Powered for Change: Why 90% of Energy Projects Repeat the Same Mistake

The energy transition is being delivered as a series of one-offs

The structural finding is blunt: 90% of projects follow a one-off pattern, with only 10% benefiting from repeatable teams or supply chains.

That is a delivery model problem rather than an engineering one. Each project assembles its own team, negotiates its own supply arrangements and rediscovers its own lessons — then disbands before any of it can be reused.

The cost is quantified. Accumulated project learnings can drive up to 20% cost savings in sequential delivery, which is capital forfeited by structure rather than lost to circumstance.

Planning horizons are too short for the assets being built

Up to 75% of current plans are focused on discussing short-term projects that yield immediate results, rather than long-term programmes of work.

There is a mismatch here worth naming. Energy transition assets have multi-decade lives and the analysis in this research runs to 2050, but three-quarters of the planning conversation is oriented to what pays back now.

Short-horizon planning is what produces the one-off delivery pattern. A programme of projects justifies a standing team and a repeatable supply chain; a sequence of individually-approved projects cannot, which is how the 90% figure sustains itself.

Reading the economics honestly

The financial modelling in the research uses a 7% weighted average cost of capital discounted from 2025 to 2050, with net present value calculated on the difference in levelised cost between base and optimised scenarios.

Those assumptions matter for Australian readers, because the discount rate is what determines whether long-horizon optimisation survives an investment committee. At 7%, value arriving after 2040 is heavily discounted — which is precisely why the near-term 20% saving from repeatable delivery is the more persuasive argument.

The demand picture reinforces the point about staging: green hydrogen at a tipping point of direct industry control still represents just 5% of global demand, so build-out sequencing matters more than build-out speed.

What Australian energy and infrastructure leaders should do next

Convert projects into programmes. The 90%/10% split on repeatable teams and supply chains is the single largest recoverable inefficiency in the research.

Make the near-term case, not the 2050 case. Up to 20% cost savings from accumulated learnings clears an investment committee in a way that a discounted 2045 benefit does not.

Check your planning horizon against your asset life — 75% of plans oriented to immediate results is what keeps the one-off pattern locked in.

Explore Factor's research library or join a Factor energy and infrastructure event to compare delivery models with Australian peers.