With the clock ticking on the UK’s 2050 net zero target, network asset management and performance specialists find themselves firmly in the hot seat.
They must ensure that our aging infrastructure is ready to safely and reliably support developments like full chain flexibility, massive growth in distributed energy resources and transformations in the ways heat and mobility are delivered.
Furthermore, they must now make asset interventions with unprecedented sensitivity to their carbon, community and biodiversity implications – meaning assessments of asset health, choices in asset design and decision-making frameworks for asset investment need to be significantly reframed.
Stepping up to this challenging environment effectively will require deep digitalisation of the asset base and network processes so that networks are armed with complete and reliable intelligence. It will require a level of openness in data sharing and standardisation of information which has never previously been required in the industry. And it requires that these changes be achieved at pace, notwithstanding the pressures of a price control which has squeezed base line funding and set out stretching ongoing efficiency targets.
At Utility Week’s Network Asset Performance Conference 2021, asset management, operations and delivery leaders, alongside a range of other influential stakeholders, will convene to share how they are innovating to deal with this shifting landscape of expectation and responsibility.
