Innovation Award (BAU Deployment)
Celebrating best-in-class performance and innovative approaches to delivering infrastructure projects that drive efficiency, productivity and social value. This award recognises how utilities are using digital tools, new workforce approaches and collaboration to deliver projects cost-effectively and efficiently.
Innovation Award (BAU Deployment)
Celebrating best-in-class performance and innovative approaches to delivering infrastructure projects that drive efficiency, productivity and social value. This award recognises how utilities are using digital tools, new workforce approaches and collaboration to deliver projects cost-effectively and efficiently.
Cadent
Making the Invisible Visible: Digital Platform for Leakage Analytics
For more than two decades, the gas industry has relied on estimates to understand network leakage. Our revolutionary Digital Platform for Leakage Analytics (DPLA) changes that. By combining advanced analytics, probabilistic modelling and cutting-edge methane detection technologies, DPLA creates a live, asset-level view of emissions across the network, enabling teams to focus effort where it will have the greatest impact. Already deployed and embedded into operational use, DPLA has surveyed over 75,000km of gas mains and supported over 1,000 targeted investigations. Backed by Ofgem and HSE, and approved for GD3 rollout, DPLA is setting the standard for methane emissions management.
National Grid Electricity Distribution, in collaboration with Octopus Energy, Scottish Power, Sero, West Midlands Combined Authority, Welsh Government, Guidehouse, Passiv, SP Energy Networks and National Energy Action
Equitable Novel Flexibility Exchange (EQUINOX)
As heat-pump adoption accelerates, distribution network operators (DNOs) need to manage rising electricity demand without compromising customer comfort or requiring costly network reinforcement. EQUINOX has delivered the breakthrough: across three winters, it demonstrated that households can flex heat-pump demand reliably while retaining choice and comfort. Designed for direct transition into business as usual, the project has already influenced network operations and flexibility markets. Most significantly, its findings indicate that released network capacity could enable up to 1.2 million additional heat pumps to connect - unlocking low-carbon heating at scale and making a significant contribution to the UK’s Net Zero ambition.
National Grid Electricity Transmission and Hyperion Robotics
3D Concrete Printed Sustainable Substation Foundations
National Grid Electricity Transmission and Hyperion Robotics have moved optimised 3D-printed concrete foundations from pilot testing into business-as-usual deployment for lower-risk network assets. Inspired by natural tree-trunk forms, the engineered design follows structural load paths to use 70% less concrete than an equivalent conventional foundation. Independent design assurance, laboratory testing at the University of Sheffield and on-site trials with Murphy confirmed a minimum threefold overstrength across all tested units. Now approved for live deployment, the solution delivers approximately 10% cost savings, 50% faster production and 65% lower embodied CO₂, with expansion to high-voltage applications under development.
Selwood and United Utilities
United Utilities EIP - SelTank from Trial to BAU
United Utilities first trialled SelTank at Blennerhasset on 26 September 2025 with a target to prevent 10 storm overflow spills. The system has now prevented 31. The trial also identified underperforming pumps and showed the value of combining automated temporary storage with live operational data. UU then brought further EIP priority sites to Selwood and Selwood appointed a dedicated team to support rollout. SelTank is now an accepted EIP intervention, integrated into routine operational and maintenance activity. The latest 2026 snapshot shows 10 sites, 85 spills saved and 4,932.6m3 of flow managed.
SES Water
iDMA Smart Network
Since piloting its smart network system with Haskoning in 2022, SES Water has embedded the technology as a core operational tool across the business — from field teams to the 24-hour control room. Using algorithms and machine learning, the system continuously predicts flows and pressures across all 380 District Metered Areas, checking live data against dynamic, DMA-specific set points and alerting staff the moment deviations occur. This means leaks are identified sooner — often before customers notice — cutting leak runtime, reducing supply interruptions, and enabling smarter, more proactive network management across the entire supply area.
SP Electricity North West
Active Network Management
Our cutting edge active network management (ANM) system has transformed how renewable energy projects connect to the electricity grid, delivering faster, more cost-effective solutions. Using the latest technology in real time network management, our ANM carries out network modelling activities in real time to manage network constraints using flexible network assets, flexible connections and flexibility services. The system unlocks network capacity, accelerates connections, saves money for customers and enables greater integration of renewable generation, electric vehicles and heat pumps – paving the way for a greener energy future.
UK Power Networks
Power Cut Preventers
Power Cut Preventers is helping UK Power Networks stop hidden electricity faults becoming power cuts. Instead of waiting for customers to lose supply, smart devices increasingly spot early warning signs on low-voltage cables, restore power automatically after brief faults and guide engineers to repairs before further disruption. In 2025, this approach resulted in 590 proactive repairs, preventing power interruptions for more than 23,000 customers. There were also over 3,000 automatic restorations, helping more than 40,000 customers avoid longer disruption. This innovative programme is now embedded in everyday operations, improving reliability and customer service, while cutting site visits, costs and carbon.
Yorkshire Water & Samotics
From industry first to standard practice: burst rising main detection
Until this year, burst rising mains, the critical pressurised pipes carrying sewage, could fail unseen for days, with few reliable ways to detect them. Today, a burst triggers an alert inside Yorkshire Water's daily operations. It began with Yorkshire Water sharing its historical burst records; Samotics used them to find a burst's signature in pumps' electrical signals, tested the model live, and launched it in July 2026, catching its first confirmed burst within weeks, worth £55,000. It is the latest chapter in a partnership grown from a 50-asset pilot to thousands of assets and £12.87m in value.
