UWL27 - Testing

Planning and consenting delays remain one of the biggest obstacles standing between utilities and their delivery targets, and the architecture around them is shifting fast. This session assesses how to coordinate multiple planning bodies to get shovels in the ground, without losing the community and environmental scrutiny that makes major infrastructure sustainable in the long run.

Test: Digital infrastructure underpins efficient and accessible flexibility markets, but more needs to be done to share data and enable innovation to scale. Join this session to uncover the innovative approaches being adopted to build digital infrastructure, bridge data gaps and unlock flexibility market access.

Nationally significant infrastructure brings together regulators, system operators, utilities and their delivery partners, each with their own priorities, timelines and pressures. This session looks at how the largest programmes keep every party aligned behind a shared set of objectives. It covers re-prioritising what gets built first, resetting programmes that have drifted off course, and using collaborative, gated oversight to hold whole portfolios of strategic schemes to account, without slowing delivery down.

Capital delivery teams are under growing pressure to do more with the same headcount, and AI is increasingly part of the answer. This session looks at how AI and digital tools have genuinely transformed planning, forecasting and real-time decision-making, enabling smarter community and stakeholder engagement and data-driven planning strategies.

Making flex markets as easy to participate in as possible is key to driving successful engagement and leveraging the flex potential of the UK. This session will explore the work being done to improve automation, remove barriers and improve integration of markets.

Traditional procurement and contracting routes are struggling to keep pace with the scale and complexity of today's capital programmes. This session examines how enterprise partnerships, long-term area contracts and integrated delivery models work day-to-day and have changed the relationship between clients and their supply chains.

AMP8, the energy network price controls and the connections build-out are running simultaneously, and utilities are under pressure to condense billions of pounds worth of projects into a single price control. This session sets the scale of the challenge and asks what it genuinely takes to mobilise the people, capital and supply chains required to deliver at this pace, without losing sight of the sector's decarbonisation commitments.

Innovation show case for capital projects

Procurement and category leads want more than a standard company presentation from their suppliers, and Tier One contractors want more certainty from their clients before they invest. This new session puts both sides of the relationship on stage together, asking what a genuinely productive commercial partnership looks like from each perspective.

Suppliers can only invest in capacity, skills and stock ahead of demand if they can see what's coming — yet visibility of the pipeline of future work is still inconsistent across utilities, regulators and government. This session explores what genuine pipeline transparency looks like in practice, from long-term investment signals and published order books to the role of national infrastructure pipelines in giving the supply chain the confidence to commit.

The UK’s Clean Flexibility Roadmap sets out an ambitious vision for scaling low-carbon flexibility to 51–66 GW by 2030 in support of decarbonisation and security of supply. Flexibility is s critical enabler of a net-zero power system. But to unlock this at scale, energy retailers, utilities, network operators and regulators must coordinate across infrastructure, markets, and digital systems — and resolve emerging commercial, operational and regulatory tensions.

Do market design standards go far enough and are markets and revenue model investable?
What needs to happen within the next 1–2 years to put the UK on a credible trajectory to hit the short‑term milestones?
Where are the sticking points in delivery — and who is responsible for unblocking them?

The industry's incomplete shift from bespoke to standardised, offsite-built kit — and from drawing-based to model-based design — is a pressure point that adds another layer to contractors’ design processes, who are obliged to design in BIM then routinely pay to convert to 2D drawings. This session sets out the productivity case for standardisation and modular delivery, the barriers still holding the sector back from scaling it, and what closing the gap between the digital model and the site drawing would actually take.

Creating flexibility markets that are accessible is critical to scaling and enabling all customers to have more control over their energy bills. This session delves into how to best consider all energy users when designing flexibility products to avoid a two-tier system and ensure an equitable marketplace.

To scale flex markets at pace, energy networks and retailers need to design products and tariffs that are attractive, engaging and offer the right level of incentives to consumers. Join this session to delve into the detail of how the industry is taking innovation and pilots to BAU and the measures they’re deploying to scale flexibility services capacity.

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Test: to best maximise renewable energy and achieve Clean Power 2030 objectives, the UK needs to increase its short and medium energy storage capability. Understanding the infrastructure needed to enable V2G storage, domestic batteries and more is critical to the successful use of flexible storage. In this session, discover the latest updates into storage technologies, grid readiness programmes and innovation.  

A single piece of long-lead equipment can hold an entire scheme hostage, and forty-week-plus waits for critical kit are increasingly the biggest risk to programme and cost on live projects. This session looks at the practical, and the sometimes unconventional tactics utilities and contractors are using to get ahead of the problem — from novated procurement and phased contracting to temporary solutions that keep a site moving while the real equipment is still in transit.

Gaining traction with I&C customers is critical to unlocking more flex capacity. The challenge is demonstrating the value for end users and minimising disruption to their businesses. Join this session to learn more about partnerships with major energy users and what needs to change to encourage more participation into flex markets.

As energy systems grow more complex and decentralised, understanding, managing and forecasting flexible assets is more critical than ever. This session explores how visibility, forecasting and automation can unlock the full potential of flexible assets.