Introduction

GLIL Infra­struc­ture marked its 10-year anniver­sary this May with a pan­el dis­cus­sion at The Soho Hotel in Lon­don, bring­ing togeth­er lead­ers from across the invest­ment, ener­gy and infra­struc­ture sectors.

The event was both a chance to reflect on a decade of long-term col­lab­o­ra­tion and to look ahead towards the evolv­ing role of infra­struc­ture in deliv­er­ing pub­lic val­ue in a fast-chang­ing world, while also cel­e­brat­ing GLIL’s con­tin­ued growth and wel­com­ing poten­tial new investors to join the fund.

Mod­er­at­ed by Louise Jack, Chief Oper­at­ing and Finance Offi­cer at LPPI, the pan­el featured:

• Pad­dy Dow­dall, Assis­tant Direc­tor, Greater Man­ches­ter Pen­sion Fund (GMPF), and Invest­ment Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, GLIL
• Nick Elliott, Senior Pol­i­cy & Pub­lic Affairs Man­ag­er, Glob­al Infra­struc­ture Investor Asso­ci­a­tion (GIIA)
• Dr. Nina Sko­rup­s­ka, Non-Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Great British Energy
• Jonathan Ord, Head of Invest­ment, GLIL, and Invest­ment Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, GLIL

Built by pension funds, for pension funds

In line with the occa­sion, the dis­cus­sion opened with reflec­tions on GLIL’s found­ing in 2015.

Pad­dy Dow­dall, one of the initiative’s orig­i­nal archi­tects, described the ear­ly 2010s as a piv­otal moment for UK pen­sion funds. He explained there was grow­ing recog­ni­tion across the sec­tor of the need for bet­ter access to long-term, pro­duc­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties – par­tic­u­lar­ly in infra­struc­ture. Polit­i­cal momen­tum was also build­ing at that time, with the Trea­sury under then-Chan­cel­lor George Osborne active­ly encour­ag­ing pen­sion funds to play a greater role in sup­port­ing nation­al infra­struc­ture development.

Yet the mar­ket offer­ings at the time didn’t ful­ly align with the needs of long-term investors. ​“Hav­ing worked for a pen­sion fund for a long time and invest­ing in infra­struc­ture funds, there was a frus­tra­tion with some of the options avail­able,” Dow­dall recalled. Many tra­di­tion­al infra­struc­ture funds were rel­a­tive­ly cost­ly, short-term in nature and offered lim­it­ed con­trol to investors, with struc­tures that often pri­ori­tised inter­me­di­aries over beneficiaries.

This, cou­pled with grow­ing calls for cost trans­paren­cy and val­ue for mon­ey, helped catal­yse the cre­ation of GLIL: a cost-effec­tive1, long-term invest­ment fund designed to align insti­tu­tion­al cap­i­tal with long-term pub­lic outcomes.

Investment trends

As GLIL enters its sec­ond decade, the broad­er infra­struc­ture land­scape is also at an inflec­tion point. Across the UK, the scale and urgency of invest­ment required to meet long-term devel­op­ment and decar­bon­i­sa­tion goals is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear. Recent esti­mates from the Nation­al Infra­struc­ture Com­mis­sion sug­gest that between £70 – 80 bil­lion will be need­ed annu­al­ly – a step change in ambi­tion that brings both chal­lenge and opportunity.

Against this back­drop, the pan­el reflect­ed on how the mar­ket has evolved over the past ten years – and what it will take for long-term investors to con­tin­ue play­ing a mean­ing­ful role in shap­ing the UK’s infra­struc­ture future.

Responding to economic shocks

Over the past decade, infra­struc­ture invest­ment has had to nav­i­gate a tur­bu­lent macro­eco­nom­ic backdrop.

Dow­dall reflect­ed on the ear­ly 2010s, when ultra-low inter­est rates sparked fierce com­pe­ti­tion for yield-gen­er­at­ing assets. That dynam­ic has since been upend­ed by major glob­al and domes­tic shocks that have reshaped inter­est rates and the bal­ance between debt and equi­ty returns.

The rise – and lim­its – of renew­able energy

Through all of these mar­ket shifts, one con­sis­tent focus for GLIL has been renew­able ener­gy. While not a ded­i­cat­ed green fund, the plat­form has steadi­ly increased its expo­sure to renew­ables. Jonathan Ord not­ed that, as of 2025, 30 – 35% of the port­fo­lio is in the sector.

GLIL’s approach to renew­ables has also evolved. The fund has devel­oped more con­fi­dence in tak­ing on con­struc­tion-phase risk, as seen in its back­ing of Lyceum Solar – a solar busi­ness built in part­ner­ship from the ground up – that now pow­ers approx­i­mate­ly 125,000 homes2. It’s also invest­ed in Rath­cool, a port­fo­lio of 11 oper­a­tional onshore wind farms in Ire­land, with more oppor­tu­ni­ties on the radar.

This empha­sis reflects wider mar­ket momen­tum. Dr Nina Sko­rup­s­ka not­ed that over 50% of UK elec­tric­i­ty now comes from renew­able sources, large­ly thanks to sus­tained gov­ern­ment sup­port for off­shore wind. But she warned that the ener­gy tran­si­tion is lag­ging in oth­er sec­tors such as heat­ing and trans­port. GLIL’s lead­er­ship in renew­ables was praised as an exam­ple of how pen­sion funds can dri­ve progress.

