Energy policy has spent decades chasing its own tail, layering fixes on top of fixes – and the result is a system that looks strategic on paper but behaves chaotically in practice.
That is the blunt conclusion of new academic work from Cambridge University led by Tijn Croon, which tracks how governments have repeatedly intervened in energy markets only to create fresh distortions that then demand further intervention.
The study shows that what begins as a targeted policy quickly becomes something else entirely.
Support schemes designed to protect consumers or accelerate clean energy end up reshaping markets in ways policymakers did not anticipate, locking in complexity and cost while obscuring the original objective.
Over time, those interventions stack up and what emerges is not a clean transition but a patchwork system – where subsidies, price controls, market incentives and regulatory fixes all interact, often pulling in different directions.
Dr Croon argues that energy policy has historically swung between two instincts, stepping in to correct market failures and then, compensating for the unintended consequences of those corrections.
He describes this as a cycle where policy does not resolve problems so much as displace them.
“The system becomes increasingly complex as new measures are layered on top of existing ones,” Tijn Croon writes, warning that each intervention creates new dependencies that are difficult to unwind.
The result is a market that is harder to navigate for investors and less transparent for consumers, with costs that are often hidden or deferred rather than removed.
The paper points to long-standing examples in the UK and Europe, where efforts to shield households from volatility or drive investment into low-carbon generation have led to intricate pricing structures and blurred signals.
That matters now more than ever.
As governments accelerate electrification and push towards net zero, the risk is that the same pattern repeats, with well-intentioned policies creating new inefficiencies that slow delivery and increase costs.
Croon’s warning is not that intervention is unnecessary – but that it needs to be coherent.
Without that, energy policy risks becoming self-defeating, adding complexity faster than it delivers change and leaving the system more fragile rather than more secure.
Copyright © 2026 Energy Live News LtdELN