Navigating Energy Law, Storage, and Gender Diversity

Louise Dalton (00:02) It’s an amazing sector with so many opportunities. it will be dynamic and complicated and it will keep you interested all the way through. And I think there is genuinely desire in both sectors for better diversity of all stripes.

And so I suppose, don’t limit yourself, dream big, and don’t limit yourself because I think as we discussed, I think sometimes it’s more our own perceptions are holding us back rather than necessarily macro

Adam Sroka (00:52) Hello and welcome to the Hypercube podcast. I’m joined today by Louise Dalton. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Louise Dalton (01:00) Hi, Adam. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Louise Dalton. I’m a Partner in the energy and infrastructure team at CMS in London. We’re an international law firm and I specialise in energy regulatory and commercial arrangements.

Adam Sroka (01:13) It’s really interesting. And I think one of the things that bit me when I first started working, was just how much of a barrier actually some of the legal stuff can be to some of these projects and getting things done. And I guess it’s the nature of big complex, multi-party, physical things in the real world, like long-term agreements. It gets quite heavy quite quickly, right? So it must be quite a fun job.

Louise Dalton (01:39) Oh I love it. I feel very, very lucky to have found this sector. It’s complex. It’s always changing. There’s the interesting geopolitical element, a new government, the conflicts, etc. You know, never been asked about my career so much as after the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis that resulted. Because it affects everybody. And it’s really fantastic to feel like you’re helping achieve

or trying to achieve net zero. Let’s see if we get there in the timescales we’re hoping to get there.

Adam Sroka (02:11) And again, when I started working in energy I found that it’s a funny sector in that it attracts a lot of superstar talent that it probably doesn’t almost deserve because people actually are really wedded to moving the needle and trying to achieve something meaningful, which is lovely. You get to work with some really, really capable people. Unwind a bit and to sort of follow up and ask about your career. Yeah. How did you get into legal and energy then?

All right, let’s share a bit of your story because I think it’d be interesting for people.

Louise Dalton (02:42) Yeah, so I’ve been a Partner since 2020 and joined CMS as a trainee solicitor over 15 years ago now. So I’ve been with the firm my entire career. I studied history at university, so it was fairly natural leap to go to convert to law. But I always knew I wanted to do something around the energy space.

It always was an area that I found really, really interesting and have had a vocation around the being clean, being green for a long time. So it’s one of the reasons I actually chose to do my training contract at this firm was because of their reputation in the energy sector. But I mean, it’s completely exceeded my expectations.

If you think when I first started in 2010 where the energy sector was and where it is now it’s just chalk and cheese I mean even when I qualified and people would have said to me oh you spend so much time advising on energy storage. Energy storage wasn’t even something anyone did. So, you know, I’ve got colleagues who are doing the same on hydrogen and CCUS and all these other things and you know

new technologies that have just come from nowhere. We’re spending a lot of time advising on floating offshore wind now. Again, 15 years ago, was just that was very much pie in the sky thinking. How dynamic the sector is, is super exciting. And we now work with such a large range of clients as well. When I first started, we did a lot of work for some of the big utilities and a small number of

infrastructure investors that wanted to invest in renewables. And now, you know, all the big institutional investors, the big tech companies, real estate companies, etc. Everybody needs some specialist energy advice. So that’s been super interesting as well. So moving to taking the advice that we give and making it work in the different contexts that it’s being

asked for has also changed a lot over last 15 years.

Adam Sroka (05:09) Yeah, what a time to have been in the sector. What a journey because even like the previous 15 years before that, would have been… they’ve moved to renewables, it would have been a bit more static and straightforward. And I guess it’s funny to say how dynamic the sector is, when actually project to project, they’re super long lifetime, like 20, 15, 20, 30 year projects you’re on, but so many of them happening and things coming to end of life that, yeah, it is a dynamic space and we find the same thing.

