Toronto: On July 27, QUEST and Pollution Probe announced the release of a report that could impact the development of a regulatory approach often used in the energy sector, the innovation sandbox. The project is designed to help accelerate Canadian electricity and natural gas systems progress toward a low-emissions future by creating frameworks to enable innovation sandboxes in Canada. The report is titled “Enter the Sandbox: Developing Innovations Sandboxes for the Energy Sector.” The Innovation Sandboxes Project was launched June 18.
The partners describe Innovation Sandboxes as a policy tool, using collaboration to create conditions for a safe and controlled space to test new energy products, services and business models in a real-world environment. They provide the opportunity to change how processes, procedures, policies, rules or regulations are applied. The ultimate goal is to achieve systematic and long-lasting change to enable innovation that benefits consumers and society.
As the partners observe, municipalities and communities more generally have been hard hit by the pandemic. It is crucial to ensure that they have the resources, governance structures, and policy support to build community resilience and foster innovation in the energy sector. There is an opportunity to “leverage the great pause of COVID-19 to understand better what is holding us back in terms of accelerating our transition to a low-emissions energy system efficiently and fairly, and inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives. Getting this right for our economy and our communities, especially for those who have been impacted the most, is more critical than ever before.”
“In certain cases, regulation or market oversight can act as barriers to developing more decentralized and flexible energy systems and experimenting and diffusing more agile and innovative energy services or business models,” said Richard Carlson, Director of Energy Policy at Pollution Probe. “Innovation Sandboxes are one way to promote innovation by allowing for collaboration and experimentation to safely happen in a real-world environment, as well as learn from them to inform the type of policy or regulation change needed.”
Although most sandboxes to date have focused on enhancing flexibility in regulatory rules, Mr. Carlson notes that “we define innovation sandboxes broadly, and not just in regulation.” Some examples include collaboration centres, enquiry services, and regulatory trials.
The project will consist of a series of reports that analyze Innovation Sandbox-like initiatives in the energy sector in other countries to identify best practices and lessons learned to design and develop Innovation Sandboxes in Canada successfully. Stakeholder workshops in select jurisdictions tailored to provincial and territorial circumstances will follow.
For more information, see questcanada.org/.