Utility Week

24 | JUNE 2022 | UTILITY WEEK Utility Week Live in association with Show report in innovation with Ofwat senior director of strategy and planning John Russell, and Jourdan Edwards, deputy director of onshore networks at Ofgem. Edwards said: "Our role as regulators is to create access to that fast cash for companies to innovate around the problems that abso- lutely need solving. We have to enable them to fail fast and accept that mistakes will hap- pen along the way. And these projects abso- lutely should become business-as-usual but at that point it ceases to become innovation, it should become unexceptional." Innovation and digitalisation o- en go hand in hand, and during a session on leading the digital transformation, a panel including National Grid's group chief infor- mation and digital o„ cer, Andi Karabou- tis, talked about the wider requirements for a truly digital and open-data culture, and the vision of creating an "intelligent, connected‡utility". She said: "At National Grid, we don't wake up and think 'today we're going to be digital'. What we say is our mission is to be part of the energy transition. The important thing to think about is what are the people, capabilities and processes we need to be at the heart of that. The technology and the data are just a part of that." Google Cloud's John Abel agreed, saying: "To focus on the end user, which is ultimately what we're all trying to do, you have to chal- lenge your beliefs, your bias and your culture. "One of the things we believe at Google is that you have to empower people, because if you're going to make this change, every- one has to make it, not just clique sets. You need to remove friction – because that costs money, it causes lack of energy and makes it impossible to do things at speed. You have to empower people to make their own deci- sions. If you do that you can start making the digital transformation." Summing up the approach that utilities are taking in an uncertain and fast-moving world, UK Power Networks director of strat- egy and customer service Suleman Alli said: "It's about thinking about new ways of doing things today, which drive improvements with 12 months/18 months. "We have had most success where we haven't called it innovation but we've crashed teams together. With some of these innovations, particularly within the digital space, you need to keep re— ning projects in an agile way. That's a fundamental shi- because typically utilities think of projects as having a set timeline, so the needs are static. Our needs are changing and so we need to challenge our ways of working." continued from previous page Stay in the loop for #UWL23 ticket alerts, plus the latest industry and exhibitor news by signing up to our newsletter here https://www.utilityweeklive.co.uk/newsletter-sign-up Save the date! Utility Week Live 2023 will take place on 16 and 17 May 2023 at the NEC in Birmingham.

• Cover