On the point about other types of organisations, the thing that struck me recently with the stuff that’s going on in the US and the $500 billion going towards Fargate or whatever it’s called, the AI thing from OpenAI was at a conference recently, and I was saying 20% plus of that must be spent on infrastructure, otherwise you’re not going to be able to achieve it. That’s such a huge volume of compute to build a tool like that,

and build AI like that, that the energy isn’t there to build it, right? So it’s a really interesting time to be in the space because with the AI hype, the big boom that’s going on, demand’s going to increase and it’s going to get messy quickly, I think.

Louise Dalton (06:21) Absolutely. I mean, we’re already finding, in, because we do a lot of work around data centres that effectively it’s an energy led conversation, a lot of the time because unless you’ve got… Pure economics. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s the energy supply, but also just the energy capacity, where is the connection capacity to enable that? So that’s been really

Adam Sroka (06:32) Yeah.

Louise Dalton (06:45) taking our of regulatory expertise and applying that into the data centres. And as you say, some absolutely fascinating things on the off-take side as well. Big off-takers contracting directly with nuclear power stations. It could be really, really transformative. And we’re seeing a lot of innovation on the energy side of energy companies looking at how they can work with data centre providers.

Not necessarily become data centre providers, but work with data centre providers, bringing their expertise on, solar and storage and private wires, et cetera, et cetera. And using that to help deliver the data centre conversation. So yeah, watch this space.

Adam Sroka (07:29) I had a conversation with a mixed asset developer who’s looking at going into the data centre business and co-locating their solar and their storage with a big data centre and things. And it’s a sensible play. It makes sense if you’ve got the right connections and the right geography. For those in the audience that maybe aren’t aware, you’ve talked about CMS being a really exciting place to work. Can you expand on what it is

that CMS is doing in the energy sector, just for people that maybe haven’t thought about the legal side?

Louise Dalton (08:00) No, of course. So CMS is a global international law firm. So we have over 80 offices across the globe. We’re particularly strong in Europe. So we’re in pretty much every single European jurisdiction, and one of the unique selling points around on the energy side is that we have energy specialists in all of our offices. So it’s really cool because someone will say, I’ve got this problem in Poland. And then you have someone who lives and breathes stuff like we do in Poland or

Italy or Sweden. So actually quite a lot of what we do is cross jurisdictional. So either international or bringing together the different approaches to enable people to deploy portfolios across lots of different jurisdictions. And then, we also have energy as really a core of what we do. So it’s not only having the energy

team that I sit in, which focuses on the regulatory and the commercial and construction agreements. But we also have specialists, real estate corporate, real estate finance, real estate energy and consenting teams. And we find that absolutely crucial to what we do, because I’ll go to one of my M&A colleagues, and they totally understand how storage or the typical approach to offshore wind. And similarly, you know, particularly on the real estate and consenting side, they’re actually understanding

how delivery of these complex infrastructure projects works and what it means in terms of network operators coming on and adopting cable routes and all of that stuff is absolutely crucial to delivering the project. And whilst you know, some of the work might be led on our team in terms of, what’s your offtake strategy? What’s the bedrock of the whole financial investment decision that’s being made? Clearly, you also need to be able to bring in the equity and the debt finance.

And you need all the underlying agreements to actually deliver the project on time and on budget. And then we obviously also do have our specialist energy disputes colleagues if things don’t go to plan, which is not not what anyone wants to go to, but it’s very, very helpful to have those colleagues who have really deep expertise about where things go wrong and where there are opportunities to potentially challenge decisions or litigate with contractors, etc.

Adam Sroka (10:25) It’s quite funny to hear because if we rewind Hypercube’s journey, so very proud to say CMS are our lawyers.

One of the big shocks about the industry is the thing you’ve talked about, which is that a lot of it is just moving capital about, ensuring debt can be raised and things like that. And that can be quite a difficult process for people to do. But if you can do it well, there’s a lot to get done.

Louise Dalton (10:49) Absolutely. I mean, I think we’ll probably come on to speak about it. But If you look at the billions of pounds of investment just needed in the UK to hit Clean Power 2030, there’s a lot of equity and debt that needs to come into these projects. And yeah, it’s a combined team effort. It’s the lawyers and the technical advisors, and the revenue advisors and the financial advisors, plus obviously the equity and the equity investors and the lenders coming together

to work with the developers to get this over the line. But yeah, delivering new and first of a kind things is very much what we like to do and yeah it’s very much a team effort I think for everybody across the sector.

