesty. They're the three key things because I think without that you can't deliver what you need to deliver and we've got a reputation to hold and if these people aren't delivering then ultimately it falls back on us. Absolutely. Thanks very much for that chat today and I'm going to move on to talk to your colleagues now. So, thank you. So.