Reforming the UK electricity market

On Tuesday this week, Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne will publish a much-anticipated white paper that will provide a framework to overhaul the UK’s energy infrastructure, replacing lost capacity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

It’s an important report. For Britain’s utilities it will help set the pace for future investment. While for the wind energy industry, the confirmation of a guaranteed fixed price for electricity will help establish a foundation for future finance and investment.

Over the weekend, the media have already started to speculate about its exact contents and the focus has, perhaps quite understandably, already shifted to price and the impact on the UK consumer.

All well and good and certainly something that – given the size of the numbers – certainly need not be forgotten.

However, with a question mark still hanging over the reliability of wind power generation, perhaps this is our cue to start tackling this thorny issue and assessing how best we can overcome it?

After all, incentives and future government investment is one thing but if we’re looking for governmental support, then let’s ensure that they have sufficient ammunition to fight our cause.