Energy policy in Europe: perspectives from the IEA

In this episode, Jon Slowe and Sandra Trittin are joined by Peter Journeay-Kaler, Energy Analyst from International Energy Agency (IEA) and Sam Hollister, Head of Economics and Finance at LCP Delta exploring energy policy developments in several European countries.

Episode transcript

[00:00:04.490] - Jon Slowe

Welcome to Talking New Energy, a podcast from LCP Delta. I'm Jon Slowe.

[00:00:09.290] - Sandra Trittin

And I'm Sandra Trittin. And together we are exploring how the energy transition is unfolding across Europe through conversations with guests from the leading edge of the transition.

[00:00:19.010] - Jon Slowe

Hello, Sandra.

[00:00:20.150] - Sandra Trittin

Hey, Jon, how are you?

[00:00:21.720] - Jon Slowe

Good, how are you doing?

[00:00:23.410] - Sandra Trittin

I'm fine, thank you. Curious about out our session today.

[00:00:27.210] - Jon Slowe

Yes. And we talk a lot about investment companies and their growth trajectories, customer-centricity. But today, looking at policy and regulation.

[00:00:39.070] - Sandra Trittin

Yes. Which is especially exciting, right. Because with all the great topics about the new energy world, it always boils down to regulatory changes or to regulatory guidelines that are given today. So, we are really pleased to have Peter Journeay - Kaler from the International Energy Agency (IEA) with us today.

[00:01:03.400] - Jon Slowe

Yes. And also, our colleague from LCB Delta, Sam Hollister, who focuses on energy policy and regulation in the UK and beyond. So, let's say hello. Hello, Peter. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:16.590] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Hey, Jon. Hey, Sandra, Sam, really great to be here.

[00:01:19.850] - Jon Slowe

Can you give us an elevator pitch for what you do at the International Energy Agency?

[00:01:25.670] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, well, to keep it quick and relevant for what we're talking about here today, I'm with a small team at the IEA that is most responsible for providing the IEA member countries with advice on how they can improve their energy policies.

[00:01:42.860] - Jon Slowe

Okay. That's quite a big job.

[00:01:44.880] - Sandra Trittin

Yeah, I would assume so. I mean, that must be really fascinating, right? Contrasting the energy policies between different countries and also what comes out of the overall goal setting and then deploy it and help to deploy it right in the different settings. But which kind of differences have you seen there? Is there like different kind of approaches of the countries? How do they each handle these kind of way forward in the regulatory.

[00:02:14.330] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

I would say that thankfully, we're at a point where there's pretty broad agreements, the need for some strong policy action to tackle the climate crisis. And even though the energy systems in you know, the various countries around the world, and even among the IEA member countries, are quite diverse, that the building blocks of these energy systems are similar enough that there's really an opportunity for some best practises in key areas around transport, around renewables that allow us at the IEA to kind of take these bigger ideas, push them in reports out to everyone, or try and work to share them between countries. So, when we find something that works very well with overcoming permitting issues or something, we can try to bring that to our other member countries. What I find in the differences is that getting from the idea of a best practise to an actually implementable and effective policy really requires that the policymakers have their ear to the ground of what's going on in the country, because these are things that start to touch on issues of behavioural change, of taking on kind of incumbent interests in the country that may want to resist those things.

[00:03:36.950] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

And I also feel that, especially in certain areas around, for example, R&D or markets, that there is an overemphasis on the need for perfect policy, that policymakers feel that this thing has to be scrubbed and shiny and it has to go out and do exactly what it said it's going to do or there's going to be blowback. When I think, given the speed that we need to move at, the reality is we need engagement. We need to be knowledgeable of what will likely work by being in touch with the stakeholders that will be affected by the policy. But there needs to be room for iteration and improvement, and there needs to be some willingness to attempt policies that could have a chance of being very impactful, but might have to be reworked, might have to be tweaked.

[00:04:26.380] - Sandra Trittin

But this sounds to me like a really long duration process, right. Do you have a rough estimate on what you have seen, let's say, coming from that idea of improving or changing a policy in a country to the real implementation? Can you say that if there is like an average time that you have experienced or...?

