Business leaders, educators and policymakers addressed opportunities and challenges, while sharing best practice for future energy provision, at the 2026 Midlands Energy Conference.
The conference was delivered by East Midlands Chamber, in partnership with the University of Nottingham Energy Institute and supported by Rolls-Royce, which hosted the event at its Learning and Development Centre in Derby on 3rd November.
Panel discussions and presentations from speakers covered opportunities and challenges in the East Midlands around future energy production, storage and distribution.
East Midlands Chamber President Dr Cham Kang opened the conference. Speaking afterwards he said: “The East Midlands leads in the provision of clean energy and its surrounding innovation, boasting an enviable level of skill that can drive growth. That expertise stretches across education and business of all sizes but there’s more to be achieved as we go forward.
“If we imagine that 2035 is going to be the beginnings of when all the plans we’re talking about are going to start to have an impact on our local energy requirements, it’s really important Government intervenes for the next ten years.
“What are they going to do to support businesses in the next ten years to make sure that we are competitive – not just locally, but on a global level? We need support from Government for businesses across all sectors over the next ten years, particularly in manufacturing where a lot more energy is needed to be globally competitive.
“Continued and increased collaboration across the region, with communication a catalyst for action, is essential as we go forward. As a business community we cannot take a hesitant approach to clean energy and storage; we need to collectively overcome any obstacles to drive progress, we need to lobby policymakers for greater investment, we need to share experience across all sectors. To unlock growth, we must embrace every opportunity to prioritise how we approach sustainable energy storage and provision now and in the future.
“East Midlands businesses are determined when it comes to clean energy and carbon reduction. We have the expertise right here in the region but with the high cost of doing business, we need to keep the momentum. That means support from policymakers is essential to incentivise business to keep clean energy high on the agenda.
“I would like to extend my thanks to the University of Nottingham Energy Institute for partnering on the delivery on this insightful conference, to Rolls-Royce for its support and for hosting the conference and to all the partners that supported the event.”
University of Nottingham Energy Institute Associate Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) Professor Alasdair Cairns welcomed delegates as the conference opened. Afterwards he said: “My message to the conference was around how demand completely outstrips the supply, when it comes to energy. The data centre opportunity, we’re seeing that across the board and it’s about pace. Making sure we can go at pace matters because at the moment there are several bottlenecks.”
National Grid Head of External Affairs, SI-North Stephen Knight-Gregson gave a talk on maintaining a resilient local network for customers and communities, as well as investment in the network to enable growth. Speaking afterwards he said: “At National Grid we’re investing around £40bn over the next five years to upgrade the electricity networks that connect homes, businesses and communities across England and Wales.
“It was a pleasure to share that story at the conference and highlight the significant opportunities this investment is creating for all the small and medium-sized businesses right here across the Midlands.
“I spoke about the opportunities for our supply chain, which already includes around 1,700 organisations, with 73% being small and medium enterprises. As we build the network upgrades needed to support future energy demand and economic growth, we want even more businesses from across the region to be part of that success.
“East Midlands Chamber has brought along a fantastic audience and over the past year we’ve worked with 19 chambers of commerce across the UK, helping businesses understand how they can get involved in delivering the infrastructure the country needs.”
East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) Trent Supercluster Innovation and Growth Lead Edward Wright gave a talk on the programme and its growth opportunities. Speaking afterwards he said: “The Trent Supercluster is made up of three compelling power plant sites. These were ex-coal fired power plant sites, spanning about 14 miles of the River Trent. There’s massive opportunity around them now from fusion, fission and hydrogen.
“These are really exciting energy opportunities, particularly around fusion. This is not just about building a power plant; it’s about building a sector and creating UK economic value and there’s a massive amount of supply chain capability in the region that we want to be able to find opportunity for within the supply chain.
“A big role we have is trying to connect businesses with opportunities. Around a big opportunity like STEP, the contracts are massive, so particularly for smaller companies and even medium-sized companies, it’s going to be difficult to respond directly to those tenders. We also have a role in trying to connect the smaller businesses with tier one contractors to make sure they are part of the supply chain.”
University of Nottingham Energy Institute Deputy Director and Head of Department of Architecture and Built Environment Professor Lucelia Rodrigues gave a talk on the Institute’s research and solutions it presents to business, with insight shared with delegates from its PhD researchers. Speaking afterwards she said: “The reason why we fund events like this, that we do annually, is to get people in the room to hear more about what we have to offer and get them to talk to us. We’ve got support, infrastructure, brains, PhD students, our centre for doctoral training, everything is in place and we’re there to enable that collaboration to happen.
“There has been a lot of innovation and a lot of investment in energy and the East Midlands is at the forefront of that, which makes puts us in a fantastic position.”
NucCol CEO and Founder Andrew Storer took part in a panel discussion looking at opportunities and challenges around approaches to energy affordability, availability and resilience. Speaking afterwards he said: “The importance of collaboration within the supply chain, getting small and medium enterprise companies to know what’s going on across energy, but nuclear specifically, and how they can connect and find opportunities was my message.
“There is a huge amount of opportunity. In fact, the biggest concern in the nuclear sector is around ‘is the supply chain ready, are there enough people, enough skills?’ Much more collaboration, much more connectivity is needed.”
Penny Engineering General Manager, Compliance and Business Systems Ed Pennycontributed to the panel discussion. Afterwards he said: “There are challenges around the grid network and how robust it is and how it will allow us to grow in the future, while there are lots of opportunities surrounding technologies and the way we can optimise those technologies to work together.
“We’ve deployed lots of renewable and green technologies over the past 10 to 15 years at Penny Engineering but now it’s looking at how we can optimise those, get those to work together to help improve our emissions and reduce our reliance on the grid, while we also increase turnover and productivity.
“We’re not a large company; we’re a fairly small SME manufacturer, so being able to have influence over such a broad spectrum of the business community at a conference like this is so important for us – to be able to air our concerns and our pinch points to the people who are developing the grid networks. It’s invaluable having that experience with people here.”
Speakers and panelists at the 2026 Midlands Energy Conference:
- Dr Cham Kang – President, East Midlands Chamber
- Professor Alasdair Cairns – Associate Pro Vice Chancellor (Research & Knowledge Exchange), University of Nottingham
- Jenny Allen – RESP Regional Manager, NESO
- Steve Knight-Gregson – Head of External Affairs, SI-North, Strategic and Infrastructure, Electricity Transmission, National Grid
- Tom Byrne – Head of External Affairs, National Grid
- Edward Wright – Trent Supercluster Innovation and Growth Lead, East Midlands Combined County Authority
- Chris Pook – Vice President – Government Relations, Rolls-Royce
- Professor Lucelia Rodrigues – Deputy Director of Energy Institute and Head of Department – Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham
- Andrew Storer – CEO & Founder, NucCol
- Ed Penny – General Manager – Compliance and Business Systems, Penny Engineering
- Ersa Khodadad – PhD Researcher, Powertrain Research Team, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham
- Celia Rocton – PhD Researcher, Nottingham Applied Materials and Interface Research Group, University of Nottingham
- Gagan Gopakumar Suja – PhD Researcher, Sustainable Hydrogen Centre for Doctoral Training, University of Nottingham