Adam Sroka (11:31) I

wanted to just touch on a few things around team and have you found like being a Partner at CMS as you’ve gone on the journey? My reflection, anecdotal evidence is that energy is a lot like a lot of tech industries, quite male dominated, quite a lot of like pale male and stale thing. That vibe, true of tech, quite true of what I’ve seen of energy, although it is changing.

How’s that been for you over the last 15 years? And how do you feel it is different in the legal sector or your interface to the industry?

Louise Dalton (12:09) Yeah, it’s an interesting one. Maybe if I start in terms of law, there’s actually more female solicitors now, qualified solicitors than there are men, I think it’s just over 51%. So I think that happened maybe a couple of years ago. And I would say, in city law, and, you know, again, there’s a lot of gender parity, frankly, probably more women coming through at the junior ranks,

the issue that you’ve had with law has been retention of talent as you become more senior promotion of talent and enabling people to get to partnership. Particularly when people are having children and there’s been a very much a perception that being a hands on parent and also being a law firm Partner hasn’t necessarily possible. Full disclosure, I have two

boys, 5 year old Leo and my second son Kit is 14 months. So I’ve done two maternity leaves, one as a Senior Associate and one as a Partner. And I think I’ve never felt any avert gender discrimination or anything like that. I think it’s more about juggling competing demands, and there being this perception that if you work in the city at a law firm, you know,

you’re in the office till midnight every night and you can’t have a weekend and you never see your children. That is something that I’m really keen to disabuse everyone of, that it is possible to have a really successful, interesting career and put your kids to bed every night, which is what I do. And don’t get me wrong, that means there’s a bit of a juggle in terms of childcare and help on other things and logging on in the evenings and various other things. But

it is definitely possible. On the energy side of things, I think that is potentially more challenging. And I think that’s for a few reasons. I mean, a bit like tech, ultimately, if a lot of people are coming in with their engineering degrees, ultimately, if you’re not having gender parity and people going in and doing some of the electrical engineering degrees, that is ultimately going to mean that you’re going to have fewer people on the technical sides

who are women.

Adam Sroka (14:30) So I’ve got a 3 year old and a 15 month old, so I know where you are. And I also, yeah, have a startup. So I completely agree. It’s very rare I don’t put my girls to bed. I get home for 5 o’clock most days because I start earlier and I do things differently, and I spend all weekend doing it. The idea of women in leadership roles, I think is very important, but also like myth busting examples like yourself. And there’s other women I’ve worked with in the past that

completely blow apart this myth that you can’t be even a secondary caregiver and in a high demanding career. Like you totally can do it if you juggle things the right way, and I think showing not only

women also, men or people in positions of power that maybe have these biases that actually you can do it all if you’re driven to do so. So it’s amazing to hear that you’re a living example of this. Again, I can quite happily share with people because I think it’s hard to know

how to drive the conversation forward without living proof of, we’ll go and speak to such and such or go and look at this person.

Louise Dalton (15:40) Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to be what you cannot see, I think is the phrase. I mean one thing I would say, my other half is also a Partner in law firm. So we’re fairly unique, I think. I mean, I know a few others, but one thing I would say is I completely endorse that the hands on Dad is, I would not be able to do what I do without Simon being a 50/50 parent. And

It’s one thing I’m really, really passionate about. It’s actually I don’t think you solve the retention of senior women problem until you empower dads to be really, really hands on. And that starts from parental leave and having proper paid parental leave. It’s something I’m very, very passionate about. And I know there’s people like Elliott Rae and others on the parenting out loud

discussion, It is really important because you can’t do the old gender model of mum leading on everything and continue to do this. So that is definitely an area that I think, both in law, but also in the energy sector, we can do better on because being hands on parents is important to both genders. And we shouldn’t still be in a situation where it’s a rarity

that a guy’s taking more than two weeks off. Simon took a shared parental leave for both of our boys and it’s completely transformed their relationships, I think. And I think it’s really, really empowering for dads as well. So that’s definitely an area that I think will help and unlock a number of diversity issues if we can break down the perceptions that dads work and mums care.

