The Next Three Years: Managing your energy and water portfolio through to 2030
Wednesday 14 October 2026 | AMTC, Coventry
09.00 – 17.00
Major Energy Users are entering a period where multiple decisions will shape performance through to 2030. Relief eligibility, procurement strategy, flexibility opportunities, water resilience, capacity constraints and investment priorities are all converging at the same time. Taking place as applications open for the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS), Buying and Using Utilities Live 2026 will bring together major energy users and industry experts to examine the choices that matter most over the next three years. Through practical presentations, open discussion and peer challenge, the event will focus on one key question: How should you manage your energy and water portfolios through to 2030 when cost, carbon, data, capacity and investment decisions are all live at the same time?
Draft Agenda
| 09.00 | Exhibition – Registration, Coffee and Networking |
| 09.50 | Conference begins |
| 09.55 | Welcome to MEUC’s Buying and Using Utilities Live Peter Roper, Chairman, MEUC |
| 10.00 | MEUC’s Opening Challenge – The Portfolio Shock Test “If you inherited an additional 40 sites, mixed use, mixed data quality, partial BICS eligibility, one water-critical site, a grid- constrained project, a flexible load opportunity and a finance director asking for three-year certainty — what would you do first?” |
Session 1 – The Next Three Years: what large users need to change first
Major Energy Users are now being asked to manage flexible demand, risk, relief, data quality, procurement options and internal decision-making at the same time. This opening session challenges delegates to look at their utilities estate differently: not as a collection of meters, but as a portfolio of risks, assets and choices.
| 10.05 | Introduction Chair: to be announced |
| 10.10 | Demand Flexibility as a Customer Option: what can realistically move? Demand flexibility is not suitable for every site, load or organisation. This session explores flexibility from the customer side: what large users can realistically shift, what operational permissions are needed, what value may be available, what risks need to be understood, and where flexibility fits within wider cost and risk management. |
| 10.25 | Relief, No Relief and the Business Case: how support schemes change 2027–30 decisions Relief schemes can reduce cost pressure, but they can also change procurement choices, project business cases and internal assumptions. This session addresses the live decision: who BICS applies to, who it doesn’t, how it sits alongside the Supercharger and other relief schemes, and how relief eligibility, or the absence of it, should change your procurement strategy, project business cases and pass-through assumptions over the next three years. |
| 10.40 | What the data is starting to day Better data may expose things organisations cannot currently see: unexplained baseload, poor meter mapping, billing errors, peak behaviour, operational drift, weak benchmarking and missed opportunities. This session moves past the migration story to what better data is exposing in customer portfolios, and what major energy users should be looking for in their own estates as their data improves. |
| 10.55 | 10.55 The Option Stack: comparing supply, PPAs, on-site generation and risk on one page Large users face a growing range of options: fixed and flexible contracts, PPAs, sleeving, renewable supply, on-site generation, storage and changing demand profiles. This session explores how customers can compare those options consistently, linking cost, carbon, operational fit, risk appetite and internal approval. |
| 11.10 | Engage, Query and Learn An open mic session designed to challenge speakers on what delegates should act on, what assumptions they should test, and what risks they may be missing. Questions led by the Chair |
| 11.25 | Networking Break with refreshments |
Session 2 – Inside the Estate: water, flexible assets and contract reality
Some sites contain hidden risk. Others contain hidden value. This session looks inside the estate: water resilience, flexible assets, contract clauses, capacity agreements and operating models. The aim is to help delegates understand what they already have, what may be holding them back, and what they can control in front of and behind the meter.
| 11.55 | Introduction Chair: to be announced |
| 12.00 | The Site You Had to Stop — for Water, Not Energy One site, one near-miss or actual stoppage, the cost of the disruption and the warning signs that were missed. This session moves from advocacy to evidence, drawing on metering, leakage, trade effluent, tariff exposure and the operational consequences of poor water visibility. |
| 12.15 | Hidden Flexible Assets: demand response, batteries and optimisation in the 2030 portfolio For some organisations, flexibility may sit in existing or planned assets: batteries, generation, backup systems, controllable process loads, HVAC, refrigeration, thermal storage or other operational flexibility. This session explores how those assets can be identified, optimised, aggregated and used as part of a wider portfolio strategy, and what the path from awareness to revenue looks like. |
| 12.30 | The Capacity and Contract Audit: what to check before your next site project Energy strategy can fail because of a contract clause or capacity agreement nobody checked. This session explores blockers that can affect changing sites, electrification, flexible operations and project delivery — including volume tolerance, pass-through rules, data access, site additions and removals, maximum import capacity, export capacity, excess capacity exposure and network charging arrangements. |
| 12.45 | After the Strategy Is Signed: the operating model behind delivery Many organisations have energy targets, carbon targets and procurement strategies. Fewer have the operating model needed to deliver them. This session explores how large portfolios are actually run after the strategy is agreed: who owns decisions, how performance is tracked, how cost-versus-carbon trade-offs are made, and how procurement, operations, sustainability and finance stay aligned over a three-year horizon. |
| 13.00 | Engage, Query, and Learn: An open mic session designed to challenge speakers on what delegates should act on, what assumptions they should test, and what risks they may be missing. Questions led by the Chair |
| 13.15 | Networking Lunch in the Exhibition |
Session 3 – The Three-Year Plan: delivery, outlook and proof
Once delegates have considered relief, data, flexibility, water, contracts and governance, the question becomes practical: where to invest first, what assumptions a strategy needs to survive, and how to prove value to finance and the board.
