Regulatory sandboxes for the energy transition

The energy transition which the EU is undertaking to achieve its ambitious energy and climate targets – and in particular climate neutrality by 2050 – requires new activities and processes to be developed and deployed at scale. These developments will be assisted and made possible by the rapid advances in technologies, including digitalisation.

The current regulatory framework for the energy sector, which was designed with reference to existing technologies and processes, might not be sufficiently conducive to these new developments and therefore a number of regulators have embarked on regulatory experimentation through the use of ‘regulatory sandboxes’.

The Workshop will aim to review the existing experience with regulatory sandboxes in the energy sector and beyond and to see what lessons could be learned and in which areas, going forward in the energy transition, they could play a useful role.

For this purpose, the Workshop, after an opening part, will be divided into two Sessions:

• Session I, in the morning, will focus on reviewing the existing experience with regulatory sandboxes and identifying the main lessons emerging from this experience;
• Session II, in the afternoon, will aim at discussing which role regulatory sandboxes could play in the energy transition process going forward.

Please note that this event is by invitation only.

Sustainability assessment

The FSR assesses the sustainability and carbon footprint of all its Workshops of the Regulatory Policy Workshop Series. This Workshop is run according to a hybrid format, allowing participants to join it in presence in Florence or through internet-based remote connection. It is expected that most participants will participate in the Workshop through remote connection, while a few of them, who particularly value personal interaction, will join the Workshop in Florence. Therefore, there will be limited travel involved compared to a fully presential event. Those participants joining the event in Florence will be encouraged to offset any carbon emissions related to their air travel. It is considered that, in this way, a suitable balance is achieved between the effectiveness of the policy dialogue and the net carbon footprint of the event.