UK vs Germany II
Is it constitutional?
Scroll through LinkedIn long enough with BESS filters on and a theme develops: grid connection timelines, opaque regulation, DSO/TSO permits, redispatch, revisions. The details differ, but the mood is recognisable: this feels harder than it should be.
Understanding builds slowly when problems and needs are not clearly defined or articulated. Enter professional communicators: analysts, journalists, mediators, lawyers, academics. The best open up new space, breathe fresh air into stale rooms.
TSO/DSOs and BESS operators could have been discussing the challenges associated with 15-min dynamics for years. And yet it seems we’re at the very beginning of this dialogue. Cases feel bespoke. Everyone seems to be comparing notes. Decision making is at a premium…
In Part I, we compared energy systems and noticed recurring differences in how coordination appears: where authority seems to sit, how transparency functions, how decisions arrive.
Now let’s step back and ask a more basic question. What shapes these differences in the first place?
UK vs. Germany, I.
I shifted my UK pension out of equities recently. It took a few clicks. Then, co-incidentally, I read Stuart Kirk’s column on doing something similar.
One tentative answer is constitutional habit. Constitutions as deeply embedded assumptions about coordination:
