Changing power: innovating electricity legislation upon regulated governance experimentation for smart grids

Smart grids are a promising innovation in the energy sector, however, the current legal framework is tailored for the conventional electricity system and does not facilitate the deployment of smart grids. In order to find new governance forms which alleviate this problem, recent efforts in the Netherlands allow for derogations from the standard legal framework (regulated governance experimentation). But do the governance structures of the Dutch experiments provide new governance models for developing a legal framework which enables smart grids on larger scale? This question is answered by taking an interdisciplinary approach between governance and legal research. The findings indicate that whereas derogation from specific legal rules allows for collective generation, P2P supply, dynamic electricity tariffs and involvement of consumers, it does not facilitate the emergence of new actors that could very well play a relevant role with regard to smart grid operation. Only associations are allowed to carry out all the tasks in the electricity supply chain. Therefore, the paper concludes that the results from the experiments can only to a limited extent provide new governance models for developing a legal framework that facilitates the implementation of smart grid technology on a larger scale.