Emma Pinchbeck

After the 2022 crisis, Spain implemented a system where they started to separate off the gas and electricity price by subsidizing the cost of gas to make it cheaper.

Italy did something similar.

Wherever there were interventions in the market, there turned out to be unexpected trade-offs, like in the Spanish example.

It reversed the interconnector flow between France and Spain and then basically Spanish consumers ended up sending their cheap gas over to France.

I completely agree that the electricity price is a problem.

I think the next sentence, though, often in the political debate is, and that's because of net zero or because of the renewables.

Which is rubbish.

And this was well outside of my current job, but when we were looking at the review of electricity markets in my last job,

The trade-off between do something pre-2030s when we're expecting that low price to start coming through and the merit order to naturally change.

Taking that decision in the period they were in, this government had a clean power 2030 target.

There's a huge amount of infrastructure bill to do, building the kits.

Sure.

networks and power plant.

Investors, as you know, Robert, aren't fans of change and change to markets and 25-year infrastructure projects mid-flight.

And I think there was a judgment call between investor certainty to get the stuff built or consumer benefit pre-2030.

Yeah, although this is very much like the very strong view in favour of Zona.

So like my job, I should just say this is giving me post-traumatic stress from my last job.

My last job was another thing we should get across to people.

is how diverse and vast the energy market is and the companies operating within it.

And you've got folks who specialize in what we might call the demand side, but like the consumer and kind of services perspective.