‘Regulations needed to ensure new tech works the right way’

Regulations must ensure future technologies and innovations can work sensibly and effectively towards decarbonisation. That’s the suggestion from Michael Gibbons, Chairman of ELEXON, who spoke to ELN at the Energy […]

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Regulations must ensure future technologies and innovations can work sensibly and effectively towards decarbonisation.

That’s the suggestion from Michael Gibbons, Chairman of ELEXON, who spoke to ELN at the Energy Live Expo.

He said there’s going to be a lot of change in the industry in the near future, with much more distributed generation, renewable power, smart meters, demand side technology, electric vehicles and batteries interacting with the grid.

Mr Gibbons believes these technologies offer a huge amount of opportunity for innovation and change but said it was vital to ensure these innovations can take place in a “sensible way”.

He stressed the industry and government must make sure regulations aren’t a barrier to innovation, competition and the market working properly.

However, he said incentives generally mean someone needs to be subsidising a technology and suggested this wasn’t the best way of supporting most innovations.

He added: “My preference would be to find ways of ensuring the marketplace works and that the efficiencies and innovations that come from real markets developing in their normal way have an opportunity to play out, to discover the lowest prices and the best technology.”

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