[00:04:49.950] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

I think that this idea of baking iteration and change into the policy structure itself can help greatly shorten this. When you really say in a legislative output that the function of a mechanism must be like this and you have to go all the way back to a parliament when it doesn't work, that can cause issues, and then you talk about you can have multi-year delays in actually getting policies that are achieving the effects that you want, but when there's more leeway, when things are broadly set, I mean, trying to think of this is all getting a bit vague. So, I'm trying to think of a more applicable example. For example, there's a broad idea that, for example, technology neutrality should be like a cornerstone of energy policy. And while that's true, there needs to be flexibility within policy making, so that the folks who are actually implementing this and say, designing an auction have enough room to change the auction rules, to realise that when a broad mandate for something is actually causing a market distortion. For example, in the Nordics, where you have very specific weather conditions and seasonality of solar availability, a truly technology neutral auction is going to build a whole bunch of solar PV because that's what's cheapest.

[00:06:19.120] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

But then you get into, well, what is the definition of cheapest? Is this just a project LCOE (Levelised Cost of Electricity), or do we need to zoom out and start thinking about, well, what's cheapest from a system cost perspective and the fact that, well, now there's tonnes of PV on the system and this is causing problems in the distribution network, but if you have a policy where you can go back in and make small tweaks like saying, okay, well we will give technology neutrality, but we'll put certain requirements on seasonal availability and then you start to get a mix that fits the energy system better while still sticking to these broad parameters of trying to keep costs down for when you have subsidies, trying not to pick particular winners. So, I hope that's maybe a more narrow example of what this means when there's a mandate and there's concepts that are defined in legislation, but there's room within that so that policymakers on the implementation level can make the tweaks that are needed so you don't have to go back to the very beginning of that policy process and start all over again.

[00:07:27.890] - Jon Slowe

Well, let's bring in our second guest, Sam Hollister. Hello, Sam.

[00:07:31.270] - Sam Hollister

Hi Jon. Hi Sandra. Hi Peter.

[00:07:33.690] - Jon Slowe

Sam, you've been working on UK policy with the energy industry and now at LCP Delta for a long time. Any sort of reactions to what you've heard from Peter or contrasts or similar experiences from being at the cutting edge of UK policy?

[00:07:51.750] - Sam Hollister

Sure. Thanks very much, Jon. Yeah, really interesting what Peter was just saying around kind of picking winners, I've spent time in the UK government and also the European Commission for joining LCP and I remember being in a conversation about kind know the need for trying not to pick winners. And the retort to that is then like, well, you don't want to pick losers. So, it was a really kind of interesting. And you pay that back into the UK, it's like the UK has made a very strong regulatory environment for offshore wind. It has a CfD (Contract for Difference) for offshore wind for a long time. It doesn't exclude other technologies and there are other pots and bits and pieces that other technologies can compete for, but that has been a really successful policy for bringing on offshore wind.

[00:08:42.260] - Jon Slowe

So really picking an example of picking a winner.

[00:08:44.080] - Sam Hollister

Exactly, I mean, and then to pick up Peter's point, for a long-time onshore wind was excluded. And that was excluded for some of those behavioural comments that Peter kind of mentioned before had about and the kind of the nod in my backyard view of kind of UK politics. So that is one where we had excluded something. And many, many people were kind of calling for that to kind of bring back on. And we are in a position now where there is a CfD for things like onshore wind. So, it is picking up, but it's nowhere near been the kind of the uptake that we've seen for offshore wind. And really that has led the UK energy policy. So, yeah, really interesting way to go. I agree with Peter. You kind of want that technology neutrality. You need to give people the opportunities, I suppose, not just to exclude technologies, but on the other hand, if you're going to see a technology that's going to win, pick that one.

[00:09:38.780] - Jon Slowe

Peter, what's your thoughts on that? I mean, you've focused on a lot of, or several European countries in terms of where you've really delved into policy. Any sort of thoughts on Sam's experience in the UK?

[00:09:50.370] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, I mean, I would say this kind of harkens back to this point I was making before that sort of two things I'd like to touch on there. The offshore wind part and the behavioural part. Offshore wind is an example where the operational environment, the readiness of the technology is just in such a different place that the concept you would build a completely technology neutral system that would try to funnel money into both of those things is problematic at best. And we've actually encountered this problem recently with countries that are in a younger phase of their offshore wind buildout, where they see that, for example, subsidies are being removed from projects in places and they want to build this all out without having to do that. And that this is an industry that really takes a whole other level of commitment to build out. And it also depends on what you want to get out of it. The UK not only has built a very effective system for getting these projects deployed, they've also built an effective and valuable economy around this, where they're not just reaping the benefits of the energy, but they're also reaping the benefits of the industry, the ships, the yards, construction around this and that this is this aspect, that it's not just the electrons and that in certain places there is an opportunity to actually have the positive economic aspects of the energy transition come to your country if you design the policy correctly.

