These pages set out our wider thinking on issues relating to innovation, governance and practice for a sustainable, secure and affordable energy system.
New Thinking
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New Thinking: Governing UK Suppliers: enabling or constraining demand management?
Governing UK Suppliers: enabling or constraining demand management? Caroline Kuzemko, IGov Team, 18th June, 2014 About Caroline: http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Caroline_Kuzemko IGov has recently published a new working paper on the rules and incentives governing suppliers operating in GB gas and electricity markets. The paper assesses whether, on balance, energy governance successfully enables greater demand management through innovation. This is achieved by analysing a wide variety of energy policies, rules and regulations, how they structure markets and incentivise and/or deter certain industry practices, and the ways in which they enable and/or constrain demand innovations. Aspects of governance analysed include
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New Thinking: Winter is Coming
Winter is Coming Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 15th June 2015 I have got into the habit of thinking ‘winter is coming’ (ie Game of Thrones) whenever I read my daily energy newsletters or news apps to catch up on energy industry news. For those who have never watched the TV series, Game of Thrones (GOT) is about seven warring Kingdoms of Westeros who should bury their differences in order to overcome the challenge of the White Walkers who are moving inexorably south to Westeros, killing all people in their way, only to raise them up
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New Thinking: A new normal
A new normal Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 12th May 2015 I am definitely not a pioneer when it comes to technology but I was hugely impressed as a first time user of Uber. On an overly ambitious afternoon walk from Greenwich to London Bridge on Sunday, a friend and I found ourselves on a lonely stretch of the Thames Path half an hour before our dinner reservation. My American friend called up her Uber account which said there was an Uber Cab 3 minutes away. Sure enough within 5 minutes we were on our way to
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New Thinking: Managed disruption – the push and pull of policy in Germany
Managed disruption – the push and pull of policy in Germany Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 22nd April 2015 A recent series by Thomas Elmar Schuppe (see Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) about the energiewende in Germany illuminates the complexity of energy transformation. As he shows, it is not just that decision-makers have had to be constantly vigilant about the unforeseen impacts of the policy – and then they must be prepared to make changes to counter those unforeseen effects. BUT also the German energy industry is continuously forced to react and adapt their
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New Thinking: Two internal logics- the Labour Party and the CMA
Two internal logics: the Labour Party and the CMA – one more useful than the other Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 14th April 2015 The Labour Party published its manifesto on Monday 13th April. Many of the promises to do with energy have been well trailed before: for example, ‘ambitious domestic carbon reduction targets, including a legal target to remove the carbon from our electricity supply by 2030, and a major drive for energy efficiency’; ‘an Energy Security Board to plan and deliver the energy mix we need, including renewables, nuclear, green gas, carbon capture and
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New Thinking: First-past-the-post Politics is a Major Barrier in GB to a Legitimate, Long term Energy Policy Framework
First-past-the-post Politics is a Major Barrier in GB to a Legitimate, Long term Energy Policy Framework Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 2nd April 2015 A recent IGov Discussion Paper argued that GB needs a fundamental restructuring of its energy institutions to better suit the newly available energy technologies, and to better meet the long term needs of transforming the energy system. It argues that the current energy institutions are so enmeshed in the current energy system that they think and act in ways which suit the current system, thereby perpetuating it. The discussion paper put up
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CMA Energy Market Investigation – Updated Issues Statement
CMA Energy Market Investigation – Updated Issues Statement Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 18th February 2015 The Competition and Mergers Authority (CMA) has just published an Updated issues Statement. This is one of a series of consultative documents which will be published during the course of the investigation for before publication of the provisional findings in May 2015. Source: CMA 2014: 6 The Updated Issues Statement sets out a number of areas where the CMA has come to preliminary, but not final, findings and also areas where they would like to have more information. As the
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New Thinking: Turning a First Step into a Journey: Energy Efficiency in the Private Rental Sector
Turning a First Step into a Journey: Energy Efficiency in the Private Rental Sector Tom Steward, IGov Team, 17th February 2015 About Tom: http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/igov/people/igov-team/tom-steward/ In recent weeks came the final confirmation of another policy designed to help improve efficiency in the private rental sector. Originally provisioned in the 2011 Energy Act, a Government response to consultation sets out that from 2018, all private rental sector properties [1] have to have a minimum standard of EPC rating E. This was coupled with a ruling that from 2016, landlords will be unable to refuse reasonable requests from tenants for the
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New Thinking: Last ditch bullying by Coalition Government to keep Hinkley on track
Last ditch bullying by Coalition Government to keep Hinkley on track Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 12th February 2015 The UK is now ‘issuing threats’ to Austria that a series of retaliatory measures will be undertaken if Austria goes ahead with its legal challenge to the EU State Aid decision approving GB Government support for Hinkley point nuclear power plant. The Guardian reports the Austria Chancellor’s spokesman saying that this ‘is a kind of behaviour we don’t want to see among partners in the EU’. All of which points to the desperation that the Coalition is showing
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New Thinking: We need Board Quota’s for Women in Energy
We need Board Quota’s for Women in Energy Catherine Mitchell, IGov Team, 3rd February 2015 A new report Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) and POWERful Women (PfW) (an industry body) Igniting Change: building the pipeline of female leaders in energy calls for 40% of energy company middle management and 30% of executive boards to be female by 2030, and sets out a route map for it to be achieved. New research for the report shows that 61% of those surveyed believe the most compelling commercial reason for increased gender diversity is better decision making. Igniting Change: building the
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