Market Review: Completed
Overview
The Australian Energy Market Commission has published further advice to the COAG Energy Council (Council) on rules to implement regulatory sandbox arrangements in the national electricity and gas markets.
A regulatory sandbox is a framework within which participants can test innovative concepts in the market under relaxed regulatory requirements at a smaller scale, on a time-limited basis and with appropriate safeguards in place.
On 26 September 2019 the AEMC released the final report on regulatory sandbox arrangements to support proof-of-concept trials in the national electricity and gas markets.
At its meeting on 22 November 2019, the Council agreed to the AEMC's recommendations to introduce a regulatory sandbox toolkit. The Council asked the AEMC to provide further advice on rule changes, including stakeholder feedback on the proposed rule drafting provided in the AEMC’s final report and a final recommended package of rule changes.
The AEMC published an information sheet on 16 January 2020 and received 15 submission. After considering stakeholder submissions, we have made a number of changes to the recommended drafting of the rules.
Note that this advice and proposed drafting is based on the assumption that law changes will be made that are similar to those described in the AEMC's final report. This law change process will be subject to stakeholder consultation led by the COAG Energy Council, approval by COAG Energy Council and passage through South Australian parliament. As such the law changes may be different to our assumptions and hence the rule drafting will need to be updated to reflect the final form of law changes.