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Interview I first meet Steve Riley on a jaunt to north Wales for the 50th anniversary of Ffestiniog Power Station in August. It has the air of a school trip, as assorted folk from the GDF Suez London office and minority shareholder Mitsui pile into a minibus at Llandudno Junction and it winds through the valleys. Unlike with schoolchildren, there is a certain anxiety to justify the day out of the office, with everybody reassuring each other of the importance of seeing what the business is really all about. Or perhaps that was just me. Ffestiniog and neighbouring Dinorwig pumped hydro stations were born in the era of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and have provided storage and flexible generation ever since. As more inflexible nuclear and intermittent renewables come on the system, their services will become "increasingly important", Riley says. Now chief executive and president of the snappily titled GDF Suez Energy UK-Europe, Riley has mapped a similar course through the industry. He joined the CEGB after completing an engineering degree and PhD at Liverpool University, in his native city (although please note, he is an Everton fan). Through privatisation and various splits, mergers and takeovers, he has stayed put while the market has changed around him. He is now responsible for a portfolio totalling 4GW in the UK and 2.9GW across the rest of Europe and Turkey. That makes his division the largest independent generator in the UK by capacity and second, after Drax, on output. It is a diverse mix both in terms of scale and technology, from a 1MW solar farm in Spain to a majority share in the 1GW Rugeley coal power station in Staffordshire. When we meet again, in the more conventional surroundings of his HQ near Mansion House, London, Riley ruminates on the turning of the tide towards greater government control. "Now is probably the first time after 20 years of a privatised industry where we have almost closed the circle again… If you go back to the 1990s, there was massive overcapacity in the market. The market UTILITY WEEK | 29th November - 5th December 2013 | 9