After 15 years at National Grid, including nearly 10 as chief executive, I am stepping down next month from a job I have loved and that has given me an opportunity to play a part in the huge changes in the UK energy sector.

When I joined, 80pc of UK electricity was supplied by fossil fuels and just 3pc came from renewables. Fewer than 50 power plants were pretty much all that Britain needed to allow National Grid to run a reliable electricity system.

Today, that could not be more different. Last year, those same fossil fuels supplied just 55pc of our electricity, while renewables have surged to 24pc. Thanks to the boom in wind, solar and, to a lesser degree, biomass we now have more than 240 individual generating stations feeding into our transmission grid, and thousands more businesses and households generating power into their local networks.

We are in the midst of nothing less than a revolution in the provision of our energy.

There are huge and exciting opportunities ahead but I am concerned that their impact has become muddled by misunderstanding. Phrases like “smart”, “off-grid” and “demand side response” mean different things to different people and are at times negatively portrayed. We need to separate fact from fiction.