Digital Energy Grid Summit, King’s College, Cambridge University
28 November, 2025
On 28 November 2025, the Innovation Hub co-hosted the Digital Energy Grid (DEG) Summit in London, in partnership with King’s College Entrepreneurship Lab (King’s E-Lab), FIDE, the University of Cambridge climaTRACES Lab, Networks for Humanity, and Beckn.
The Summit brought together innovators, startups, regulators, policymakers, academics, utility companies, and investors to explore how open digital infrastructure can transform the UK energy system. The Summit’s core proposition was that four forces — climate urgency, market demand, technological readiness, and regulatory momentum — have aligned to create conditions for transformation, and that this transformation will be driven by commercially viable open digital ecosystems rather than central planning.
Pramod Varma demonstrated how the DEG’s open-protocol, federated model, based on the Beckn Protocol, links consumers, distributed resources, regulators, and markets while working with existing infrastructure. An interoperability panel featuring representatives from Octopus Energy, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), Nesta, Energy Systems Catapult, Cleantech for UK, and AcelorMittal examined fragmentation challenges and how shared protocols could prevent future silos.
UK innovation sessions with participants from Enoda, Piclo, Ofgem, Energy Systems Catapult, and BRPL explored where open approaches could unlock progress.
Hackathon teams presented early UK-focused prototypes applying DEG concepts.The Summit was preceded by the Digital Energy Grid Hackathon, a four-day open innovation challenge co-organised with Beckn Labs and King’s E-Lab.
