Overcoming Regulatory and Socio-Economic Barriers to European Energy System Digitalisation

This paper investigates regulatory and socio-economic barriers to energy system digitalisation in the European Union, drawing on evidence from the SYNERGIES project. It adopts a mixed-methods approach combining legal and policy analysis, a structured stakeholder survey (N=41), semi-structured interviews across three demonstration sites and Living Lab validation. The findings identify fragmented regulation, low digital readiness, limited trust, organisational inertia and interoperability constraints as key obstacles to data sharing and digital tool adoption. Survey results show that 63.4% of respondents identify lack of social acceptance and trust in data sharing as a major barrier to consumer engagement, while 61% cite lack of smart metering infrastructure as a key obstacle to accessing energy data. To address these challenges, the paper proposes a participatory framework that links barrier identification, stakeholder validation and technical implementation through a federated Energy Data Space architecture. The SYNERGIES architecture combines decentralised data governance, smart contracts for automated compliance, semantic interoperability, privacy-preserving defaults and user-centred design. Living Lab activities assess the usability, institutional fit and stakeholder acceptance of these design choices across different socio-technical contexts. The results show that overcoming regulatory and socio-economic barriers requires the joint alignment of legal frameworks, technical architecture, governance mechanisms and participatory implementation. Limitations include the consortium-based sample, single-project context and exploratory descriptive survey design. The paper offers practical guidance for designing inclusive, secure and regulation-aware digital energy systems.