November 12, 2026
There is a common assumption in energy infrastructure development that once you secure long-lead equipment and reach 10% engineering design, your project is de-risked.
Securing transformers and hitting early design milestones are critical steps. However, treating them as proof that a project is fully de-risked overlooks where most of your capital and exposure actually lie. Construction represents roughly 40% of total project costs. When constructability is not addressed early on, significant risks carry over into the field.
Here is why that approach routinely creates problems later.
1. Field Risks Surface Too Late
Without construction input during the 10% to 30% design phase, practical job site constraints remain hidden. Equipment clearances, installation sequencing, and site staging go unexamined. When constructability issues finally surface during active building, resolving them requires rushed work, diverted resources, and schedule delays. The closer a project gets to completion, the more expensive it is to fix.
2. Labor Shortages Impact Execution
High demand has made skilled craft labor for complex substations and interconnection facilities difficult to secure. If you wait until final drawings are complete to bid out the construction package, top-tier crews are often already committed to other projects. That leaves owners with difficult trade-offs: accept schedule delays or pay substantial premiums to bring in skilled labor.
3. Split Contracts Leave Gaps on the Owner’s Balance Sheet
Many owners assume that splitting a project into separate engineering, procurement, and construction contracts keeps costs down. In reality, it leaves all the interface gaps between those stages on the owner's balance sheet:
When engineering drawings do not match job site realities, or owner-furnished equipment arrives late, the owner pays for contractor downtime and field modifications.
Most development teams lack the internal technical staff required to manage these complex contractual handoffs.
The Construction-Led EPC Advantage
Rather than waiting for field execution to expose constructability issues and interface gaps, partnering early with an experienced, construction-led EPC contractor moves risk management to the front end of the schedule.
Single-point accountability: A single team owns the transitions between engineering, procurement, and construction, eliminating interface disputes and protecting the owner from gap claims.
Execution flexibility: An experienced builder can adjust engineering details, equipment delivery schedules, and construction sequencing in real time to protect target Commercial Operation Dates (COD).
Early planning and labor commitments: Addressing constructability at 10% or 30% design builds site realities directly into the drawings and locks in skilled craft labor before market bottlenecks hit.
Financial certainty: Solving constructability and labor constraints upfront keeps costs predictable, supports project financing, and establishes safe working conditions before work begins.
Securing equipment gets a project started, but early constructability and single-point execution are what actually get it energized on time.
