From energy communities to sector coupling: a taxonomy for regulatory experimentation in the age of the European Green Deal

Europe has recently confirmed and augmented its commitment towards full decarbonization through the EU Green Deal and the Fit for 55 package. Energy policy struggles to keep up with technical and business novelties, often constituting an obstacle for technological innovation. Regulatory sandboxes and pilot projects have recently played a central role in the policy strategy adopted by many countries, but a common framework is still missing. In this work, moving from the approaches adopted by Ofgem in Great Britain and Arera in Italy, a list of experimental dimensions is firstly proposed, and the most important trialling experiences individuated worldwide are mapped on it. Therefore, clustering these experiences based on their characteristics, a reference taxonomy to design and classify regulatory experiments is proposed. In parallel, topics addressed within trials are described and mapped on the main challenges posed by EU Green Deal targets on the power system. The analysis highlights that there is no one-size-fits-all approach towards regulatory experimentation, and that effort is needed to ensure coordinated initiatives within and among European countries, in order to timely achieve a net-zero energy system in the most effective way.