UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

Tesla Budapest Event Hall

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

Tesla Budapest Event Hall

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

Tesla Budapest Event Hall

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

Tesla Budapest Event Hall

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

UTILITIES OF THE FUTURE

Tesla Budapest Event Hall

FLUX is a high-end, TED-like event with a regional-international scope, engaging business, government and institutional leaders alike. It is focused on shaping our future through the crucially important, yet often neglected domain of utilities. It is about the transformative potential utilities hold and the momentous challenges they cannot ignore any more – about harmonizing the heritage of the past with smart, viable and innovative ways forward.

THE EVENT

Public utilities are rarely in focus these days. We usually take their existence and availability for granted. This, however, has not always been the case. Public utility services have played a key role in the astonishing economic development of the past century and have underpinned the spectacular improvement of our quality of life. Sprawling utility infrastructures have become the “nervous systems” of our present-day societies, and their importance in the 21st century will continue to grow as more and more people move to cities.

What’s more, the digital revolution brings an evolutionary pressure on the utilities sector: renewables, distributed generation, e-mobility, the cognification of our homes, cities and the grid require new capabilities and drive the need for new business models and regulatory frameworks. The continuous flow of data requires special attention and new responsibilities while creating valuable opportunities at the same time. Due to our rising energy needs, mobility demands and the interconnectedness of our systems, we have transitioned to a new level of complexity.

The combined effects of all these are fundamentally affecting the future and sustainability of public utilities. How will our already overcrowded and often outdated critical infrastructure systems face the accelerating challenges and exponential changes posed by sustainability, reliability, resilience and digitization?

All in all – what does the future hold for the utilities industry? Our aim is to answer this question.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

We are organizing a one-day, invitation only think-tank event for those utilities industry executives, who not only want to learn what the future holds, but have the courage to shape it. Our aim is to provide a platform for this. We plan to foster conversation, connections, and even new initiatives and alliances with the help of mind-shifting talks and workshops on the following topics:

  • smart homes and cities
  • digitization
  • data-driven business
  • the intelligent grid
  • sustainability and security of supply
  • renewables and energy storage
  • and e-mobility

PATRON

Dear Participants,

We are witnessing the rapid transformation and restructuring of the energy sector in Hungary – developments in nuclear, renewable and alternative energy sources bring to life valuable opportunities as well as new challenges.

The Hungarian Government is committed to providing affordable, sustainable and transparent utility services, even next to growing quality standards, and channels all efforts towards raising the life standards of our nationals. NKM National Utilities Ltd. have devised a unique symposium organised for local and regional stakeholders and opinion leaders of the infrastructure and utilities sector, where joint thinking and the exploration of groundbreaking innovative solutions speed up knowledge transfer and the divulgation of good practice.

It is a great pleasure of mine to be Patron of this extraordinary initiative. I wish all participants insightful and fruitful discussions and conference.

Andrea Bártfai-Mager

government commissioner for postal affairs and national financial services

SPEAKERS

PROGRAM

All
All

Arrival, doors opening

Unconference – The future of utilities – Reframing questions

Before going straight to the future, it's worth stepping back for a minute and taking stock to know where exactly are we today. Everything seems to be in a flux, where it is virtually impossible, even unreasonable, to pay the same amount of attention to all the relevant questions and ideas that come our way. Our first task may rather be to transform our map, to understand how things work and behave as an ecosystem, connected almost in an organic way. It is key to develop an intuitive understanding of the complex and networked cause-and-effect dynamics between our behavior, available resources and assets, and to turn that understanding into knowledge and motivation actually working for us. Because we all must formulate the essential questions to stay focused and “future fit” at the same time. Our moderated Unconference workshop will help you ask the vital questions, explore their nature and the potential answers in the company of those who are shaping the tomorrow of this region in this industry. More information »»»
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E-mobility

The eMobility-focused workshop will cover a few of the central questions related to the contemporary rise of electric vehicles. After a brief context and status of where we are, the discussion will probably steer towards such topics as the current state of the charging infrastructure, the less than perfectly clear environmental impact of electric vehicles, their social impact, and their relationship with self-driving technologies and exciting new business models. So we will likely be broaching issues stretching from the pathology of range anxiety, through the peskiness of particulate matters, all the way to what the future will bring for the urban-rural divide.
E-mobility
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New Customer – Changes in consumer behaviour and needs

The aim of the workshop is to analyze the processes and dynamic interactions between trends – either economical, societal or technological – and consumer behaviour. We will not only look behind the processes but explore the predictability of these phenomena; what the shifts we detect in the process imply; and as a result of this, what type of considerations are triggered in those involved. By analysing these reciprocal processes, we can relate them to regional and global milestones, and explore the topic in such depth that enables us to calibrate the reactions of the service provider to the newly emerging consumer needs.

The most important question that we seek to answer: What should be done - how and why - to reach and engage the new customer?

