Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne is appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the new coalition government, ahead of the energy-experienced Conservative shadow energy minister, Charles Hendry.
Mr Huhne's background in journalism will no doubt bolster the already adept communications team at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) whose regular communication of evolving energy policy initiatives has now become part of the UK energy landscape. Regulators are often accused of reacting late to socio-political factors, something DECC works hard to communicate as not being the case.
Whilst the coalition government's first joint agreement paper (Agreement) has reiterated existing cross party agreement on many areas of energy policy (albeit in broad terms), perhaps the first most significant decision is for Liberal Democrats to be able to abstain from making a decision on nuclear, meaning that Conservative and Labour politicians will no doubt reiterate their intention to pursue nuclear. Contrastingly, the Agreement does actively advocate a floor price for carbon, which is argued by some to indirectly incentivise carbon-light nuclear (and renewables) over fossil-fuelled generation. Indeed it is interesting to note that the Conservative manifesto backed new nuclear power stations "provided they receive no public subsidy". The Liberal Democrat manifesto outlined opposition to nuclear on the basis of being non-cost effective. Some will no doubt argue that conceding a floor price on carbon acknowledges that the current wholesale price of electricity would not justify the expense of building new nuclear without such a mechanism and amounts to an indirect subsidy.
Whilst, historically, Liberal Democratic energy policy was perhaps less enunciated compared to other parties, their hand may not just have been reserved for the stance taken on nuclear power. The Agreement includes, for example, an innovative commitment to "a huge increase" in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion which also appears in the Liberal Democrat manifesto and is consistent with Liberal peer Lord Redesdale's chairmanship of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association.
In addition, the Agreement majors on climaterelated energy issues and broadly covers legacy matters already being pursued to a greater or lesser degree (for example, feed-in tariffs in electricity, smart grids, CCS and so on) together with a number of new initiatives (for example, electric vehicle recharging network, creation of green investment bank and so on). It also includes a number of restrictive measures such as no new runways at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted.
All in all, UK energy policy appears to be brimming with renewable and nuclear development opportunities.
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