On Thursday 4 July 2019, Dr Kun Fu and, Dr Tao Zhang (Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), Professor Mathew Hughes (School of Business and Economies, Loughborough University) and Ms. Elizabeth Nyeko (Modularity Grid) led a dialogue workshop with stakeholders to understand the drivers and impact of energy business model innovations.

The workshop was a full-day event with speakers and participants ranging from academics, industrial experts, policymakers and research students.

A number of guest speakers attended to deliver a keynote. Speakers at the event included:

• Dr Jeffrey Hardy – Senior Research Fellow within the Faculty of Natural Sciences, The Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London
• Tom Elliot – Business Modelling Consultant, Energy Systems Catapult
• Professor Monica Giulietti – Professor of Microeconomics, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University
• Songlin Yu – Chongqing Xinqiang Investment Ltd.
• Daniel Kirk – Head of Innovation Link, Ofgem
• Froi Legaspi – Community Organiser, Citizens UK
• Dr Philipp Trotter – Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.

After each speaker delivered their keynote, there was a panel discussion.

The workshop helped the 20 attendees develop a better understanding of the current energy business context and the role of key stakeholders and their experience with the existing energy business models.

As well as this, a goal of the event was to assess the impact of digital technologies in driving energy business model innovation, making electricity affordable, reliable and sustainable and identify research challenges and opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship in the energy sector.

Lastly, the event offered a meaningful insight for the UK energy companies and policymakers to achieve sustainable developments.