IN Brief:
- Hanab has acquired Stafford-based Substation Engineering Services, adding UK substation installation and commissioning teams to its growing group.
- SES has delivered more than 500 projects over two decades and works on electricity infrastructure up to 400kV.
- SES will retain its name and management while working alongside Green Frog Connect and Hanab Energy Solutions.
Hanab has acquired Substation Engineering Services (SES), a Stafford-based specialist in high-voltage substation installation and commissioning, as it extends its UK energy infrastructure business. The Dutch group says the acquisition combines SES’s delivery teams with the engineering and project management capabilities it already holds through Hanab Energy Solutions and Green Frog Connect. SES will continue trading under its existing name and management.
Hanab’s UK expansion already included the purchases of Green Frog Connect and AMS Trenchless, adding high-voltage engineering and specialist underground works. The SES transaction brings installation and commissioning teams into that structure. Hanab has not disclosed the purchase price, financing arrangements or an integration timetable, and its 4 November confirmation gives no SES headcount or annual revenue figures.
SES installs and commissions equipment for transmission and distribution substations, and Hanab says its teams have completed more than 500 projects over two decades. A separate Hanab Energy Solutions account describes the UK company’s capabilities as extending to infrastructure at 400kV. Site managers, installers and commissioning engineers bring electrical plant into a state where an owner can examine test results and authorise energisation; that role does not make SES a regulated network operator.
Hanab Energy Solutions undertakes engineering and project management for EPC work at 110–380kV in its existing markets. In the UK, Green Frog Connect provides another delivery platform, while AMS Trenchless specialises in horizontal directional drilling and related underground infrastructure. SES adds substation installation and testing capacity. Together, the activities give Hanab a wider potential contracting scope, although the company has not disclosed joint project awards resulting from the acquisition.
A new substation typically combines civil works and cable routes with transformers, switchgear, busbars, protection panels and control wiring. Those packages cannot be accepted solely because the main apparatus has been fitted. Commissioning teams check instrument transformer connections, secondary circuits, protection settings, interlocks and remote indications against agreed designs, then assemble evidence for the owner and network operator to review before the equipment is energised.
An installation contractor can finish fitting apparatus while the system remains unavailable for energisation. Secondary wiring errors, incorrect protection settings or unresolved interfaces can delay acceptance even after the principal transformers, switchgear and busbars have been mechanically installed. Bringing engineering and commissioning expertise closer together may shorten the exchanges needed to resolve such faults, but each client project will still require its own verification, permits and network acceptance process.
Extensions to operating substations present a different challenge from construction on an empty site. Existing circuits may need to remain live while work is carried out behind temporary boundaries, with particular switching and isolation sequences agreed for each outage. Design amendments, temporary supplies, cable terminations and access to panels must be coordinated so that testing does not disturb neighbouring operational equipment. The new ownership does not remove those site-specific constraints.
Hanab has identified both the UK transmission and distribution markets as areas for expansion. Transmission schemes tend to involve higher voltages and larger network connections, while distribution substations support local capacity, reinforcement and the connection of businesses and renewable generation. Both markets face an increase in equipment and construction activity as operators replace existing assets and prepare for larger or differently located electricity flows.
Guus de Vries, Hanab’s chief operating officer for Energy & Water, identified the combination of Green Frog Connect’s EPC capability and SES’s installation and commissioning experience as the rationale for the purchase. The company is positioning itself to take part in transmission and distribution reinforcement across the UK; it has not associated the deal with a specified contract value, new line capacity or committed pipeline of substations.
The group’s growth strategy also covers water and underground infrastructure, but SES’s acquired specialism is high-voltage electricity equipment. Hanab identifies the UK as a priority alongside its established continental operations and says it may expand through further acquisitions. Those plans should be distinguished from completed delivery: adding a contractor increases access to people and expertise but does not itself increase the electrical capacity of the national or local networks.
SES’s existing management will retain day-to-day responsibility and the company will maintain what Hanab describes as a high degree of operating autonomy. That arrangement is intended to preserve client relationships and established delivery practices while providing access to a larger engineering group. Detailed operational integration, common bidding arrangements and any changes to staffing have not been specified.
SES will continue under its existing name, with the current management responsible for day-to-day operations. The next measurable developments will be contracts awarded to the enlarged group and any delivered installations or commissioned substations. Hanab has given no timetable for shared tendering, no target for additional project capacity and no figure for the value of work it expects SES to undertake.