Adam Sroka (17:32) Yeah, and it was one of the things so being a bootstrap startup, we try to be generous with benefits and things like that and enhanced paternity or equal paternity maternity leaves. I’m very passionate about it, I only got two weeks for my first child and it was nothing, it’s over in a flash and my partner wasn’t ready to be the full time parent after two weeks of like it’s

traumatic process that we’re going to have to go through.

Yeah, I’m passionate about it. It’s very difficult as a small business to make that happen, but I’m hoping that we can nudge forward towards that because I think unless we start doing it, we won’t start doing it. The industry is not going to change without people changing it.

Louise Dalton (18:15) I think it needs to just be the norm, doesn’t it? That’s the thing. Once everybody’s doing it, you can’t not do it, if that makes sense. And I think being the people that driving that forward is really important. One thing I would say as well, in addition to parental leave and supporting mums and dads, one thing I found really helpful was maternity coaching, which is something a lot of people have never heard of

but I would absolutely advocate for. It’s a scheme we have at CMS, I’m sure lots of other organisations do have it, where you have 4 sessions with an independent coach. And you have 2 whilst you’re pregnant and still working, once while you’re off on leave, and then one when you come back. And the whole idea behind it is it’s completely independent. And you’ve just got somebody that you can say, how do I…

hand over my work? And who should I do that with? And all the things you’re most worried about. So for me, the thing I was most worried about was before I had children, I would regularly be in the office until 7, 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock, most days of the week, to be honest. And I was like, I don’t understand how this is going to work with me leaving the office, going to the nursery, picking up a child, taking them like, how do I do that? And

perform at the level that I was performing at. How do I tell people I can’t make a call because I’ve got to go and do pick up? That, at the time for me, felt like a real challenge. And it was really great to have an independent voice just to talk to you about that. Come up with strategies about what and how I might manage those things. But, you know, just even just challenge me. So, again, never really considered that I was a role model at that point, you know, when I had Leo,

as a senior associate. And my coach said to me, Louise, other people are going to be looking at you and seeing if you can manage this. If you can’t leave the office loudly on time, then that has a wider implication. It’s not just what you need to do. It has a wider implication on other, would- be parents in the team. So that’s something I’ve really taken to heart. So I leave loudly all my team know that I

I’m off to do pick up and bedtime. They also know that, if I need them, I can be online later on. But I actually have been very lucky both, and also with my clients. I’m now very, very open with all my clients. You know, I’ve got to go and do pick up. I can speak later on tomorrow morning. And, and actually I’ve had no issues, genuinely no issues. I think sometimes it’s the

the fear of the unknown and the fear of it rather than the actuality.

Adam Sroka (21:12) I love that phrase ‘leave loudly’, by the way, I’m going to use that. I really like that because it’s something I think I try and embody.

Change of gear a little bit, I just wanted to touch on, you’ve spoken in the past about the importance of 50-50 gender balance. What advice or what steps do you think organisations should be taking to try and make that happen?

Louise Dalton (21:33) I think I’ve touched on a couple of them. I do think parental policies and supportive parental policy is really important. I think maternity coaching is incredibly helpful and mentoring as well and support programmes to help people potentially overcome some of their imposter syndrome or assumptions that that’s not really a role that they could take. I mean, it took me a long time to think that potentially I

could be partnership material. It wasn’t something that I thought I could be doing. So I think a lot of that is, is happening. It’s around having as many senior advocates as possible to support the next generation coming through, and encourage people to maybe go out a little bit outside their comfort zone. And Munir Hassan, who’s head of our team, he was

really good with me about saying, Louise go and speak at that conference. And when he first said that to me, I was absolutely terrified. Go and join that committee. You know more about this than lots of other people. And the idea that that was something You need someone to challenge you to push you to do some of that stuff. And I think sometimes there can be a natural reticence to put yourself out there. And I think that’s to be honest,

sometimes why some of the conferences struggle with having so many manels and stuff is that, you know, sometimes women are less willing to put themselves forward. I think you guys have actually done really well in terms of having a good gender balance. But I’ve spoken to other people who’ve got podcasts and they’ve said, actually, they really struggled to sometimes get women to come on because they say, I don’t really have, you know, I don’t really want to or I’m not really comfortable with doing that, which is fine from a personal perspective.

