Country Coordinators from the INOGATE Partner Countries met with the EC DG NEAR in Kiev on 28 - 29 September 2015. 

During the first day, the discussions revolved around the regional work plans and the progress in implementation of the country work plans, with the INOGATE experts presenting a short update on the progress made to-date. The Country Coordinators identified remaining work to be completed and supported under INOGATE at the regional level, as well as possible changes to their country work plans. In a closed session between the Country Coordinators and DG NEAR, during the second day, future regional technical assistance to Partner Countries was discussed in the light of the post-INOGATE period between 2016 and 2020. 

Country Coordinators provided concrete feedback to help establish the specific possible future technical assistance that will provide meaningful benefits for both the Partner Countries and the EU.

More information about the event can be found at the event’s dedicated page.

INOGATE experts are helping the government of Belarus to improve the country’s electricity tariff system for greater energy efficiency. This will benefit both industrial and individual consumers of energy.

Belarus is at the beginning of its restructuring and reform of the electricity sector; this includes reform of tariff regulation. A major component of cost reduction includes replacing average tariffs with cost-reflective time-of-use tariffs. These tariffs, which encourage energy use in periods of less demand (most commonly during the night instead of in daytime) will provide an incentive to some consumers to switch their consumption to off-peak hours, thus reducing spikes in peak demand. The reduced peak demand will also reduce the cost of transmission and of the development of the distribution grid.

The Ministry of Energy of Belarus together with INOGATE experts will focus on developing a tariff system that will allow consumers to optimise their consumption in the long term: according to their electricity requirements (day/night).

Cross subsidization, the practice of charging higher prices to one group of consumers in order to subsidize another group, will need to be eliminated to achieve the needed improvement of the tariff system. One of the elements defined in “The Concept of the State Programme of the Development of the Belarussian Electricity System for the Period till 2020” is improvement of the tariff policy as applicable to both residential and industrial consumers. 

The planned construction of a new nuclear power plant (with a first unit in 2018 and the second in 2020) has the potential to reduce the average cost of energy supply as it can be operated with a high capacity factor all year round. This will optimise consumption and, together with cost-reflective time-of-use tariffs, will reduce energy costs for both industrial and individual consumers of energy. 

When considering the harnessing of renewable energy (RE) resources, such as wind and solar energy, national governments, investors and suppliers must all ask themselves many questions: governments need to know how much energy capacity can be developed and what tariffs will be needed to encourage investment; developers and investors need information to help them decide where to invest, how much money will be needed and what the returns are likely to be; suppliers must be convinced that the market is big enough to warrant setting up distribution and servicing channels. All involved parties must be convinced that the ‘value at stake’ is sufficient to merit their involvement in developing the renewable market in a given country or region.

Geospatial mapping can answer many of these questions and is being introduced in several INOGATE Partner Countries to help them locate, quantify and assess wind and solar energy resources. Geospatial mapping can help policy makers, investors and other stakeholders understand their individual value at stake of sources of energy such as wind and solar energy, where it is, how much to exploit and what returns they can expect. In the early stages of renewable energy development, the mapping can support a concrete dialogue on what future energy policy could be.

Geospatial mapping is an online tool that helps investors and national agencies decide where to invest in RE feasibility studies, how much resource might be developed, where, at what cost and with what return, for a range of tariff/discount rate combinations. Computerised maps can provide the potential energy produced by solar or wind power on a national scale, regionally or in maps that are as detailed as 10 km2.

In July 2015 INOGATE transferred such a RESMAP (Renewable Energy Sources Map) to the Georgian Energy Development Fund during a special meeting where participants from various Partner Countries were given a demonstration of the prototype tool. There is great interest in RESMAP expansion for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova in the near future.

Participation in RESMAP application by the beneficiary countries will take the form of a small annual licence fee and training for updating and maintenance, as well as data collection. “The RESMAP allows you to look at various different scenarios of economically viable wind and solar energy resources, at different combinations of tariffs, discount rates and capital costs, whilst screening out areas that are unavailable for development.” says Mark Allington, ITS Expert. “It is detailed feasibility studies that lead to investment and policy change – the RESMAP lets you know where to undertake these studies” he added.

It is envisaged that the tool will be run independently by the countries after a short interim period of introduction.

The EU Delegation to Ukraine and the Support Group for Ukraine of the European Commission, with the support of the INOGATE Technical Secretariat, will join forces to organise a series of high-level events on Energy Market Reform and Sustainable Energy Policy for Ukrainian policy and decision-makers. The current economic crisis and lack of energy reforms during the last decades requires the coordinated implementation of a market-oriented and sustainable energy policy that can help Ukraine not only to decrease energy dependence on Russian gas, but to improve the economic situation in the country.

Taking into account the low level of awareness on available EU instruments to support energy market reform and sustainable development among Ukrainian decision makers, a key objective of the Energy Policy Talks is to hold open discussions on key issues related to energy market reform and sustainable energy policy, with the objective of getting the support of the above entities during the reform process. Another key objective is to support the implementation of reforms in the energy sector through facilitating the fulfilment of requirements of the Energy Community Treaty and the implementation of the EU Association Agreement.

The first in the series of Policy Talks will be organised in mid-October and will be devoted to the topic of energy tariffs. As regulation of end-customer tariffs and the application of subsidies will be a feature of the energy sector for many years to come, a detailed understanding of the components of the tariff is vital for transparency, cost recovery and an accurate reflection of the costs incurred by the various customer categories.

Follow the announcements on INOGATE web portal for more details on the Energy Policy Talks and how to be an active participant!

Whether you have any questions do not hesitate to send us an email on secretariat.kiev@inogate.org with the subject “Policy Talks”.

A meeting of the INOGATE Country Coordinators will be held through a working dialogue with the EC DG NEAR in Kiev, on 28-29 September 2015, following on from the last informal meeting held in Tbilisi in April 2015.

As the INOGATE Programme comes to a close in April 2016, the Country Coordinators will use the opportunity to meet informally to discuss the progress of implementation of the regional and country work plans and any adjustments that may be needed in view of the latest developments in Partner Countries.

In a closed session between the Country Coordinators and DG NEAR, the meeting will also address the future regional technical assistance to Partner Countries in the post-INOGATE period between 2016 and 2020. The aim is to get further, more concrete, feedback from Country Coordinators in relation to possible future technical assistance that provides meaningful benefits for both the Partner Countries and EU.

More information about the event can be found at the event’s dedicated page.