The 19th annual edition of the UK Sustainable Infrastructure Summit will be held on 12 November at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London. This well-established event always attracts a sizeable gathering of leaders from the UK sustainable infrastructure industry, both from the public and private sectors.

The Chancellor recently announced that the government will switch to a new rule for calculating public sector debt, which will focus on public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL) as a percentage of GDP, increasing the government's borrowing capacity by up to an estimated £53 billion, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Analysts expect the Chancellor to borrow up to £25 billion of this for investment into renewable energy infrastructure projects etc.

The programme examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the government’s plans to decarbonise the power sector by 2030. The morning sessions analyse the new policy initiatives and delivery models that the government is introducing – Great British Energy, the National Wealth Fund, the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, bringing in more pension and insurance company investment, reforming planning and improving grid connections – and how these may help to catalyse the very significant investment, predominantly by the private sector, that the plans require. In the afternoon, the focus is on the investment opportunities in each of the priority renewable/clean energy sectors and technologies identified by the government as critical to achieving its objective, including offshore, onshore and floating wind; new nuclear; carbon capture & storage; and green hydrogen.