But again, you need more women in these conversations, I think. And not just women, as I say, I think it’s goes to all diversity. If we think gender diversity could be improved in the energy sector, I definitely think BAME representation, LGBT, et cetera, et cetera. There are a number of other things on the D&I perspective that we could

we could do better at both in law and in energy.

Adam Sroka (24:01) I completely agree. The bit about events is interesting because Cynthia, who will be speaking on a panel with CMS soon, she said, and I wanted to touch on women in energy stories in particular, because she had this whole idea about how for the number of years that she’s been working in the industry,

she had the advantage, she said, of being the only woman at most events. So she ended up knowing everyone because she was the only woman in attendance for a long time. Nowadays it’s all changed. It’s changed slightly. But she was baffled when she came to one of the Women in Energy Storage events, there was like 250 women there and she was really impressed. So yeah, could you tell us a bit about the group Women in Energy Storage and what’s going on there? Because it sounds really exciting.

Louise Dalton (24:53) Yeah, absolutely. So, WiNES which is the acronym, which was not deliberate, but it just ended up happening. There was no alcohol focused nature of it. So I came up with the idea of WiNES a year ago, actually. And so I went to one of the big energy storage conferences and I was actually on mat leave at the time. I’d taken a keeping in touch day to go and speak at the conference. I was looking around, and I just got really annoyed because

maybe 15% of the attendees were women, maybe. And I mean, I now wear really bright clothes when I get to these conferences, because at least one thing you can do is really stand out as a woman. So I came back from the conference and, whilst I was on mat leave, just wrote down a list of 30, 40 women that I knew in the energy storage sector. And I was like, right, we’re gonna set up

an organisation. At the start, it was just like, we’ll have a drinks reception, and we’ll see how it goes. So we launched last summer. And now we have a LinkedIn page, we’ve got branding, and we got our next couple of events coming up, the one that Cynthia is speaking at, at the Energy Storage Summit, and then another one at the end of March, the 27th of March,

focused more on property and consenting issues for energy. So yeah, I mean, if someone has said to me, there are over 500 women working in energy storage, and I’m sure that’s not everyone, but that’s how many members of the group we’ve got. And yeah, it’s really evolving.

The idea is that this is such a fast moving sector, energy storage, it is still relatively nascent, it’s moving all the time. It’s a network obviously for women to get to know each other in the sector and promote each other and advocate and use those connections to share knowledge. But it is also around that knowledge piece, around

being able to spotlight on specific areas of expertise and key developments that different people are advising on. And we’ve got the full range of members. We’ve got people from banks and some of the big investors, a number of different advisors on the financial and technical advisory and real estate, and then loads of developers and people whose whole lives are

living and breathing actually delivering these projects. So it’s super exciting.

So yeah, it’s only a year old, we’re seeing where it’s going and we’d be delighted if anyone can come along to our events, free events in and of themselves, and you can follow us on LinkedIn as well. So please do join.

Adam Sroka (27:55) There you go.

I didn’t realise it was only a year old. Well done. It’s brilliant. What an achievement. That, in an industry that changes so much and is as complex as energy, I do think that just knowing someone who’s thought deeply about the problem you’ve just bumped into because they’ve been doing it in a different part of the sector, just super valuable. It’s worked for me my whole career. I would encourage anyone to get involved in community, but WiNES sounds amazing.

Try and speak and get on the stage at these communities as well because that’s your opportunity, your soft landing into doing this stuff and being in a supportive environment. So I think that’s amazing. So look, we’re fast approaching International Women’s Day. Do you have a message that you’d like to share with women considering legal or energy?

