The overall impression is (as usual): in the UK, marketista brainwashing rules.

"The magic of the markets" is a religious concept not really susceptible to rational analysis. Thus a few hundred word piece citing a few selective sound bites in support of that belief are far more effective than a few thousand word rebuttals citing empirical facts and logical fallacies.

Try getting your excellent piece published in response to those fallacious propaganda pieces.  I wish you luck.  You are up against not just corporate interests but also popular prejudice which those corporate interests have successfully managed to propagate.

And yet the basic argument is so simple:  Set feed-in tariffs at just below current AVERAGE electricity prices and watch wind production go up and AVERAGE prices go down. Feed-in tariffs actually PROTECT distribution utilities (and their customers) from having to pay higher prices to gas/coal/nuclear power producers at times of peak demand.

Arguing that feed in tariffs "distort" the market is like arguing that water storage and irrigation schemes distort food market price fluctuations that droughts would otherwise cause.  Since when is price volatility always a good thing, especially when a degree of price stability stimulates investment and lowers average prices by increasing supply?

Index of Frank's Diaries