[00:11:27.140] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

But you need a policy that recognises those environments. And in general, we found that offshore wind is something that really needs separate care within a CfD or a subsidy system to be successful at this point. And on the behavioural issue, I would say this is a very interesting one. Nimbyism is commonly cited but the reading that I've done on it in the UK is that actually the man on the street in the UK is not particularly opposed to onshore wind turbines. That this really came down to a certain subset of the Conservative political elite had decided that they didn't want this near their property but were successful in turning this into a broad-based political resistance. We've seen this in the US as well, where a very small number of landowners near Martha’s Vineyard probably set back offshore wind in the US by 5-10 years. And then I feel that this is kind of a fine line where the policy and the political world encounter each other and that engagement with stakeholders is valuable. Not only, I think people think this kind of goes one direction to tell them what's best, but also to get people on your side.

[00:12:45.650] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

And if you inform them of the benefits of this technology, and then you see that there's a willing audience and you can bring those people to the public hearings, then you help to push back against incumbent interests and the money that they have that can skew the political debate away from energy transition.

[00:13:05.130] - Sam Hollister

Jon... I'd like to come in and I just want to reflect on a point that Peter just made there. And I'll actually pose a question back for Peter. The point about getting people on side, I think is a really important one and become the most relevant kind of experience I can see happening in the UK at the moment is outside of power generation but will be around decarbonising people's homes and heating. And that, I think, is where the political narrative is going to be really important, where at the moment, the UK will be looking to deploy heat pumps as a low carbon technology. But at the moment, there just isn't that. It's kind of fought with a lot of people with a lot of complaints or worries or anxieties or concerns. And you compare that to some other European countries. I think the Netherlands, for example, have done a really good job in actually the narrative and the policy and the politics have come out and said, these are great technology, this is a great technology solution. And therefore, it's kind of brought in the society and citizens are now kind of seeing their leaders adopt this technology, whereas that's very much missing in the UK.

[00:14:06.600] - Sam Hollister

So, I think that's just one example there. But what I really wanted to pick up, Peter, is given some of your experiences, and in the UK, we see a very strong kind of. We have a very open, competitive, liberal market where we look for private sector investment and government sort of sets the framework, if you like, and a lot of that is backed on contracts, whereas in other countries the government will be having a much stronger role in directing policy or even maybe directing investments. So, I just wanted to know from your experience from the IEA, how different countries kind of manage that level of state intervention I suppose.

[00:14:42.070] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, I mean, I would get to the heart of that, which really, I would say comes down to a cultural and behavioural issue, that I think the reality is that a combination of both of those things is needed. This is not going to happen without major private sector investment, and it's critical that market conditions are set correctly. But I don't know, this has been phrased in different ways of command capitalism or that from what we're seeing now, the cheapest solution, the truly market driven solution, was something that we would have had the luxury of doing if we had started doing this thirty to forty years ago when we first knew we had a problem. And kind of a difficult conversation to have with countries now is that, well, it would be great if you could do this in the cheapest and the most efficient method possible, but in certain instances, we literally don't have time to do that anymore. And especially given that there can be trial and error in setting up policies, we are going to have to, I think, accept there's going to be the need for more direct intervention in certain places.

[00:15:52.630] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

But also, when it comes to markets, I think we need to have a bigger conversation about the sacredness of the market when the market is a human construct that we set the rules for and the issue is, I think, in a lot of the places we are still not setting the rules correctly or there's a lot of friction to getting them set correctly.

[00:16:15.450] - Jon Slowe

Peter, are you talking about... Listen, hearing you speak, a pragmatism around policy. We can have dogmas around market-based approach or state-based approach, but we don't have time to be too dogmatic and too principled.

[00:16:31.010] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

There needs to be a willingness for some flexibility, but there needs to be a lot of sensitivity about how this is discussed, because as these are dogmatic issues and as we are living in continually partisan times, we need to be careful about not know the enemies of the energy transition easy talking points.

[00:16:50.410] - Jon Slowe

Sandra, being based in the DACH region, Switzerland, Germany, what's your perspective? Because the UK is very much market based. That's Sam, what you've been living a lot of the time hearing the conversation, how do you think from a German or Swiss perspective?