Louise Dalton (28:54) It’s an amazing sector with so many opportunities. If you think about what we’ve been talking about as some of the things today, what you’ll see in your career will not necessarily be what you see today, but it will be dynamic and complicated and it will keep you interested all the way through. And I think there is genuinely desire in both sectors for better diversity of all stripes.

I suppose, don’t limit yourself, dream big, and don’t limit yourself because I think as we discussed, I think sometimes it’s more our own perceptions are holding us back rather than necessarily macro issues.

Adam Sroka (29:37) Amazing. So let’s lean into some of the energy legal stuff a little bit then because I’m interested to know your thoughts on some of the regulatory stuff and I must admit don’t follow it as closely or have as much time as I’d like. I’m more sort of in the weeds, fiddling, tinkering with all the toys but from a regulatory perspective what’s going on and how are things evolving and supporting that transition?

Louise Dalton (30:06) Yeah, it’s a busy time. Even we as the lawyers and all the industry groups are struggling to keep on top of the amount of changes going on at the moment. So there are two very big things on the horizon at the moment, connections reform and REMA, the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements. And both are needed to enable us to actually meet Clean Power 2030,

and our wider goals of what we want UK PLC to look like from an energy perspective. But as you can imagine, I will say creating a lot of questions in terms of what that looks like in terms of legal documents and what that looks like in terms of investments when you don’t quite know the impact that these potential reforms will have. So just very briefly, connections reform.

Up until now, we’ve effectively had a system whereby you could apply for a connection and you didn’t need to demonstrate very much tool or even necessarily put down very much money in order to obtain that connection. So we now have a connections queue that is well over 700 gigawatts in the UK, which is very, very large given where peak demand is.

connections reform has been effectively going to move us to a first ready, first connected approach. So you effectively need to be able to demonstrate land rights in order to get your connection date and your connection point. And the idea behind it is that stops some of the zombie projects that are in the queue at the moment, they will come out of the queue. So you don’t have

these crazy, “oh, yes, you can have a connection, but you can’t connect until 2037” which is some of the projects that the connection dates some of my clients have been given. In addition to that, more recently since the election of Labour and the Clean Power 2030 plan, they have also said not only do you need to be ready, and first ready, first connected, but you also need to be strategically aligned,

and strategically aligned with Clean Power 2030. And effectively Clean Power 2030, NESOs advise government on what technologies they think they need where in the country, in order to meet Clean Power 2030. So you’ve basically got different pots of capacity, up to 2030 and up to 2035, in all different regions, both at transmission and distribution level across the country.

That is probably the thing that’s causing people most havoc because whereas obviously getting land rights and getting a three year land option for the right energy density is very much in your control, strategic alignment, you don’t have any control about what the other projects you have in the in the area are. And we’ve seen the heatmaps. So there are going to be a number of projects that are not strategically aligned. So it’s a very strong driver

ultimately in terms of where to potentially locate future projects. But the issue that we’ve got at the moment is all the projects that people thought they had and then doing the analysis about whether they meet that strategic alignment criteria. NESO has included some protections in the proposals for in-flight projects. So if you’re an in-flight project due to connect in 2026, for example, you will always be deemed to be strategically aligned because

you need to not have a huge investment hiatus while this whole process is going on. And then there are other protections they’ve suggested if you’ve got a CfD, or a capacity market agreement, or have obtained planning before the connections reform go live. So those proposals are currently with Ofgem and we’re expecting an Ofgem decision over the next couple of months and go live is pencilled in for the 1st of May this year,

when the Gate 2 to Whole Queue process will happen. And that’s going to be the big queue reordering on the basis of the people that can meet their land requirements to go through to the gate two and get the connection date and connection point and also looking at strategic alignment. And that process is gonna take until the end of the year. So.

Adam Sroka (34:34) I can imagine.

