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NETWORK / 38 / APRIL 2018 NET WORK/ENERGY SYSTEMS CATAPULT INDUSTRY BRIEFING O ne of the main subjects for debate was the governance and regulation of the energy system. Energy Systems Catapult head of innovation Eric Brown kicked off the discussion by laying out the scale of the challenge: "Broadly speaking, we've inher - ited the current world from the 1980s when the current frame- works were put in place. And those frameworks were based on the nature of the system and business models as they existed at the time." He said the changes which have taken place in the interven- ing years have largely been incremental, but the energy sys- tem is now undergoing a com- plete transformation, suggesting the need to rethink governance and regulation to esnure we are following the best approach for the times. A number of attendees raised concerns that regulation was lagging behind, and potentially stifling, innovation. ABB technology strategy manager Peter Jones said inno - vators need space to experiment at the "periphery" of the regula- tory framework, saying it should "never, ever be in a position where it stops true free-market innovation". "We should never be in a po- sition where due to the slowness of the regulations we stifle the innovation because the ultimate aim of innovation is to reduce the cost of energy, which is the transformational, we think this is really crucial. The big ques - tion is, how do we adapt that to regulation?" Ofgem chief engineer, Peter Bingham, pointed out how daunting the energy market can be for new entrants: "There's a mass of legalistic codes. There's a mass of licences. There's a large number of different or - ganisations dealing in different aspects of data. All that can be difficult for a new entrant to manage." He trumpeted the virtues of Ofgem's regulatory sandbox, which offers innovators tem- porary exemptions from some regulations "so new ideas can get some traction". At the same time, ABB's Jones, warned against going too primary function of the regula- tor," he added. Open Utility innovation man- ager Rachel Stanley stressed the importance of early-stage test- ing, citing their experiences de- veloping a platform for peer-to- peer trading. She said peoples' preferences were o"en revealed to be quite different from those they expressed themselves. "If you build what people thought they wanted, then potentially you've built the com - pletely wrong thing," Stanley explained. "And so, the more that you can test things early, the more that you can actually know that what you're produc- ing will do what you want it to do." She continued: "Given that we are trying to do something so Getting regulation right The Energy Systems Catapult was created to help remove the obstacles preventing innovators from bringing new products, services and business models to market. Last month, the body - in conjunction with Network - held an industry briefing at its office in Birmingham to examine some of these hurdles, how they can be dismantled and the potential opportunities on offer.