[00:17:07.510] - Sandra Trittin

I would think also there, it's quite market-based, just with a bit of a different timeline, let's say it just takes a bit longer. Probably also because Germany is a bit of a broader actor, right? And then if you take it to Switzerland, to be honest, it really depends on the area in the electricity market where you are looking at there are areas which are quite progressive, open moving forward. For example, in the flexibility space but if you look for example for the liberalisation of the market, I hear that for 15 years now that finally I should be able to choose my electricity provider and I'm still not, right. If that's for the good or for the bad that's a different discussion. But just to tell you, I think sometimes also difficult to say that one country is overall more progressive than another one. I think it depends more on the focus area or also probably where the biggest trouble for the country is in the current ecosystem. And based on what Sam and Peter were saying, I think there is one important point in addition to the perspective, if it's for example market-based regulation, et cetera, is the importance of communication and education.

[00:18:32.210] - Sandra Trittin

And Peter, you raised it at the far beginning, right. It's first of all we have to educate and to communicate to the people who have to develop and decide on the policy because they have so many different topics on their plate, right. And talking also to the EU Commission in the past, I mean it's impressive with how many different topics/projects they have to deal every day. But then it's also about the general society, right? And the wind farms are always the best example, right? And we are all humans so there are the biggest discussions going back and forth and there is probably no right or wrong, but it's really that we have to communicate and educate the people in the best way. And the same, Sam, as you were saying, with the heat pumps, right? I mean if you look on the communication that has been done over the last nine months in Germany around heat pumps from different lobbyists or associations, but even boiling down to single individuals, I mean this is just crazy, right? And there's no way for a general human to build their own opinion. And then I fully understand on the other side the policymaker who then says oh, but I better be careful because there will be elections coming soon. So, I better have in mind what I put on the votes, right? I hope to get or not to get. I'm happy that I don't work in policy.

[00:20:00.350] - Jon Slowe

*laughs*

[00:20:01.130] - Jon Slowe

Peter, are there examples when you've looked across Europe, particular countries, you'd highlight maybe not for everything they do, but for something that's really admirable or progressive or stand out?

[00:20:13.140] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

There are surprisingly positive examples everywhere, and maybe even in places you wouldn't think. Greece  and Portugal , for example, have actually been pretty good at tackling some issues around permitting and making sure that solar PV can continue to be deployed by kind of basing some of the systems on the reality of that this is where grid capacity is. So we will use that as a factor in deciding where we're going to issue more permits and just having a better linking of kind of the reality of where and how fast they can build the grid so that you're not sort of creating an unrealistic bottleneck of stuff on heat pumps, which is one I want to kind of circle back to, which is a great one. I've even been asked by my French landlord here when he renovated his big house, if they could get a heat pump or not, and would it work? And I just gave him the example that the largest number of heat pumps deployed in the world are in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia. Very warm, sunny places.

[00:21:20.890] - Jon Slowe

*laughs*

[00:21:22.470] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

And that just that simple narrative of telling someone, well, where are they used. They're used in really cold places. Now, there's caveats to that around how homes are built. Et cetera. But kind of changing the narrative on some of this into a story that's more digestible like that is quite helpful. And finding those best practises is interesting, but it's finding those and then figuring out how you kind of tell them into a story. So, I feel like it's almost nice to pick things that are a little bit more of a surprise and finding things that are functioning well in a place that people would maybe assume that they're not. I mean, circling back to Greece. Greece has basically phased coal out of its system, even though if you were to go back five or ten years, that was their primary source of electricity. And this was going on in a period of what everyone would acknowledge was pretty massive economic disruption in the country. And despite all of that, they've kind of emerged from that with a new, much cleaner energy system and have some positive economic growth going for them. So, I think these stories that have a little bit of a surprise flair to them can help. And then it's worth sending the policymakers in to dig down a bit more about, well, what is it about how that policy was implemented that made it effective?

[00:22:42.050] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

And that's one of the main things that we try to do on my team, is not just uncover those policies, but really dig more into the meat of why were they effective. How can we communicate that to other policymakers and countries so that they see a path towards meaningful progress on some of these really challenging issues of coal phase out or grid development.

[00:23:05.850] - Sandra Trittin

So, then I would be really curious to know if there is anything really progressive or exciting that you have currently seen in the demand-side flexibility space or around aggregation. Is there anything that comes to your mind?

