A highly experienced electricity industry leader is taking on a new challenge after joining leading UK renewable energy developer OnPath Energy.
Rod Gardner has joined the Sunderland-headquartered firm as its new head of health, safety, security and environment, a wide-ranging role which covers all of OnPath’s operational and planned renewable energy generation sites, as well as its head office activities.
Rod has previously spent more than four decades with Northern PowerGrid, having joined what was then the North East Electricity Board as a YTS trainee when he left school at the age of 16 in 1984.
After completing an apprenticeship and qualifying as an engineer, Rod worked his way up through a variety of roles with the company, working on and leading projects across the North East and Yorkshire, both in the field and within the firm’s control centres.
He has led a wide range of Northern PowerGrid teams through his career, including acting as its head of network operations for more than a decade, running its operational technology team and most recently working as its head of operational performance improvement, a role which covered every aspect of the business.
In 2017, Rod was part of the leadership team which helped draw up and deliver the infrastructure recovery plans when Hurricane Irma devastated the British Virgin Islands, and was deployed there as part of the initial response.
He has also worked regularly with the sector’s lead government department (DESNZ) on the development and implementation of electricity industry policy, and was awarded an OBE for services to the electricity industry in 2019.
Rod Gardner says: “This new role not only gives me the chance to share some of the experience that I’ve built up through my career, but also to keep learning from an excellent team that’s bringing forward some really exciting green energy projects.
“I’ve always been motivated by making a difference and being involved with lots of different aspects of OnPath’s future development will enable me to do just that.”
OnPath Energy currently has 12 operational onshore wind farms across Scotland and England, with construction currently ongoing at three further green energy generation sites and several new projects across the UK set to come forward within the next 12 months.
Andy Bilclough, grid and operations director at OnPath Energy, adds: “Rod has a phenomenal range of expertise and experience from a career that has seen him successfully delivering some enormous and extremely complex projects.
“Bringing this degree of knowledge into the business can only be beneficial for the whole OnPath team and we’re extremely pleased that he’s chosen to join us after such a distinguished career with Northern PowerGrid.”
OnPath Energy is a leading UK renewables developer with over twenty years’ experience of delivering complex renewable energy infrastructure.
It was acquired in 2023 by Brookfield Asset Management and operates within its Global Transition Fund II, the world’s largest fund series dedicated to accelerating the transition to net zero.