In April, a new exhibition – Utility Week Live – will come to Birmingham’s NEC. The event is targeted at operations and technical professional in UK utilities, but for those seeking a more strategic view of the challenges and trend facing the industry the Utility Week Keynote has a valuable and unique perspective.
Driven by presentations from outside the industry and including focussed round table debates, the Utility Week Keynote will explore three headline themes: Change, Trust and Resilience.
The following three reports set these themes in context and explain their significance to utilities leaders:
Change: For utilities in 2015, only one thing is for certain: change. For the people running water, gas and electricity businesses, the next 12 months will see transformation on an unprecedented scale. New regulatory regimes in energy networks and water; the CMA inquiry into energy retail; a general election that is too close to call; and the introduction of competition to the non-domestic water market are all game-changers. http://read.utilityweek.co.uk/i/483754-change-report
Trust: “Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.” So said Sophocles almost two and half thousand years ago, yet it’s a lesson utilities are still struggling to come to terms with today. There’s no doubt that trust in utilities is in the doldrums and with trust in big business more widely making negative headlines, raising public confidence is going to be a tough haul requiring cultural as well as technology innovation. http://read.utilityweek.co.uk/i/483760-trust-report
Resilience: Ensuring system and organisational resilience is a complex task – and an evolving one which demands constant awareness of manifold interconnected risks. For utilities, understanding the interplay of these risks is fundamental to the ability to sustain supply. In short, society and the economy – not to mention their own prosperity – rely on utilities’ resilience. http://read.utilityweek.co.uk/i/483763-resilience-report