[00:23:20.370] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Unfortunately, I would say that this is broadly an area of untapped potential.

[00:23:25.910] - Sam Hollister

Okay.

[00:23:28.770] - Jon Slowe

You've still got to create the future. Sandra.

[00:23:31.000] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, I was recently in Estonia . They've had basically 100% coverage of hourly smart metres for a long time. They're in the process of getting 100% coverage of 15 minutes smart metres. And this is in one of the most digitalised economies on the planet. And even there, when it comes to broad participation of distributed demand response or aggregation, you're really not seeing it. And I think this circles back to some discussions we were having earlier about markets, about consumer engagement. I think the willingness is there. I think there is an incredible amount of people in sort of the start-up world that have good ideas, but that the regulatory and market space is not keeping up with what needs to happen. One of the things that we recommend consistently in this area is there is a need for more regulatory sandboxing. The electricity sector is one of the most highly regulated sections of the economy on the planet, and that you need to make room for innovative products to be tested and to grow and to show they have viability. And you also need to take a hard look at what are the market participation rules and how are they really being set.

[00:24:56.750] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

I, you know, was first starting to write these reports and had been told, I'm in Europe with an energy only market. And then I found out that, well, actually capacity markets are a massive part of the European system, and they basically fund coal plants and nuclear plants. And the rules for these markets are even set up that getting any money, if your storage, if your demand response is quite difficult, because even when you get a legal band aid that says, okay, well, there's participation, you're allowed to participate. The price structure and the bid size and all of these things makes it so that it's kind of irrelevant. So we need a hard scrub of these things, of how the markets function, to make sure that there are profitable business models that will attract things into these spaces, because we've done an incredible amount of hard work to get these technologies into place. I think there's enough early adopters to attract a certain amount, but to push this out to the broader populace, it's going to take companies convincing to make a product that they can sell to people that they want to and for those companies to come in and be excited and be active, they need to know that there's a market space where there's profitability for them.

[00:26:19.820] - Sandra Trittin

Thanks. So, my path is given.

[00:26:24.410] - Jon Slowe

Sam, any reflections?

[00:26:25.940] - Sam Hollister

So, yeah, thank you, Jon. I think really interesting what Peter was just talking about there and made me think about what policymakers referred to as the energy trilemma. And now the three priorities for energy policy. You've got security of supply, decarbonisation and affordability. And ultimately, the policymakers are trying to manage those three priorities. All of us, we talk, and we want decarbonisation to be a key priority for energy policy. Affordability has been a huge political priority for the last couple of years, still high up on people's agenda and is really kind of dominating probably what's coming into an election year in the UK, but also what Peter was saying about the capacity markets. Security of supply is almost always going to trump those two for any government and any policymakers where we really, in a developed world, could not stomach lack of energy security. And at that point in time, I've been in rooms where people have said almost Secretary of state's heads will roll, or Prime Minister's heads will roll if you end up with kind of blackouts across the country. So however, we look at that trilemma, I think we've always got to remember from a policy point of view, energy security is always de facto going to be primary. And it's the affordability and the decarbonisation that will probably be the things that politicians will focus on in order to influence as we add into elections, as Sandra mentioned.

[00:27:51.100] - Jon Slowe

I think in a way, that's the opportunity, isn't it? Where if there's a cheaper, better way to do things that meets those three objectives, build the confidence amongst policymakers, regulators, then sometimes you need that sandboxes, Peter, that you were talking about to build that confidence, to demonstrate it. But we need to move a pace, because we don't have time to wait for that perfection you talked about at the beginning, Peter. Time's getting the better of us. So, let's bring out the talking new energy crystal ball. And I'm going to set the dial this week to ten years’ time, 2034. And Sam and Peter, question for both of you. You're in 2034. I want you to look back at the previous years and think of one energy policy development that you'd think, wow, that was amazing when that happened. So, from the year 2034, what would you pick out as a really standout policy development over the last ten years. Sam, do you want to go first then Peter?

[00:28:55.970] - Sam Hollister

I'm not going to call it a policy thing, but maybe policy would have supported it. But I'm going to go for someone to kind of almost play the Tesla role for EVs, but for decarbonising heat. Someone to make decarbonising heat sexy, interesting, affordable, and someone that something that people want to talk about down the pub and go, hey, check out what I've just installed in my home. So hopefully policy, whether that's through a subsidy or whether that's through control or regulation, makes decarbonising heat a sexy topic.

