In order to understand anything about public policy as the 21st century progresses, it is critically important to hone one’s ability to read esoterically. What is important is not what is said, but what is not said. There is the official, publicly acceptable, ‘exoteric’ line. And then there is the truth that lies underneath – often deliberately obscured.
I was thinking about this the other day when reading, as one tends to do over a nice lunch at the local Italian bistro with a pizza and a glass of red, a 2015 position paper on ‘Making the electricity system more flexible and delivering the benefits for consumers’. This was issued by Ofgem (the quango which regulates the energy market in the UK) at the start of the ongoing process to transform our energy market into one governed by “energy smart appliances”. These, for those who have been paying attention, are electric devices (your fridge, your washing machine, your EV charger, etc.) which are able to respond to ‘load control’ signals issued through the internet, and thereby reduce or delay energy consumption. Or, to put it more bluntly, appliances which can be controlled remotely so as to limit how much electricity households are able to use. Coming soon to a kitchen near you.
