Energy and Environment

More misguided interventions are not the solution to our energy insecurity


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In the Media

Marc Glendening writes for Conservative Home

Housing and Planning

Matthew Lesh writes in The Spectator

Andy Mayer writes for CapX

IEA Chief Operating Officer and Energy Analyst Andy Mayer has written in CapX arguing against the government’s new Energy Price Bill.

Andy first argued that expanding supply is the unavoidable, if politically difficult, solution to an energy shortage, writing:

“The best way of managing an energy supply crisis is to find new sources of energy supply. If you can’t do that quickly you need energy use to fall until such a time as supply catches up. In a market-based energy system this is relatively simple, albeit politically painful.”

Andy also outlined the ‘ratchetting effect’ of government energy policy: more misguided interventions to correct the unintended consequences of the previous misguided intervention:

“In order to achieve climate targets, incentives were introduced to accelerate renewables. But these favoured cheaper renewables first, so we decided to skew the market to increase diversity of supply. But these changes caused offshoring of energy-intensive manufacturing, so we decided to exempt some industries. But these created complexity so we decided to ‘ditch the green crap’.”

The full article can be read here.



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