Aurora Energy Transition Summit London 2026

Registration & Networking Coffee

Welcome & Opening Remarks

Dan Monzani

Managing Director, UK, Ireland & Africa, Aurora Energy Research

Energy Unplugged Live: "The Unglamorous Truth: What It Actually Costs to Deliver Clean Power at Scale"

CEO Panel - Redefining "Cheap" Power on the Road to Clean Power 2030

• Are we getting the balance between clean, cheap and secure right for domestic and industrial consumers? 

• From subsidy to system design: who pays, who plans, and who takes the risk? 

• Absorbing variability: coordinating networks, storage and electrification at pace 

• Is GB still an attractive place to invest?  Can the energy sector and regulators move fast enough to capitalise on electrification and data centres? 

Miya Paolucci

UK CEO, Engie

Simone Rossi

CEO, EDF Energy

Simon Evans

Deputy & Senior Policy Editor, Carbon Brief

Will Gardiner

CEO, Drax Group

Coffee & Networking Break

Aurora Keynote 1: Investing in GB power – Where are the Opportunities?

• Many energy infrastructure portfolios are built to perform in one regime and hope the others don’t arrive. However, history shows that violent swings in power prices, volatility and policy have made single-strategy investing a liability in GB power.  

• Not all diversification is created equal. How can different asset types enhance risk adjusted returns?  

• Looking forward, how can you build a portfolio that doesn’t just win in the good times but survives the bad ones too?  

Brian Potskowski

Head of Advisory, UK & Ireland, Aurora Energy Research

Panel Discussion: From Design to Execution - What It Takes to Develop a Winning GB Power Portfolio 

• The UK’s energy transition is entering a new phase, as subsidy-backed certainty becomes scarcer, merchant exposure grows, market design evolves, and technologies compete for capital.  

• Investors and developers face increasingly complex decisions over where to deploy capital and how to build resilient portfolios that can perform across different market regimes.  

• Diversification is straightforward in theory; the harder questions are operational – grid and deliverability constraints, financing, and the practicalities of making assets bankable in 2026.  

• Key themes include portfolio construction, hybrid and co-located assets, merchant risk appetite, capital allocation, and bankability in an increasingly merchant market. 

Pranav Menon

Research Senior Associate, Aurora Energy Research

Tom Glover

UK Country Chair, RWE

Lunch & Networking

Aurora Keynote 2: Data Centres and the GB Power System: Demand, Grids and Strategy 

• Data Centre Demand and Its Price Implications: Aurora’s Central capacity forecast for GB data centre growth and how that translates into all-in retail power price outcomes  

• Grid Constraints and Locational Impact: Examining how data centre load affects grid congestion across different network nodes, identifying where new capacity could ease system stress and where it could compound existing constraints.  

• Power Sourcing in a Constrained System: Outlining the strategic options available to data centres navigating grid connection challenges including behind-the-meter generation, on-site battery storage, and PPA structures and setting the scene for a panel discussion on real-world commercial approaches

Malavika Gode

Senior Associate, Aurora Energy Research

Panel Discussion 2:  Megawatts to Markets: Corporate PPAs, Co-location and the Race for Access to Power

• Datacentre demand signals, magnitude, geography & appetite for long term fixed price PPAs vs Merchant exposure.  

• PPA architecture structure, pricing, take or pay, credit requirements in a competitive market.  

• Co-Location strategy onsite generation (wind, solar, CCGT), battery storage & Grid interconnection optimization.  

• Ready Power premium, scarcity value for shovel ready, consented generation near major load clusters.  

• Resilience & Redundancy, multi-source PPAs & Backup Capacity strategies to meet uptime SLAs  

Graham Richmond

Partner, Dentons

Marten Ford

Advisory Project Leader, Aurora Energy Research

Coffee & Networking Break 

Aurora Keynote 3: LDES on Trial: The Verdict for GB Battery Storage

The defendant Long Duration Electricity Storage (LDES) stands accused of two charges. First: that it will transform this system for the better, unlocking renewables, securing supply and reducing bills. Second: and this is the charge that brought you here today, that it will do so by dismantling the very revenue environment that every asset in this room was built to exploit. The prosecution will present four exhibits. The defence will call one witness. And before you leave this room, you will deliver a verdict. Aurora appears as judge. We have no interest in the outcome only in the evidence. The court is now in session. 

Pooja Vadhva

Senior Associate Advisory, Aurora Energy Research

Panel Discussion - Competing for Alpha in an age of longer duration storage

• The procurement debate — was this the right call, at this scale, at this moment? 
• The de-risking question — as LDES builds out and compresses BESS margins, which we will test and discuss in this panel, do floors and tolls hold their value, and does the market develop the financial instruments to hedge that exposure at scale?  
• The optimisation challenge — whatever you think of LDES, longer-duration assets are coming. Does the industry actually know how to operate and benchmark them well? 

Marc Hedin

Head of Research for Western Europe and Africa, Aurora Energy Research

Amit Gudka

Founder & CEO, Field

Niels Jakeman

Head of Energy Origination Europe, NORD/LB

Concluding Remarks & Aurora Insights

Dan Monzani

Managing Director, UK, Ireland & Africa, Aurora Energy Research

Networking Drinks Reception