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Adams believes the real issue is costs not prices and that price cuts and price caps “don’t work” because the gap between revenue and costs is made up by, for example cost sharing. In short somebody pays, now or in the future, even if it doesn’t show up on the electricity bill.

Adams offered three pieces of advice to the new government.

“The first step on the road to recovery is audit, audit and audit,” part of a plan to get all the facts on for example, existing contracts and existing governance at the various agencies in the $21 billion electricity business.

“All of the one-off pieces of analysis (that have been done by, for example, the Auditor General) need to be threaded together into a comprehensive (database.) We have to have a fact-based conversation,” Adams said. “We can’t get too far into opinion before we get the facts.”

Associated with that is an understanding, “a realistic view,” of future supply and demand, an analysis that will show where gaps will develop over the next five to 10 years.

And before the government (as it said it will) scraps the 10-year old Green Energy Act, Adams said the public needs to be told about the replacement. That act — that involved feed-in-tariffs and high-priced contracts with producers — left a large “footprint” on the system as well as changes to the “governance rules.” In other words Adams said the government needs time “but they need to do some homework.”

Finally Adams spoke of “managing expectations,” given that governments have, for years, promised “quick solutions,” to what is a multi-faceted problem.