The Delivery Decade Starts Now: Modern Grids. Smarter Systems. Sustainable Futures: Powering Aotearoa's Energy Transition.
Agenda Day 2
Morning Track
9:00 am - 9:10 am
Chair's Opening Remarks
Michelle Polglase -
General Manager Projects Delivery,
Ara Ake
9:10 am - 9:40 am
Keynote -Transpower's Modernisation Roadmap: Building the Backbone New Zealand's Transition Demands
New Zealand's transmission system operator sets out what the Net Zero Grid Pathways programme means in practice - the investment required, the timeline, and the decisions the rest of the sector needs to make.
$100 billions of transmission and distribution investment needed by 2050 - what the first decade looks like and what it requires from generators, regulators, and government
The connection queue from the inside: how Transpower is managing 6 GW of enquiries and what structural changes would accelerate the process
What the transmission system needs from storage, demand response, and generation location that the current pipeline isn't yet providing
9:40 am - 10:00 am
Fireside Chat - Optimising for a Connected Grid
Stephen England-Hall -
Chief Revenue Officer,
Genesis
10:00 am - 10:30 am
Panel - Digital Control & Automation for Real-Time System Stability
Kannan Munisamy -
Head of Future Networks,
Alpine energy
How digital control systems, automation, and real-time analytics are being deployed operationally - not as a future state, but as live tools managing New Zealand's grid right now.
What real-time automation delivers at 90%+ renewable penetration that manual processes cannot
The data architecture and integration work that had to happen before the control system could function
The incidents the system caught before they became outages - the operational value that doesn't appear in the project business case
10:30 am - 11:00 am
Panel - Asset Reinforcement Strategies for a High-Renewables Mix: Spending Smarter on an Ageing Network
Marko Simunac -
General Manager Operations & Maintenance,
Vector Limited
Reinforcing distribution networks for bidirectional flows, variable generation, and growing demand while managing cost and maintaining reliability - the defining operational challenge for EDBs in 2026.
The prioritisation challenge: how EDBs are deciding what to reinforce, defer, and replace with a digital or demand-side alternative
Where condition-based asset management is replacing time-based replacement - and what that requires from data and sensing infrastructure
The EDB collaboration mandate: what standardisation and shared investment actually looks like across 29 networks
11:00 am - 11:30 am
Morning Break - Coffee & Connections
Last full session on the exhibition floor. Coffee is strong and sponsors are ready to have the detailed conversations the main stage doesn't have time for.
Track A + Track B
TRACK A: DIGITALISATION, DATA & AI IN ENERGY OPERATIONS
11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel - Data-Driven Utilities: From Operational Insight to Competitive AdvantageThe utilities winning on operational efficiency in 2026 are doing so on the back of better data. This session examines what separates the leaders from the laggards.
The data investments producing the biggest operational returns - and the ones that looked good in the business case but haven't delivered
From data collection to decision support: the organisational and cultural change required to make analytics operationally useful
What the best-performing NZ utilities are doing with data that others aren't - and how replicable it is
TRACK A: DIGITALISATION, DATA & AI IN ENERGY OPERATIONS
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm Case Study - AI for Performance Optimisation: How Meridian Is Rethinking Outage DecisionsTania Palmer shares the honest story of using data and AI to optimise outage decisions in live generation assets, not only predicting failure, but improving when and how work gets done.
Beyond failure prediction: how outage planning and sequencing itself is becoming a data-driven decision
How outage valuation is helping teams weigh cost, risk and generation value, and when it actually changes the plan
The adoption gap: why the hardest part isn't building the model, it's embedding it into planning workflows and getting asset owners, engineers, and planners to trust it enough to act differently
TRACK A: DIGITALISATION, DATA & AI IN ENERGY OPERATIONS
12:20 pm - 12:50 pm Technical Panel - Digital Twins for Network Planning & Real-Time Operations: Beyond the PilotDigital twins are moving from innovation showcase to operational tool across NZ's networks. This session examines what production-grade deployment actually requires.
The integration challenge: connecting the digital twin to SCADA, GIS, and field operations in a live environment
Scenario modelling for grid reinforcement - where digital twins are accelerating decisions that used to take months
What a digital twin programme costs over five years vs. what it saves - the honest whole-of-life business case
TRACK A: DIGITALISATION, DATA & AI IN ENERGY OPERATIONS
12:50 pm - 1:20 pm Cybersecurity by Design: Protecting the Modern Grid Before It's Too LateAs NZ's grid becomes more connected, automated, and distributed, the cyber attack surface grows with it. This session examines the threat landscape and the practical steps being taken.
The OT/IT convergence threat: where legacy SCADA systems create the most exposure as digital integration accelerates
What a successful cyber attack on NZ energy infrastructure would actually look like - and why it's more likely than the sector acknowledges
Building security culture in engineering organisations: the people and process investment behind every effective OT security programme
TRACK B: INDUSTRIAL DECARBONISATION & ENERGY FOR GROWTH
11:30 am - 12:00 pm Panel - Electrifying Industry: Scaling Clean Energy Supply to Match Industrial DemandMajor NZ industrials are moving from decarbonisation roadmaps to committed capital. What they need from generators, networks, and government isn't always what the sector is set up to provide.
