Enhancing awareness on sustainable energy (SE) is one of the key aspects of the INOGATE work. Over the last years the team worked intensively on the development and implementation of Sustainable Energy Information Centres (SEIC) in Georgia and Moldova. The SEICs will be focal points for disseminating information on Energy Efficiency (EE) and Renewable Energy Sources (RES), and will be instrumental in raising awareness of different target groups such as the general public, children, youth, industry (in particular Small and Medium Enterprises), policy makers and other stakeholders. 

The work, which was in Georgia in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy of Georgia (MoE) and the Tbilisi City Hall (TCH) and in Moldova in cooperation with the Energy Efficiency Agency of Moldova (AEE), will be culminated with the inauguration of the Centres in the second half of April 2016.

A two-days regional workshop (14-15 April 2016) is being organized by the ITS team in Chisinau, Moldova with participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine with the aim of disseminating the concept and the experience gained with the SEICs in Georgia and Moldova to all Eastern Partnership countries.

The overall objective of the workshop is to assist the decision makers in the beneficiary countries, who are currently not involved in concrete SEIC projects, to get first-hand experience from Georgia and Moldova and to explain the rationale for establishing a SEIC and to share lessons learned.  

You can follow the development of this activity at “Regional Workshop to Disseminate SEIC Experience from Georgia and Moldova”.

Ukraine has been facing a drastic decrease in renewable energy investment since 2014. The country went from being the largest recipient of renewable investment in the region, to almost non-existent investment flows based on the 2015 regional REN21 UNECE report.

Due to the challenging local financing market, the public international financiers (i.e. international banks such as EBRD, EIB and the World Bank) have so far represented the main source of investment financing to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Whilst, this type of financing has enabled to provide for some energy efficiency activity and realisation of pioneering investments into renewable energy, private sector investments are still limited.

A new INOGATE assignment targets to increase private renewable energy investment into Ukraine through the identification and mitigation of barriers slowing down investment. The team will assess the interest and needs of Renewable Energy sources (RES) project developers’ and investors’ – both national and international – for investing in RES projects in Ukraine and will provide a set of insights and prioritized recommendations for increasing private sector investment in Ukraine’s RES sector addressed to project developers, investors, project initiators in Ukraine and European Commission.

In the second half of April 2016, a high-level policy talk is being organised in Kiev where the insights and recommendations from this outreach and consultation exercise will be presented.

You can follow the development of this activity at “Insights and recommendations on facilitating private sector investments in RES projects in Ukraine”

Setting up a regulatory authority for energy is a fundamental factor for the successful implementation of the set of strategic tasks, approved by the Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan on July 23, 2015, aiming to introduce market-based relations in the electricity and natural gas sectors, with a view to attracting private investments and increasing economic benefits for the whole economy.

INOGATE assists the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in best preparing the necessary background and designing the road map for the setup of a national regulatory authority for energy, in the context of implementation of its strategy for the effective development of the country's energy sector based on competitive market principles.

Within this context, a team of INOGATE experts, organized on 09 March 2016 in Baku, the Workshop “Perspectives, concerns and overall planning for the setup of an independent energy regulator in Azerbaijan”.  

During the workshop, which was attended by various governmental and market participant officials, the current conditions and commercial interrelations regarding operation of the energy sector of Azerbaijan were  presented  alongside the Government plans and programmes for development of the electricity and natural gas sectors and envisaged reforms of the sectors towards their restructuring and liberalization.  

The team also presented the experience of the European Union and Energy Community member states on the establishment of independent energy regulatory authorities, including analysis of regulator functions and duties with respect to current practices in Azerbaijan. The main focus of the workshop was on the specification of the concept of an independent energy market regulator in Azerbaijan, and the identification of the energy market legislative and structural reforms required in view of setting it up.  This discussion led to the preparation of the concept note and road map for setting up the energy regulator, which are now being reviewed internally by the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan. 

More information on this activity can be found at

"Setting up an independent energy regulator in Azerbaijan - perspectives, concerns and overall planning" and

 “Preparation of a concept note and a road map for the setup of an independent energy regulator, towards the development of the country's energy market (CWP.01.AZ)”.

The fundamental European standards have already been adopted by some countries in the INOGATE region. However, its implementation is delayed due to the inaccessibility of the secondary documents, i.e. technical regulations and standards of the EU countries and the lack of knowledge and skills of its practical application. 

To overcome these barriers in Georgia, the ITS team organized a one-day workshop in Tbilisi, on 22 March 2016 on the “Accessibility and implementation of international technical regulations and standards in the oil and gas sectors in Georgia” with the participation of international experts and representatives of the Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC).

During the event, the team raised awareness about standardization and regulation principles of the gas sector in the European Union, presented and discussed the optimal set of standards needed for complex systematic implementation of European gas functional standards for pipelines with maximum operating pressure (MOP) more than 16 bar and discussed the minimum set of European, international, national and other standards used as a reference standards in priority European functional gas standards and which are needed to be adopted to secure a full  implementation of these priority European functional gas standards.

Moreover, the ITS team has been supporting GOGC in the implementation and use of the already adopted priority gas standards as well as in streamlining the planning process of standards implementation in GOGC.  

You can find more information on this activity at “Accessibility and implementation of international technical regulations and standards in the oil and gas sectors in Georgia (Workshop) (CWP.03.GE a,b,c and CWP.04.GE)

On the 5th of April 2016, the second Energy Policy Talk took place at the Courtyard Marriot Hotel, Tbilisi, Georgia. The event was co-chaired by Deputy Minister of Energy of Georgia Mrs. Mariam Valishvili and Janos Herman, Ambassador of the European Union to Georgia.

It brought together Government Officials, the EU Delegation, leading EU Energy Experts to discuss together with Georgian national stakeholders energy efficiency and renewable energy as being among the most important strategic energy policy directions of the Government of Georgia and how the improvement of energy efficiency and development of renewable energy sources can significantly enhance the competitiveness of local products on international markets, attract new investments, create new jobs and improve energy security of the country. The national stakeholders had possibility to discuss and learn experience and practices of the Baltic states in the implementation of EU Directives after joining the Energy Community.

At this second Policy Talk there was a special focus on how to stimulate the interest to invest in energy efficiency measures and how this may be implemented in practice.

You can find more information about this event, at the following link: http://www.inogate.org/activities/742

On the photo: Deputy Minister of Energy of Georgia Mrs. Mariam Valishvili giving interview to mass media representatives.