Eco change is less Robin Hood, more Sheriff of ­Nottingham

In a blow to those generators awaiting the first capacity auction, energy secretary Ed Davey revealed last week that the government was expecting the auction to focus on existing capacity (that is, plants about to be mothballed or decommissioned). Those generators, including several of the big six, with consented gas plants in the pipeline are left waiting for another year to find out whether or not it’s economically viable to build them. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has failed to provide a reason for this apparent policy U-turn, or an explanation for how it will have an impact on the capacity crunch expected mid-decade. It wasn’t even announced: Davey slipped it out in a casual comment at a select committee hearing on the recent storms, and were it not for Utility Week’s sharp-eared news team, the industry might be none the wiser.

This muddle-headed and barely communicated policymaking has come to be the norm from Decc – but would Labour serve any better? Tom Greatrex reckons so in our interview on p8, but as the shadow minister admits, he’s not an energy expert. Neither are his bosses, which is perhaps why they failed to foresee the extent to which the proposed price freeze (sorry, price cap) would put UK energy investment on ice. As we report on p26, potential market ­entrants are walking away directly because of the uncertainty ­created by Ed Miliband’s proposed energy policy.
 
Energy is a complex market, subject to a web of influences – ­economic, political, geophysical. Pull one strand and another twitches, creating unintended consequences. See our story on p4 for a case in point – Decc’s Eco delay, designed to cut customer bills, has handed suppliers a £245 million windfall, according to an analysis by the Association for the Conservation of Energy. Less Robin Hood, more Sheriff of Nottingham.
 
Politicians simply haven’t got the expertise or the luxury of looking beyond the next election: they seem incapable of developing sensible, balanced, long-term energy policies, particularly with the mass media looking over their shoulders. Is it too much to hope that they will keep their mouths shut and their hands in their pockets as the CMA sets to work?