This year’s Future of Utilities Summit in London felt like a very different event from its predecessors. New sponsors and speakers and an agenda heavily dominated by the topic on everybody’s lips – AI. 21% of sessions had AI in their title, with the other topic ‘du jour’ – flexibility – featuring in 15% of sessions. AI is now the main event – the sector as a whole has moved from looking at AI as a tool from afar to considering the testing questions – why do pilots fail to scale, how can you embed AI into legacy systems and workflows and how do you retain the ‘human in the loop’ whilst AI still needs oversight.
Signs that the sector as a whole is becoming frustrated with the slow pace of AI adoption were there already – but with a keynote on ‘Stop doing AI initiatives. Start building AI foundations’ and a panel that looked at the question ‘What would it take for AI for become unremarkable as an operation tool’ – it seems that the sector is champing at the bit to make AI core. But there is also an awareness that in a regulated environment – governance and audit are key. This was reinforced this week by Ofgem publishing it’s latest ‘Call for Input on AI Assurance’ in the sector.
The event wasn’t just about AI, however. As we touched on above, flexibility was the second most popular topic – echoing what I’ve seen at events across Europe in the last 6-12 months. We’re now moving to the technical reality of flexibility – how quickly can ‘Flex-as-a-Service’ become mainstream, how do VPPs really unlock value, and what does a mature flexibility market look like? Flexibility is no longer a future aspiration, it’s here, and fast becoming a retailer’s biggest challenge (and opportunity!)
Underpinning all of this is data – very much seen as the foundation which unlocks greater AI use (whilst AI improves use of data – a virtuous circle!) and mainstream use of flexibility services – as well as creating the improved customer experiences needed to embed trust in the industry. And as the Eliq breakfast briefing on Day 2 covered – without Trust, flexibility is dead in the water.
Infrastructure – in both energy and water – is always a core part of the discussion about the future of the sector, but the water conversations are still embedded in physical assets. With much publicised network failures across the UK – investment in the pipes that keep the water network operating is still front of mind. In energy, grid constraints and connection issues are still giving senior leaders headaches, but there seems to be a shift now – moving from physical infrastructure to ‘technology-as-infrastructure’ as flexibility services start to move towards easing grid pressures.
Whilst much of the focus was on technology and infrastructure, speakers had not lost sight of customers – and debt and vulnerability were still key topics. With customer debt – both at a consumer and a B2B level – reaching almost record levels there is an increased focus on both managing vulnerability and ensuring that the energy transition can deliver for all – echoed in the closing keynote ‘Who pays for tomorrow; an affordable energy transition’.
Gas also played a part – and the discussions here have moved on considerably. Sessions looking at the future of gas distribution and the role of new fuels like hydrogen and biomethane were bookended by sessions that covered electrification and the transition needed for heavy industry.
But what was more interesting was what was missing. In previous years conversations would have been around climate change, sustainability and debates about how fast to move to hit targets. We’ve moved far beyond that now – the imperative is financial and security based and decarbonisation is taken as read.
With such robust conversations, The Future of Utilities: Smart Energy event in November can’t come soon enough!