Past Events - 2004 

 Bulletin

Agenda

Participant List

Materials

The Energy Regulators Regional Association (ERRA) held its Winter Tariff/Pricing Committee Meeting on February 23-24, 2004 in Bucharest, Romania. The meeting was co-hosted by the National Electricity and Heat Regulatory Authority of Romania (ANRE), the National Natural Gas Regulatory Authority of Romania (ANRGN), the Energy Regulators Regional Association (ERRA), and the U.S. National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), with funding provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

Representatives from 15 of ERRA’s 19 Full Members participated on the meeting, including Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Turkey, and Ukraine. ERRA Associate members joint the meeting from Mongolia, Romanian Gas Regulator.  As Observers, representative from the newly founded Regulatory Commission of Macedonia and Dr. Jamshid Heidarian, Senior Energy Advisor, Energy and Infrastructure Division, Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, USAID took part on the meeting. NARUC representatives included Ms. Sandra Waldstein, Senior Policy Advisor, Vermont Public Service Board and Mr. Mark Beyer, Deputy Chief Economist New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.
 
The Winter Meeting of the ERRA’s Standing Committee, which lasted for two-days, begun with traditional country updates presentations on the Regulatory Tariff News of the ERRA member-countries focusing on the news in the energy sector and tariff regulation. ERRA members introduced the regulatory situation in their country in a 15 minutes’ presentation updating on the latest changes since the previous meeting.

Further on, the Committee discussed and approved the Issue Paper on “Determination of Tariffs for Ancillary services” written by Ms. Sandra Waldstein, U.S., and Mr. Ainars Cunculis, Latvia. The issue paper included a comprehensive glossary of ancillary terms with the aim to clear of existing different understanding of terms used in the energy sector worldwide. The paper detailed the types, pricing and charges of ancillary services in the EU and ERRA countries. Prior to this paper, the ERRA Secretariat sent out two questionnaires to every participant in order to obtain information of the applicable ancillary services in the ERRA region. Appendixes to the paper focused on the UCTE terms, U.S. examples and state of ancillary services.

After that a case study was presented by Mr. Ede Treso, Hungary, about how to “Supply quality standards and regulation from HEO’s respect”. The study was a second-round discussion, which were started during the Fall meeting in 2003. Hungary has taken a leading role in introducing quality standard regulation and benchmarking, and the study detailed incentive/penalty mechanisms’ reflection on prices. 

During the afternoon of the 2nd day, the Committee lead discussions of the Work Plan for 2004, clarifying future tasks and new projects, including a Workshop dedicated to gas tariff issues, and future topics such as the joint meeting with the Licensing Committee on Stranded Cost, Performance Evaluation, ERRA Tariff Data Collection of Average Electricity and Gas Prices. At the end of the meeting, Ms. Viola Dozsa, ERRA briefed the committee members on recent and future planned ERRA activities and on the possible dates, topics and location of the upcoming meetings.

By Viola Dozsa, ERRA Program Manager

Agenda

Monday, February 23, 2004

09:00 Issue Paper discussion & approval: Determination of tariffs for ancillary services
• Ms. Sandra Waldstein, Vermont Public Service Commission, USA
• Mr. Ainars Cunculis, Latvia, PUC
• Discussions & Committees Approval

10:30  Coffee break

10:45   Case Study: Supply Quality Standards and Regulation from HEO’s respect
• Mr. Ede Tresó, Senior Advisor, Pricing Section, HEO-Hungary
• Discussions

11:45   Discussion on the Work Plan for 2004
• Commissioner Florin Gugu, Romania
• Ms. Viola Dozsa, Program Manager, ERRA Secretariat
Assignment of roles/responsibilities to committee members;
Define topics of the next meeting;
Define scope of work of the Gas Tariff Workshop and countries.

12:30 Lunch

14:00  Issue Paper: Performance Evaluation
Committee’s discussion on identifying list of subtopics, specifying the meaning of the Performance Evaluation, and team leaders of the Issue Paper.

14:30 Discussions of the Tariff Statistics Data of ERRA Database on Average Electricity and Gas Prices
Next data collection is due by March 20, for data for 3rd and 4th quarters of 2003, annual data for 2003
• Discussion on Database improvements, new format development

15:30  Committee Discussions on the Joint Committee Meeting with the Licensing/Competition Committee on the Stranded Cost

16:15   Update on Recent and Future ERRA Activities
Ms. Viola Dozsa, Program Manager, ERRA Secretariat

16:30   Meeting Concludes

Participant List

Albania
Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERE)
Tel: (355 42) 69590; Fax: (355 42) 322 45
Mr. Kastriot Sulka, Head of Tariff Department

Materials

Country Updates