Louise Dalton (34:35) Well, you can imagine, right? So NESO are going to basically be looking at every single substation being like, I’ve got all of this, this is who’s most ready, what can I deliver in the most efficient way? So in some ways, it’s hugely disruptive, it’s clearly needed. But that’s obviously been a huge area of advice at the moment, because every equity deal, every financing we’re doing, there will be a

connections reform question, about what and how and how it may be treated. And obviously, we have no certainty on that. So that’s probably the first big thing on the horizon in terms of regulatory change. And then, as I said, REMA is the other one. And REMA has been super interesting. I mean, we first got the first REMA consultation in 2022, and we’re now in 2025, but it was actually a very interesting problem statement of we are moving to

this system, which is non dispatchable, intermittent generation, which is distributed across the country. We designed the system in a world where we had, you know, a small number of large thermal power plants that were connected to transmission network. Does the way we structure our system actually work? And whilst we’ve had electricity market reform back in 2013, in reality, that just bolted on

two schemes, the CfD and the capacity market onto our existing electricity wholesale system. Whereas REMA very much was looking at everything at the start in 2022, everything was on the table. And, you know, potentially a green power pool and moving from self dispatch is what we currently have now to central dispatch, for example. And, gradually, pretty slowly, they’ve been moving

cutting down the options. So for example, we will remain a self dispatch system. But there are a number of proposals that still on the table. The biggest one that probably causes most uncertainty from an investor’s perspective is potentially moving around from, moving away from national pricing to zonal pricing. And that is yeah, causing this-

there’s going to be winners and losers on that. Clearly there are lots of other jurisdictions that have zonal pricing, you know, across the world, or even more complicated than zonal pricing down to nodal. then lots of advocates either way for whether to go to it. I suppose the biggest thing that we’re seeing is people don’t know how to deal with that in their contracts at the moment. And potentially,

how much modelling they can do. And I think they can do modelling, but then what impact that has, for example, under long-term fixed price battery storage tolls or corporate PPAs, what does that look like? The government’s provided some certainty that for CfD backed projects, they will move to a zonal reference price. So effectively, you have a CfD, you’ll be protected. But there’s obviously a number of other projects, block-based back projects.

storage, etc, etc, that would not be protected by that mechanism. So that’s created a lot of uncertainty for existing projects, but also people who are looking to build out some of the pipeline to meet 2030. So we should have a decision on that again, by the summer, we should have at least a policy decision. How long it’s actually going to take to implement if they, for example, do decide to move to zonal pricing.

I mean, I’ve heard anything from three to five years. And you know, it’s not my area, but I believe the technology that’s going to be required to actually implement it is going to be the biggest long lead item, everyone will need every trader will need to redesign the systems as well as NESO etc, etc. So I think there’ll be a huge amount of investment required if we do go down that route. And I think one of the things that DESNZ is currently trying to weigh up is

is the consumer benefit of the reduced balancing costs that the economists may predict will come from moving to zonal pricing away from national pricing. Is that worth it in the context of the disruption and the level of grandfathering that might be required for existing projects, and all of that investment? I’ve heard the analogy being are we trying to

fix the car while we’re on the motorway kind of thing. If we’re trying to hit Clean Power 2030, is it just too disruptive to do it?

Adam Sroka (39:22) Yeah, that’s an interesting take actually.

Louise Dalton (39:23) I think the other thing is with Clean Power 2030 and strategic alignment on connections and then also on the planning side, you have things like the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, which has been issued, which gives very clear indication about where government think, from a planning perspective, they think these projects should be. So you’ve already got some quite strong drivers to locate in certain areas, both on the connections and planning side. So do you need it

from a system perspective as well? But that’s gonna be super interesting, whatever comes out of it, because we will definitely end up with a reformed CfD that works better the new world we’re going into. We are gonna see a reformed capacity market, which takes denicarbonisation more into account. So there will definitely be some reforms, it’s just how radical they go

go down that route and particularly whether we move to zonal pricing. And I suppose the last thing I should mention just on energy storage, my favourite topic, is obviously the government are looking to bring in a cap and floor to support long duration energy storage. And they’re really pushing really hard on that. So from making the decision to press ahead with it last year, we are already looking at

implementing that policy during the course of 2025, which is a testament to how long it’s taken them to actually make the decision to have a cap and floor mechanic. And also what we need to hit Clean Power 2030.

