Sophie Yule-Bennett specialises in energy markets, renewables and demand-side response in her work with RAP’s Europe programme and power team. She has more than 17 years’ regulatory and policy experience spanning the public, private and charity sectors.
Yule-Bennett began her legal career at the UK government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, where she developed a detailed understanding of EU and national constitutional processes, judicial review, state aid, and statutory drafting and interpretation. Her private sector roles, first at a City law firm and later as general counsel of a climate-tech startup, provided her with firsthand experience of the regulatory and financial challenges facing aspiring innovators. Since 2016, she has focused on advising nonprofit organisations and philanthropic foundations on energy and climate strategy, litigation and legislative proposals.Her work for RAP’s Europe power programme includes policy strategies for harness demand-side flexibility - both as an energy system resource (see RAP’s Joy of Flex paper), and as a tool for more equitable distribution of system value in society (Flex-ability for all).
Yule-Bennett has provided expert oral and written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee, the All-party Parliamentary Group on Energy Costs and to Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority. She has participated in policy working groups, including the UK government's Alternative Energy Market Innovation Programme,Ofgem’s Half-Hourly Settlement group and National Grid’s Demand Response programme. She is accustomed to speaking at industry events, including the Global Women’s Forum on Innovation.
She holds a first class honours law degree from the University of Warwick and completed her postgraduate legal practice course at the College of Law, London.
How Sophie Yule-Bennett is Energizing Change
Flex-ability for all: Pursuing socially inclusive demand-side flexibility in Europe
To add vast new amounts of solar, wind and other variable renewable generation, the electricity system will… Read More +
Electricity market reform, beyond the gas crisis
In the past, power market reform happened to increase efficiency, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or to… Read More +
How have RAP’s values shown up in your work?
Working within a multi-disciplinary team, across different sectors and countries, means constantly re-calibrating my assumptions and expectations about how energy systems can and should serve people’s needs. This is often uncomfortable - my legal training taught me to crave universal principles and neatly tied solutions, not pragmatic trade-offs with messy implications. But the practice of unlearning and relearning, within a supportive environment, has emboldened me to seek out more challenging feedback within and outside RAP, leading to richer policy conversations. Now, if everyone in the room agrees with me, I worry that I’m working in a silo!
What is one of your bravest accomplishments?
In 2014 I left my secure City law firm job to become General Counsel of a five-person climate-tech start up without secure funding. Within six months, we had crowd-funded £5m and launched a legal challenge against an energy subsidy scheme that was biased in favour of fossil fuel generation. The litigation was a long, brutal and at times isolating experience, with energy incumbents exerting their power at every turn. Due to Covid, the timetable was seriously extended and - thanks to very flexible colleagues, a supportive co-parent and a large amount of biscuits - I managed to navigate two pregnancies and maternity breaks while continuing to lead the case over seven years. We ultimately lost on appeal, but the policy framework has been positively amended following the challenge, with the improvements replicated across Europe. The experience shaped my identity and outlook, I am braver and more resilient as a result.
When I was 5, I was pretty sure I'd be an amateur teenage detective when I grew up.