Along with the defence of the realm, keeping the lights on is a key priority for any British Government.
UK households and businesses have enjoyed power on demand for decades, and I suspect there would be uproar if the National Grid provided anything less.
For heaven’s sake, there’s already hell to pay if Coronation Street is interrupted by a temporary outage.
But what many people don’t appreciate is just how privileged we are to have such a commodity at our fingertips.
Generating electricity and then transmitting it across the country and into homes and businesses is an incredibly complex undertaking.
That it arrives at all is something of a modern engineering miracle; the fact it is safe and reliable is incredible.
But while we all take it for granted, the one thing our power supply is not is guaranteed.
To keep those lights on, the UK has had to develop coal, nuclear and hydro electric power, not to mention oil and gas and new forms of renewables.
In recent years, ‘energy mix’ has been the buzz phrase of the sector.
That is exactly what is needed if the lights are to stay on in the UK for generations to come.
But last week the new Conservative Government took a bizarre decision to deliver a major blow to one of the most productive of green energy sectors, onshore wind.
Granted, the Tories had the early scrapping of Renewable Obligation Certificate (Roc) support to the sector in their manifesto.
But few people including the Conservatives themselves, I’d be willing to wager thought that document would survive the election unscathed.
Parts of it would have to be dropped as part of the coalition partnership agreement, surely?
But the unexpected election outcome means the Government now has to fully deliver on the paper commitments made to the British people. The scrapping of onshore Roc support was one of those commitments, so off they pop.
New Energy Secretary Amber Rudd was staunch in her defence of change.
She argued there were now “enough subsidised projects in the pipeline” to meet renewable energy commitments and that mature technologies needed to stand on their own two feet.
Onshore Roc support cost UK taxpayers £800 million last year, so you can see where she is coming from on the commercialisation aspect.
But the renewables sector as a whole is still struggling post-recession, and investor confidence remains fragile.
Bringing an end to Roc subsidies without much more than a by your leave just makes things more difficult.
The decision was shouted down by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who variously called the move “wrong-headed” and “perverse”.
Given, that some 70% of pipeline onshore wind projects are north of the border, that reaction was predictable.
But what about the industry’s view?
Sector body Scottish Renewables said an end to Roc support for onshore wind would do “incredible damage” to £3 billion of future investment plans.
But, just as worryingly, it said it also put thousands of high-quality jobs at risk in Scotland.
For years I have watched the renewables sector in all its forms from afar, and the loss of real jobs paying real money would be a terrible blow.
Even with taxpayer support the sector has struggled, and without government backing there would be little to show for years of effort and struggle.
Some consider onshore wind to be a mature technology but I’d suggest it is still one with a lot of growing up to do.
Pulling the rug out from under the feet at this stage in its development is just plain wrong.