The PPA and procurement barriers stopping major industrials from signing long-term clean energy contracts
Grid infrastructure gaps for industrial electrification - what large consumers need that isn't available at the right time or price
Process heat decarbonisation in practice: where electrification is commercially viable now and where it isn't yet
TRACK B: INDUSTRIAL DECARBONISATION & ENERGY FOR GROWTH
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm Case Study - Financing Industrial Decarbonisation: The Partnership Models Getting Deals DoneIndustrial decarbonisation requires deal structures that have never been done before in the NZ market. This session examines the models that are working.
The deal structures that have combined green finance, PPA-backed revenue, and industrial offtake - what made them bankable
NZGIF, green bonds, and government co-investment: what role public finance is playing and where the private market still needs support
Risk allocation: who carries construction, technology, and price risk in a market still developing its norms
TRACK B: INDUSTRIAL DECARBONISATION & ENERGY FOR GROWTH
12:20 pm - 12:50 pm Panel - Hydrogen Hubs & Industrial Integration. Separating Opportunity from HypeGreen hydrogen is either the next essential pillar of NZ's energy system or an expensive distraction - depending on who you ask. This session examines the evidence.
Where green hydrogen production economics are genuinely competitive in the NZ context - and where they aren't and may not be by 2030
Industrial applications that make sense now: which hard-to-abate sectors are hydrogen's real near-term market
Export opportunity vs. domestic priority - does the hydrogen export ambition serve the domestic transition or compete with it?
TRACK B: INDUSTRIAL DECARBONISATION & ENERGY FOR GROWTH
12:50 pm - 1:20 pm Panel - Energy Efficiency, Electrification & the Circular Economy: Demand-Side Transformation at Scale Kannan Munisamy - Head of Future Networks, Alpine energyManaging NZ's growing electricity demand intelligently is as important to closing the supply gap as building new generation.
The demand flexibility in NZ's industrial and commercial load that is not being accessed - and what it would take to unlock it
Time-of-use pricing, smart load management, and demand response: what's working at scale and what isn't
Energy efficiency investment in industry - where the returns are strongest and why it still competes poorly for capital against new generation
Afternoon Track
1:20 pm - 2:20 pm
Networking Lunch Final Networking Lunch & VIP Hosted Lunches
Join peers from across generation, networks, government, and industry for the Summit's final networking lunch. VIP Hosted Lunches run concurrently for invited guests. The exhibition closes after this break. By invitation only.
2:20 pm - 2:50 pm
Customer Voice - Power Partners or Power Struggle: What Large Energy Users Actually Need from NZ's Generators and Whether They're Getting It
What large industrials need from clean energy supply that they're not currently getting -- on PPA terms, connection timelines, and volume certainty
The decarbonisation commitments already made by NZ's largest energy users -- and what happens to those commitments if the supply isn't there
Where generators and large consumers are genuinely partnering well -- and where commercial incentives are still misaligned.
2:50 pm - 3:20 pm
Panel - Building the workforce to deliver New Zealand's energy future: before the pipeline runs ahead of the people
Labour shortages are already constraining project delivery across the NZ energy sector, and the pipeline is only growing. This session puts the workforce crisis on the table and asks the sector to own its share of solving it.
The numbers: how many engineers, project managers, technicians, and tradespeople does the NZ pipeline need over the next five years, and how far short is the current training and recruitment pipeline?
As the workforce scales up fast, are new hires and contractor networks coming in with the skills, safety standards, and risk maturity the industry actually needs, or is the sector growing headcount faster than it can grow capability?
Māori workforce development, international recruitment, and apprenticeship models as structural solutions to a structural problem
3:20 pm - 3:50 pm
Panel - Iwi & Community Energy: Ensuring the Transition Is Just, Inclusive, and Built to Last
A transition that concentrates the benefits of clean energy in the hands of large asset owners while leaving communities, rural regions, and Maori behind is not a just transition. This session examines what genuine equity requires.
Iwi energy ownership in 2026: the models that are working, the barriers that remain, and what genuine Treaty partnership in infrastructure looks like in practice
Community energy projects - the financing structures, grid connection realities, and governance models that determine whether they get built or stall at concept
Energy affordability as a transition design challenge: how the sector structures the transition so rising costs don't fall hardest on those least able to absorb them
3:50 pm - 4:20 pm
Closing Address - The Delivery Decade: It Started Here
Michelle Polglase -
General Manager Projects Delivery,
Ara Ake
4:20 pm - 4:40 pm
Farewell Coffee & Connections
Time to decompress after two days. The debrief conversation at the coffee station often becomes the follow-up meeting scheduled next week. The exhibition closes. The Summit enters its final hour.