Barriers to innovation

Despite suc­cess with mature tech­nolo­gies, pan­el­lists were can­did about the sys­temic bar­ri­ers fac­ing new­er ones. Sko­rup­s­ka point­ed to chal­lenges fac­ing green hydro­gen, car­bon cap­ture and stor­age (CCS) and elec­trol­y­sers, which con­tin­ue to face reg­u­la­to­ry and mar­ket hur­dles that hin­der innovation.

She sug­gest­ed that pub­lic bod­ies like GB Ener­gy – formed under the UK Government’s 2030 agen­da – could play a role in facil­i­tat­ing progress, par­tic­u­lar­ly by address­ing issues such as grid capac­i­ty, plan­ning delays and sup­ply chain con­straints while de-risk­ing ear­ly stage projects. How­ev­er, she not­ed that real momen­tum will come from effec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion across pub­lic and pri­vate sectors.

Elliott echoed this sen­ti­ment, stress­ing the impor­tance of coor­di­nat­ed action between gov­ern­ment, pub­lic bod­ies and long-term investors. Rather than pub­lic insti­tu­tions work­ing in iso­la­tion, he argued, it’s about cre­at­ing the con­di­tions where ini­tia­tives like GLIL – and the broad­er UK pen­sions indus­try – can chan­nel cap­i­tal into the tech­nolo­gies and infra­struc­ture need­ed for the future. 

Public-private collaboration

Final­ly, the pan­el con­sid­ered the shift­ing role of pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships (PPPs). Elliott not­ed a recent change in tone from gov­ern­ment, with increas­ing will­ing­ness to revis­it PPPs in a mod­ernised form.

If designed effec­tive­ly, he argued, such mod­els could unlock a steady pipeline of investable projects – par­tic­u­lar­ly if backed by sta­ble pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. ​“The UK pio­neered the PPP mod­el,” he said. ​“The rest of the world has caught up and are now imple­ment­ing it in a real­ly suc­cess­ful way. If you look in Europe, or even in the US as well, there is a view that the UK is miss­ing out.” 

Looking ahead

The future of UK infrastructure

Look­ing to the future, the pan­el agreed on the scale and urgency of the UK’s infra­struc­ture needs.

Nick Elliott expressed cau­tious opti­mism about a forth­com­ing 10-year strat­e­gy expect­ed in June, describ­ing it as a chance to pro­vide investors with the sta­ble pol­i­cy envi­ron­ment and pipeline they need to be suc­cess­ful. ​“If gov­ern­ment can get that right,” he said, ​“we’re going to have some­thing that us at GIIA, and the wider investor com­mu­ni­ty, have been call­ing for for a long time – which is a long-term join-up between deliv­ery, pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tion when it comes to infrastructure.”

Elliott also argued that the UK must update its pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship mod­el to keep pace with oth­er coun­tries. With the right bal­ance of risk and reward, mod­ernised PPPs could unlock more investable projects and help restore investor con­fi­dence in delivery.

Dr Nina Sko­rup­s­ka high­light­ed the sup­port­ing role of GB Ener­gy and the Nation­al Wealth Fund in de-risk­ing ear­ly-stage tech­nolo­gies such as tidal, deep geot­her­mal and float­ing off­shore wind. Both she and Elliott agreed these insti­tu­tions must help crowd invest­ment in, rather than com­pete with pri­vate cap­i­tal. This res­onates with GLIL’s com­mit­ment to mobil­is­ing long-term, pre­dom­i­nant­ly UK-based cap­i­tal into infra­struc­ture, rein­forc­ing the impor­tance of align­ing pub­lic ini­tia­tives with insti­tu­tion­al invest­ment to unlock sus­tain­able growth.

What’s next for GLIL

For GLIL, the next phase builds on 10 years of pur­pose-led, long-term investment.

Jonathan Ord reaf­firmed the fund’s com­mit­ment to renew­ables as well as its grow­ing con­fi­dence in ear­li­er-stage, con­struc­tion-phase invest­ments. These ini­tia­tives align with gov­ern­ment objec­tives to stim­u­late UK growth and deliv­er new infra­struc­ture, as exem­pli­fied by projects like Lyceum Solar, which show­cas­es GLIL’s capac­i­ty to both cre­ate and acquire assets.

Look­ing for­ward, GLIL aims to scale its impact across both mature and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. Ord point­ed to plan­ning and grid access as key enablers of future growth, along­side con­tin­ued align­ment between com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty and pub­lic value.

GLIL’s found­ing struc­ture – cre­at­ed by pen­sion funds, for pen­sion funds – remains cen­tral to its abil­i­ty to deliv­er this. With strong gov­er­nance and a col­lab­o­ra­tive ethos, the plat­form is well-posi­tioned to con­tin­ue con­nect­ing insti­tu­tion­al cap­i­tal with nation­al priorities.

After a decade of proven returns and pub­lic val­ue, GLIL offers a blue­print for how patient, pur­pose-dri­ven invest­ment can shape the UK’s infra­struc­ture future.