Rod Sims has a typically tough response to big power companies complaining about lack of policy certainty or strong investment signals coming from  government. The industry, he says, has brought on itself much of the increasing government intervention and market problems.

Not only does he believe commentary blaming the government is simplistic, he argues it’s sometimes a “deliberate diversion”. He even suggests commercial self-interest is behind much of the latest uproar over the failure to invest sufficiently in dispatchable power to firm up the onslaught of renewable generation.