[00:29:28.080] - Jon Slowe

We need that, sir. So, I hope that, Peter.

[00:29:33.770] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, I mean, it's very broad, but I think it's focused on this strong likelihood that we're reaching peak fossil fuel  across all of the big ones, oil, gas and coal. And from a policy perspective, one that's amazing and necessary for us to achieve it. But it gets into this thing that's sometimes called the mid transition, where we will be operating in a world where we still need energy, and we need it reliably and we need it affordably. But we will be dependent on two different energy systems. A renewable system, a low carbon system that we need to be still ramping up very rapidly, and a fossil system that will still be playing roles but is going to have to be significantly ramping down. And I think this placed numerous policy challenges because while we're building the infrastructure and the policies to ramp up renewables, I don't think people have started to have a serious conversation about what does a policy structure look like in a capitalist society with quarterly market reports when you need oil majors to start phasing down their key product.

[00:30:53.150] - Jon Slowe

That's a very big question to leave us all with, Peter. But I really love that framing of two systems, a renewable system that's ramping up and a fossil system that's ramping down.

[00:31:02.600] - Jon Slowe

So, Sam, Peter, thanks very much. That was a fascinating conversation, one which I felt we're only scratching the surface of but thanks both for sharing your time.

[00:31:12.820] - Peter Journeay - Kaler

Yeah, it's been great to be here with you. Wish we had more time to talk, but you know, this is a subject that we could probably have a ten-hour podcast on. No one would listen to it.

[00:31:23.790] - Sandra Trittin

Yes, thank you so much.

[00:31:25.710] - Jon Slowe

So, Sandra, what's your thoughts after that discussion?

[00:31:31.310] - Sandra Trittin

Since I'm not going to be a policymaker, right, I can talk really openly. No, I think what becomes clear, right. Even if we are all doing our best and we try to support also the policy making, et cetera it just takes its time, right? And this is just given by how the systems are set up in the different countries and some of them might be quicker, some of them might be slower in different angles, but it just takes its natural time. And I think it will be crucial to get going, as you were also mentioning, Jon, right. We don't have that time. So, we need to find business models, solutions that are working in the current environment and will also work in the future policy environment, right. Which is important to attract the investment on the opposite side, because investors like to have stability and we all know that we should never build up our business model based on suspensions or on policy changes, right. That we are hoping for. I think this will be crucial. This is not the easiest part, but it's also one of the most exciting parts. And I think we have a chance, and we can get that going, I think we just have to move.

[00:32:42.800] - Sandra Trittin

And the second point that I'm taking is that this part of education and communication is so crucial and it's especially crucial for the overall society, right. Because we all know if we are talking about regulation, about energy, what a flexible tariff is, what network costs are, what it takes to reduce, to increase efficiency, et cetera. But the broader mass out there is not familiar with all of these topics on an everyday life. And I think this should be a more emphasised task of our overall industry to get this going right and to help building up more understanding on this. What's your thought?

[00:33:29.830] - Jon Slowe

I think that communication and education point both for people living, householders, consumers, citizens, to understand, and no one's going to do that job apart from industry. Maybe a bit of government, but it's industry and government's job to do that. And then on the policy, I think the work that the IEA do, it's sharing best practise, but also the work that others can do, that we do. Some of at LCP Delta, sharing what's working and what's not working and building that confidence amongst policymakers to move and make decisions. Understandably, policymakers are going to be nervous and cautious, but the more understand they have on what's possible, the quicker they're out.

[00:34:13.240] - Sandra Trittin

I think for sure it's exciting.

[00:34:15.390] - Jon Slowe

It is. Well, let's leave that there for today. Thanks everyone for listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode and look forward to welcoming you back next week.

[00:34:25.620] - Sandra Trittin

Thank you very much.

[00:34:26.580] - Jon Slowe

Thanks, and goodbye.

[00:34:28.150] - Sandra Trittin

Thanks for tuning in. We are excited to bring you captivating conversations from the leading edge of Europe's energy transition. If you got suggestions for topics or guests for future episodes, please let us know.

[00:34:40.570] - Jon Slowe

And if you're enjoying the podcast, then please do rate it and share it with colleagues. For show notes, transcripts, and more, please visit lcpdelta.com.