So we have to make the decisions now to enable them to happen. For this to happen, you think some of these technologies, pumps hydrate, you need to do some pretty significant civil engineering to deploy the projects, right? So that’s also going to be fascinating. So yeah, 2025, there’s a lot going on. Let alone everything else in terms of actually, people just trying to get projects away and

getting their revenue and construction contracts and bringing in equity and debt in the usual course as well.

Adam Sroka (41:32) I think it’s amazing. It’s one of those things, just hearing you talk there, you could almost see the legal aspect of the energy sector, a bit of a lens into the future of like what’s happening next. Because for any of this stuff to happen at all, the regulatory and legal frameworks need to exist, right?

It’s almost like the stuff that’s being deployed and developed now was probably in that part of the process five, six, seven years ago, right? And it’s interesting because I think for a lot of techies, it’s not like a lot of people that end up in my career don’t naturally lean towards thinking about regulatory frameworks and legal and stuff like that. But actually it’s an even better lens on what’s to come because you’re right, like, yeah, the technology.

that’s going to be provided, even just from a software side to support some of that change, is probably not being thought about. I’ve talked about this a fair bit, but the levels of investment that go into CapEx deployment of physical kit versus actually the bit that’s going to make the optimal decisions for you is probably really disjointed. So it’s a really interesting place to play. And look, if you need help with a consultant to come and help you with that tech journey, I’m sure I can think of a few.

I’m conscious of your time. Being a very busy senior Partner at a law firm is very important. Before we let anyone go though, I do just always have to ask if there’s anything you would like to promote or plug or if people want to come and speak to you or find out more, where should we direct them?

Louise Dalton (43:07) So in terms of CMS, we run a number of renewable energy breakfast seminars, not only in London, but also in our Scottish offices. They’re free to attend. Obviously, you came and starred in one recently on energy and AI, which was fantastic. So please do sign up to those and come along to those. It’s fantastic networking. But also we try and drill quite deep into emerging issues and so and they’re very much like an hour.

You can come into our offices, grab some breakfast, network, have some interesting conversations and head off on your day. Me and the wider team are very active on LinkedIn. So that’s a good way to follow what’s going on. And we have a Law Now service, gives summaries of the latest legal updates and issues that we’re seeing. And then just in terms of WiNES,

As I mentioned, we do have a LinkedIn page and a mailing list as well. So if you search Women in Energy Storage on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to find the team there.

Adam Sroka (44:14) This has been a really, really fascinating conversation. Thanks very much. I appreciate your time Louise and I’m looking forward to seeing you at an event again soon. We’ll be certain to point people your way. All the best for the quiet year 2025’s got for you.

Louise Dalton (44:28) Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

Adam Sroka (44:32) Pleasure. Thank you.

Adam Sroka (44:36) An amazing conversation with Louise. Always a bit intimidated by Louise and like high flying, powerful lawyer at a really big firm. Really good discussion about parenting actually, and like the 50-50 parenting thing and how that’s really important and just the challenges and the successes she’s had in maintaining a really demanding career, but also living a whole life and raising a family.

doing that wider stuff. think it’s very easy to neglect that in these roles. And her mindset shift and sort of maturing as a contributor and setting boundaries. Really good discussion about REMA, about grid connections reform. And I think it’s interesting, like during the discussion, I realised that actually the lawyers and the legal stuff isn’t always the most exciting for engineers.

However, they get this lens into the future of what’s coming in the industry and for anything to happen, the legal side has to get through it first. So we’re paying more attention to that in the future, definitely. If you enjoyed the conversation, please reach out for more. If you know people that would add something really interesting, please let us know and watch this space for the Beyond Energy community. We’re really going to ramp that up and we’re going to start hosting more in-person events and more and more stuff.

To create a really collaborative environment for people across the energy sector to get together and share great ideas. So thanks for joining us again today and I look forward to seeing you at events soon.