Unfortunately, he says, it’s gotten lost in some of the government context of what’s going on there.

SMEs make up a massive portion of the industry, with significant diversity, and we’ll probably also start seeing disruptors in this space as well..The Construction Innovation Hub is currently working with a wide range of partners including individual consultants and small companies.

This includes SMEs with new approaches, technologies and kit developed to support the manufacture of products set to become part of these platform (P-DfMA) systems.The Hub is also working with the companies who will actually be onsite, and who understand how these systems work and effectively integrate in order to facilitate delivery of the built environment itself.. Then there are the companies working in areas like MEP and facades.In some respects they’re the easy ones, because many of them are already manufacturing products.

They’re familiar with manufacturing processes and, in some cases, are already supplying other industries and familiar with other mindsets and cultures.They’ll easily adapt to this future delivery model.. As the SMEs grow and invest in their capabilities, we’ll see more drive from that supply chain side because of the confidence they’ll have in the pipeline, and the opportunity to be secure in that investment.

However, one challenge we do face is that SMEs can be hard to reach because they’re often so busy doing their jobs that they don’t necessarily have time to look at these bigger changes.

One reason government funding and R&D programmes are so important is because these things enable a de-risked environment whereby SMEs can work and learn the evolving operating and delivery systems..Importantly, this would mean that existing storage, transport and end-use infrastructure could continue to be used, including the use of today's planes and ships, making these kinds of solutions extremely useful..

The sticking point is that in order for hydrogen to be used successfully as an ingredient in these alternative fuels, it needs to be very inexpensive, costing less than one dollar per kilogram.This is significantly out of range for any of the prospects for renewables until 2050, largely because they are very dispersed, dilute energy sources.

Despite building renewables in windy and sunny places, and combining them to increase the capacity factors, there’s still a cost to transport those fuels around the world, leading to high prices.In contrast, with advanced heat sources, it’s possible to move into a shipyard based manufacturing environment to make offshore production platforms.