Strategic Partner of the Year
Recognising the organisations supporting utilities at a strategic level, creating solutions for customers, planning services for the future, responding to evolving policy and regulation and strengthening internal processes.
Utility Partner of the Year
Recognising the organisations supporting utilities at a strategic level, creating solutions for customers, planning services for the future, responding to evolving policy and regulation and strengthening internal processes.
Arlington Water
Arlington Water is redefining utility resilience through its innovative Always In Supply (AIS) solution, moving emergency water provision from a reactive response to a proactive, strategic service. By working in partnership with UK water companies, Arlington helps utilities improve operational resilience, enhance customer service, support planned and unplanned network interruptions, and deliver against AMP8 objectives. AIS provides pre-positioned, maintained emergency water assets that reduce response times, minimise environmental impact, and improve operational efficiency. More than a supplier, Arlington Water is a trusted strategic partner, enabling utilities to protect customers, strengthen resilience, and deliver sustainable long-term value.
AVEVA, PowerRunner, Sisco and UK Power Networks
UKPN, AVEVA and its specialist subcontractors, PowerRunner and SISCO, have partnered to transform how data is used to operate the electricity network — turning millions of smart-meter readings and data from more than 43,000 network assets into actionable intelligence. The programme is improving meter-to-transformer accuracy, identifying network faults before they affect customers and strengthening the foundations for the transition to a Distribution System Operator. It has already recovered 13,642 MPANs, closed 33% of the identified traceability gap and delivered more than £2.3 million in savings through neutral fault analytics since 2025. Together, the partners are delivering measurable value today.
Experienced Energy Solutions
EES turns complex energy challenges into measurable commercial and carbon value. Over the past year, our independent, transparent partnership model has delivered £905,000 in the first-year of electricity cost avoidance savings, identified £267,000 in recoverable billing errors, unlocked more than £700,000 in annual savings through a complex direct-grid connection, and delivered solar projects with 741.4 MWh of projected annual generation. By joining procurement, validation, infrastructure and decarbonisation expertise around each client’s long-term strategy, we go beyond brokering contracts. We take on challenges others leave unresolved and give businesses the clarity, control and confidence to make better energy decisions.
Hope 4U
Hope 4U has grown from a single funded programme in 2020 into a national strategic partner operating simultaneously across eight organisations, NHS, and local authority contracts. It does not simply deliver services. It designs the models that make them possible. The Bradford Community Resilience Partnership, now in its third year and replicated across more than 15 NHS hospitals nationally, began as one Northern Gas Networks funded service and evolved into a four-partner collaboration across energy, health, and local government. Every contract has been renewed. Every partner has extended. That is what strategic confidence looks like.
Kraken Technologies
Kraken is the operating system powering some of the UK's biggest energy suppliers. Over the past year, we helped transform Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement (MHHS) from a regulatory requirement into a market reality. We helped E.ON Next and Octopus Energy become the first UK suppliers to qualify for MHHS in September 2025, and the first to begin live migration in October 2025. Since then, we've migrated 13M meter points – nearly two-thirds of the British energy market. By leading from the front, Kraken de-risked the programme for the whole industry and gave every supplier that followed the confidence to move faster.
The University of Glasgow and SP Energy Networks
The University of Glasgow and SP Energy networks have entered a strategic partnership, formally announced in January 2026, bringing together people development, academic research and real-world innovation to address the critical challenges facing the energy sector. The partnership combines the creation of new, industry aligned Graduate Apprenticeships in across Data, Digital and Cyber, with strategically developed PhD scholarships across cyber resilience, digitalisation and data security, and the development of an industry leading Cyber Physical Energy Systems laboratory with the ability to test real world scenarios, enabling real world challenges to be solved through innovation, academic collaboration, and industry expertise.
Transcend
Severn Trent and Transcend re-engineered how early-stage capital decisions get made ahead of AMP8, treating speed as a symptom and data governance as the actual problem. Options report timelines dropped from 20 weeks to 8, saving over £600,000 across the first 22 projects with 16 more now underway. Across 11 further projects, Gate 1 to Gate 2 timelines were cut from 30 to 40 weeks down to 19 to 20. The PR29 investment planning team was restructured from three senior engineers, eight junior engineers and a contractor to two senior and five junior engineers, with no contractor needed.
Water Direct
Climate impacts, ageing infrastructure and growing demand are increasing pressure on water networks, while evolving regulation and greater political, media and public scrutiny raise expectations of utilities when disruption occurs. Water Direct is helping utilities respond by changing how alternative water supply (AWS) is planned and managed. We have deliberately invested ahead of demand to build a different resilience model — combining specialist expertise, pre-planned national capacity and bespoke digital infrastructure. This moves AWS upstream: anticipating risk, establishing capacity, positioning resources around emerging need and maintaining control as incidents evolve, rather than simply sourcing resources after disruption has already occurred.
Yorkshire Water & M Group
M Group Water has worked alongside Yorkshire Water since AMP2 - over 27 years - responding to challenges, building a partnership founded on trust, reliable delivery and better outcomes. From network maintenance and capital delivery, the relationship has expanded across the Water Services Partnership, Smart Metering, Yorkshire Storm Alliance, MEICA and Developer Services. Today, we work together to improve resilience, customer experience and environmental performance. As challenges have evolved, Yorkshire Water has trusted M Group to respond, innovate and bring new capability – turning a long-standing relationship into a strategic partnership supporting the essential infrastructure Yorkshire’s customers and communities.