| 14.15 | Introduction Chair: to be announced |
| 14.20 | The Estate Triage: which sites deserve action first? Most organisations have more possible projects than budget, time or internal capacity. This session explores how to prioritise action across an estate, considering savings potential, carbon impact, operational risk, data quality, capex, payback, grid and water constraints, disruption and repeatability. |
| 14.35 | Connecting the Decisions: procurement, projects, carbon and the 2030 roadmap There is no single energy decision anymore. Electrification changes load shape. Load shape changes contract choice. Contract choice affects PPA suitability. PPAs affect reporting. Reporting affects board confidence. Data quality affects all of it. This session explores how large users can connect procurement, projects and carbon choices into a practical 2027–30 roadmap rather than a sequence of unrelated approvals. |
| 14.50 | The 2027–30 Shock Room: what your utilities strategy needs to survive The formal three-year outlook slot, delivered as a planning challenge rather than a market update. The session tests what happens if key assumptions move: wholesale volatility, system and network costs, BICS eligibility shifts, policy support, grid constraints, project delays, capacity limitations, carbon reporting pressure or data maturity. |
| 15.05 | The Proof Gap: why your savings, carbon and risk numbers may not survive challenge Major Energy Users are under pressure to prove savings, carbon impact and resilience benefits. But many projects struggle under challenge because baselines are unclear, data is incomplete, savings are double-counted, weather is not normalised, bills are estimated, or financial and carbon reporting do not reconcile. This session explores how better data, AI, analytics and measurement can help organisations build evidence that finance, sustainability and the board can trust. |
| 15.20 | Engage, Query, and Learn: An open mic session designed to challenge speakers on what delegates should act on, what assumptions they should test, and what risks they may be missing. Questions led by the Chair |
| 15.35 | Networking Break with refreshments |
Session 4 – MEUC 7×7: practical provocations for 2027–30
Seven focused slides, seven minutes each session. Short, sharp insight into emerging topics, practical options and future challenges for major energy users, concluding with a Slido poll gauging current strategies and direction.
| 15.50 | Introduction Robin Hale, Chief Executive, MEUC |
| The Budget You Thought Was Fixed What happens to budget certainty when the estate itself changes? This session explores new loads, electrification, changing consumption profiles, flexible operations, PPAs, pass-through exposure, site projects, relief assumptions and the challenge of forecasting when both the market and the customer portfolio are moving. | |
| Five Things AI Will Not Fix A grounded counterpoint to AI hype. This session explores where AI and analytics may help, but also what they cannot solve: bad meters, weak data governance, unclear ownership, poor contracts, missing baselines, inconsistent reporting and lack of operational context. | |
| The Capacity Audit: the bill line most users forget to challenge As non-commodity costs rise and relief applies unevenly across sectors and sites, large users need to understand what they can still control. This session explores why site capacity agreements, maximum import capacity, agreed supply capacity, export capacity, excess charges and historic site assumptions should be reviewed before major projects, electrification or flexibility decisions are made. | |
| Three Questions That Kill Weak Energy Projects A short case-led session on why some energy projects struggle to survive internal challenge. Where is the baseline? Who owns the risk? Can you prove the saving? | |
| The Portfolio Shock Test Revisited: what would you do now? A live voting and pulse-check session returning to the portfolio challenge set at the start of the day. Having heard the sessions on relief, data, flexibility, water, contracts, capacity, site prioritisation and proof, delegates will be asked whether their priorities have changed. Robin Hale, Chief Executive, MEUC | |
| Final open mic questions and comments | |
| 16.45 | Close |
Register for Buying and Using Utilities Live, MEUC’s Autumn Conference and Exhibition below.
Please note this event is limited to MEUC Members and end-users only.
Please contact claire.slade@meuc.co.uk with any registration enquiries