Changes in consumer behavior and needs
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Digitalization

The workshop tries to find answers to how utilities are affected by digitalization, especially in light of the:
  • producer
  • distribution system operator
  • supplier
  • and consumer
What are the digital answers of Power businesses to:
  • data driven demand and supply balance
  • distributed generation
  • client relationship
Internet of Everything
  • how will it influence / enable ?
What about new job opportunities in the industry?
Digitization
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Renewable Energy

The workshop will aim to answer some of the most pressing questions of our times regarding renewables:
  • Is there a place, a need for a more diversified renewable energy mix in Hungary?
  • Does the market needs discriminating prices for renewables based on technology?
  • How to bring e-storage into play? Perhaps some of the incentives aiming the support for renewables should be migrated to encourage the development of the production and utilization of energy storage?
  • Finding a role in Hungary for green certificates, bringing Hungarian renewables into the „go" (guarantee of origin) market.
  • The utilization of blockchain as a new infrastructure for managing supply chain, finances, and is there any awareness of the renewable power production based crypto currencies?
  • How to create more engagement with the general public on renewable initiatives, and take green energy beyond the grid?
  • What Hungary got right, what Hungary got wrong? What are the capacities, and competencies that are missing in the Hungarian development class to be more competitive?
Renewables
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Coffee break

Session 1 – Inevitable changes – Drawing the map

Although our increasingly networked world is going through an explosion of connectedness and an exponentially increasing pace of change with dizzying speed, the requirements on our public utilities regarding safety, security of supply and efficiency not only have not diminished, but on the contrary, are increasing and will keep rising further! In such a shifting world, it is virtually impossible to navigate without the right map, or at the least you will end up with very low efficiency. So mapping and understanding the key drivers, their impact, their interconnectedness and interdependence is key to a more successful and sustainable future. Because the question is no longer “if”, but “when” these changes occur.
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Lunch and networking

Session 2 – Utilities of the future – Finding the way

How can Old and New work together? How can we find transformative solutions? How can we transform our systems in a viable way without turning our backs on what we have already built? Digital transformation, however, does not only change business models and value chains, but also forces providers to alter their traditional “authority-like” attitudes and behaviors and requires them to work together even with their disruptors. In this last session of the day, we focus on new ideas, existing practices and proven solutions on how we can make this transformation more predictable, cost-effective and faster, and how we can find the path to a future we envisage, work and hope for.
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Reception

ATTENDANCE

The event is invitation only – tickets are not available for sale.
However, if you feel your attendance is crucial, please contact the organizers.

ABOUT THE ORGANISER

NKM National Utilities Ltd. (“National Utilities” or the “Company”) had been established as the national utility service provider to contribute, by defending national interests, to the Hungarian Government’s utility cost reduction program in a long term and to maintain utility fees at a reasonable level for Hungarian consumers.

The main task of National Utilities is to ensure and control a consistent and centralised national system of public utilities and to establish and maintain a sustainable operation of the public utilities such as natural gas, electricity and district heating. The Company’s further aims are driven by its corporate responsibility, e.g. increasing security in domestic supply and to provide customer service more simple, faster and accessible.

The fundamental basis of the national public utility service model is to carry out activities on the basis of comprehensive community criteria and in line with the Hungarian Government’s social policy. The system can simultaneously represent and enforce the market based activity and a non-profit principle, as income realised from activities would be recontributed into the system to enhance services by making consumers’ interest a top priority.

National Utilities provides unified management for such national utility system. Licensed activities, such as gas trading or gas distribution are performed by state owned companies where control is carried out by the Company. National Utilities is not a public utility service provider and has no direct contact with consumers, but operates as a holding centre, exercising management-rights over the companies participating in the national utility system.

In 2015 and 2016 National Utilities has been building the gas pillar of the national utility system by gaining control over NKM Földgázszolgáltató Ltd. (the former FŐGÁZ Ltd.) and GDF Suez retail gas company, GSEM Ltd. and took over more than 1,8 consumers from E.ON Energy Services Ltd. and Tigáz Ltd., resulting 3,4 million natural gas consumers in Hungary serviced by the national utility service provider.

At the end of 2016, National Utilities started to build the second pillar of the system by signing the contract of purchasing NKM Áramszolgáltató Ltd. (the fomer DÉMÁSZ Ltd.) and NKM Áramhálózati Ltd. from EDF International. With the purchase of NKM Áramszolgáltató Ltd. the national electricity service is available for more than 4,5 million consumers in Hungary. Since the 6th of November 2017 the electricity and natural gas companies, as well as their subsidiaries owned by NKM National Utilities Ltd. continue to operate with the unified National Utilities brand and appearance.

LOCATION

Budapest, Kazinczy u. 21/c, 1075
The venue unfortunately does not offer parking. We recommend you to arrive by taxi.