GRID-UK receives enthusiastic industry reaction
The inaugural GRID-UK conference, exhibition and roundtables opened on 1 & 2 October at Excel London and received a positive reaction from industry insiders.
The event attracted a stellar cast of the energy world’s most influential policy makers and business leaders including the UK President of National Grid, Cordi O’Hara OBE FEI, the CEO of Grid Systems at Hitachi Energy, Niklas Persson, and KPMG’s Global Lead for Energy Transition, Wafa Jafri, as well as Emily Bourne, Director - Energy Systems & Networks at the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Akshay Kaul, Director - Infrastructure at regulator Ofgem and David Porter, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
GRID-UK Advisory Board Chair, Rt Hon Sir Greg Hands opened proceedings and explained:
“This conference is uniquely dedicated to promoting the UK’s energy transition strategy and the contribution it is going to make to economic growth.
The grid is the single most important piece of infrastructure the country has and has suffered from decades of underinvestment.
Estimated to represent an investment of more than £90bn over the coming period, this could genuinely be a once in a lifetime opportunity to drive national prosperity and contribute to the Prime Minister’s ambition of driving growth in every postcode in the country
The challenges are real - private investment, project prioritisation, raw materials, labour, procurement, supply chain, component supply, technology, safeguarding our environment and manufacturing capability come to mind, but one of the most important is fostering collaboration.
Let us keep our eyes on the prize and try to ensure most of the investment required for the transmission and distribution network gets spent here in the UK, and we are grateful for the trust our audiences have put in us”, he added
Conference organisers have engaged Cambridge Consultants a division of Capgemini to prepare a report to look at practical solutions to accelerating the delivery of Clean Power and will provide an update before the end of the year.