CMA Code Governance: info request to industry participants 

Catherine Mitchell, Matthew Lockwood and Richard Hoggett, Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter

Introduction

The University of Exeter Energy Policy Group (EPG), and in particular the Innovation and Governance project (IGov) within the EPG, has been very involved in the ongoing CMA Energy Market Investigation. Our original submission to the CMA’s Statement of Issues paper highlighted the problem of Codes in relation to competition and innovation within the GB Energy System. We then gave oral evidence, the summary of which is now up on the CMA’s website. We then commented on the Updated Issues and finally we gave our views on the Provisional Findings and Possible Remedies paper. We have also written various blogs (e.g. here and here).

Separately from this we organised an industry workshop on Code Governance in October 2015 (which a member of the CMA energy investigation team attended). The details of this workshop can be found here. We also produced a presentation for that workshop; provided a discussion paper summarising the key issues and points which came out of the workshop; and we are now finalising a more detailed working paper on what we think should happen in terms of future code governance (Lockwood et al, 2016)[1]. The latter working paper will consider what needs to be done to ensure Codes are part of a solution for a move to a sustainable, secure, affordable energy system rather than a block to change, one aspect of which is a dampening of competition.

The discussion paper from our recent workshop concluded: ‘Thus while the CMA and Ofgem [Code] reviews are welcome, we argue that they do not necessarily address the much broader range of views currently on offer, as evidenced by the discussion in this workshop, including fundamental questions around self-regulation. Therefore we argue that the Government should instigate a more thorough review of code governance, including potential changes to the architecture within the context of wider changes to energy sector governance’.

The full submission can be downloaded here: CMA Request for Views on Code Governance_response from Exeter EPG Nov 2015

[1] Lockwood et al 2015: Innovation and energy industry codes in Great Britain. This paper is available here: Innovation & energy industry codes in GB

Posted by: rhoggett

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