State intervention in the energy sector has become increasingly evident, even in the most liberal arrangement of electricity markets –including in the UK. However, the literature treats these as marginal interventions to provide incentives or reduce business risks. This presentation will argue that the role of state intervention is more structural that just intervention on price signals. The presentation will use evidence from the UK, Europe and other reference cases known for their idiosyncratic traditions of state intervention (including Mexico and Morocco) to show that we have seen an institutional reorganisation of the industry that redistribution the relative power between political authorities, regulators and the industry. The presentation will summarise a package of work collaborations from 2021 to 2023 with authors that include John Rhys (U of Oxford SoGE) and Emmanuelle Matthieu (U of Laussane). The presentation will be of interest to scholars studying electricity governance, methods for comparative policy studies and, in particular, those asking what are the implications of the creation of the Future System Operator in the UK.