Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | APRIL 2022 | 9 Interview T he net-zero journey is inherently a global one but across the world attitudes towards decarbonisation – and to energy use in general – differ greatly. It's a subject Ben Wilson comes back to frequently as he sits down with Utility Week at the company's headquarters overlooking Trafalgar Square in London to discuss the priorities for National Grid, the company he joined as chief strategy and external affairs officer in November. His role was created as part of National Grid's restructure on the back of its acquisition of Western Power Distribution (WPD) and decision to sell its gas transmission arm. Wilson will be familiar to many Utility Week read- ers for his time at UK Power Networks, where he was director of strategy and regulation and chief financial officer until 2015. However, for the following six years he was based in Australia, where he led the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group as well as chairing the country's energy networks' association. His reflects that his time in Australia and his work with National Grid colleagues in America have shaped his perspective on how net zero can be advanced in the UK. We are speaking just a few days a•er Nigel Farage unveiled his intention to campaign for a referendum on net zero amid warnings that "decarbonisation" could replace "Europe" as the key ideological divide within the Conservative Party. However, Wilson points out that opposition to decarbonisation is nowhere near as entrenched in the political system here as down under. "It's such a battleground political issue over there," he says. "Public attitudes are changing but on a political level the debate is so polarised." Contrasting this to the UK, Wilson points to much greater consensus, but warns against complacency. "If I compare the UK to the US and Australia, we are in a good position here because the energy and climate change debate is more bi-partisan, less of a culture war issue. There's always a risk that can change. So we all have a duty to build trust when we talk about this. We have to set out the facts and remind people that what we are doing here is very hard." While the UK may have a more progressive approach to net zero, Wilson believes there are lessons we can learn from countries like Australia. As a vast country, with a different climates and time zones and a federal model of government, Australia has had to develop a highly flexible regulatory model to oversee the energy sector. Wilson explains: "The diver- sity is striking – in South Australia there is basically no coal now and there's a very high renewable penetration, whereas somewhere like Victoria is probably 80% coal, a mix of brown and black. "Because Australia is not that cold, gas is not seen as an essential in the way it is here. In Queensland, for example, there's hardly any heating load at all – it's a fuel of choice. You have gas for cooking outdoors, for instant hot water. "So the regulatory system reflects that. There are some networks that are fully regulated – CPI-X five- year cycles – and there are others where the regulator has oversight but they agree their tariffs directly with the shippers. Then there's small networks – 50,000 or 100,000 networks – that are completely unregulated. "The flexibility in the regulatory system is quite striking." Moving with the times Wilson is at pains to stress that the UK's regulation of utilities remains "the gold standard globally" but he clearly believes lessons could be learnt from this flex- ibility. The upcoming ED2 process (which will be handled by continued overleaf

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