The European electricity network & supply industry has changed a lot over the past years. Moving to a commercial focused business instead of “state owned” has an impact on all the internal and external processes. Being competitive is becoming more and more important and with that security of supply.

For the upcoming years policy & regulation (third energy package), security of supply, the upcoming renewable energy market and the need for innovation will be high on the agenda for supply companies.

The need for investments in the infrastructure is also a major theme. Europe’s electric grid is huge serving 430 million people with a current investment estimated to be more than € 600 billion. In the next coming years it is necessary to replace a substantial number of existing power stations and secondly huge investments are necessary in order to meet the European 2020 targets.The International Energy Agency has estimated that approximately € 500 billion will be invested in European grids by 2030.

Besides network investments it is evident that in order to meet the European targets of 2020 a well thought strategy should be deployed for the smart use of new technologies. This strategy will aim at creating the reliable self healing grids of the future that will allow unlimited penetration of renewable sources of energy and maximize the efficiency of energy use through a well thought and easy to use demand side management facility.

In order to prepare the current networks for future technologies, the grids will have to become intelligent. By the deployment of smart grids, utilities will be able to implement smart metering solutions, improve energy efficiency and integrate renewable energy & distributed generation.

The high level 3 day conference programme will offer you the possibility to explore new trends and opportunities in the field of regulation, security of supply, asset management, financing and information management. New this year is the introduction of Smart Grids Europe, a 2-day conference discussing the growing smart grids market and the opportunities arising from this. The combination of both events will give you a great opportunity to stay up to date on arising network developments.

Join us now and be part of the networking event for the European electricity network & supply industry.