I am told that some may be confused about how best to address me in correspondence. Just keep it simple – “John”. Within the past few years I have gone full circle from “Dear John” to “Dear Sir John” (when I was knighted by the Queen in 2003) and now back again to “Dear John”. Should protocol require a formal address then use “Dear Lord Mogg” but definitely not “Dear Lord John” nor “Dear Lord” (which has far too many religious overtones). The British protocol is that my ennoblement to lordship – “Lord Mogg of Queenspark” – takes precedence over that of the knighthood – “Sir John”. Ah well, the wonders of the honours system within the UK. If there are formal documents to sign (fortunately rare!), I return to my schoolboy nomenclature “Mogg” (no John, and no John Mogg)!

Just to make it more confusing, I also wear different regulatory hats. In the Great British context, I am Chairman of Ofgem. When representing the European energy regulators at EU level, I wear two hats – one for the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) and the other for ERGEG. Wearing my hat as head of the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), I am “CEER President”, while in the context of ERGEG, I am the “ERGEG Chair”.

Who put the “egg” into ERGEG?
ERGEG was created by the European Commission as its formal advisory group of national energy regulators, while CEER had already been set up by the regulators themselves on their own initiative. Not everyone knows what ERGEG stands for nor why the Commission put the “egg” into it. ERGEG is the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas. Energy Regulators Group could have made a suitable name for us but when the Commission set up ERGEG in 2003 the European Regulators Group (ERG) – which is the equivalent group of Member State regulators but in the telecoms sector- already existed. So the European Commission, in its wisdom, put the “egg” into ERGEG.

From Mogg’s Blog on World Forum on Energy Regulation (WFER IV), all the best from me!