Energy Community Regulatory Board

The Energy Community Regulatory Board (ECRB) is the independent regional body of energy regulators in the Energy Community and beyond. It is the coordination platform for exchange of knowledge and development of best practices for regulated electricity and gas markets in the Energy Community. Its activities are built on three pillars: providing coordinated regulatory positions to energy policy debates, harmonizing regulatory rules across borders and sharing regulatory knowledge and experience.

  • Tasks

    Tasks

    50th ECRB meeting, 30 November 2021, Athens
    50th ECRB meeting, 30 November 2021, Athens

    The Energy Community Regulatory Board (ECRB) operates based on the Treaty establishing the Energy Community. As an institution of the Energy Community (EnC). ECRB advises the Energy Community Ministerial Council and Permanent High Level Group on details of statutory, technical and regulatory rules and makes recommendations in the case of cross-border disputes between regulators. ECRB can also provide an Opinion to the Energy Community Secretariat (ECS) on preliminary certification decisions of Contracting Parties’ regulators and is in charge of providing an Opinion of Network Code Regulations prior to their adoption by the Energy Community Permanent High Level Group.

    Further to this, ECRB gained a number of new monitoring competences in context with the implementation of gas and electricity network code Regulations. Activities related to customers and retail markets as well as electricity and gas wholesale markets form the backbone of ECRB. Following the adoption of Regulation 1227/2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT) by the Energy Community Ministerial Council in November 2018, a new fourth working group became part of ECRB activities to prepare regulators for the new competences of ECRB under the REMIT Regulation.

    Sharing best practice experience with other regional regulatory bodies is not only recommended from an efficiency point of view but also when keeping in mind the goal of integrating regional markets. ECRB is committed to continue and strengthen the well-established streams of cooperation with the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) and the Association of Mediterranean Regulators (MedReg). Specific cooperation formats are outlined in the programs of the individual working groups. The signature of a Cooperation Arrangement with MedReg and CEER in December 2018 kicked of a new area of enriched cooperation in a more institutionalised structure.

    The Regulatory Board is supported by the ECRB section of the Energy Community Secretariat seated in Vienna.

     

     

  • Composition

    Composition

     

    The ECRB is headed by a Board of high level representatives from the national energy regulatory agencies of the Energy Community Contracting Parties, Observers and Participants. The Board elects its President for a two-year term. The current president is Mr Marko Bislimoski, President of the Energy and Water Services Regulatory Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia. The European Union, represented by the European Commission, acts as Vice-President and is assisted by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).

    The four pillars of ECRB activities are organised in four corresponding working groups. Under this general set up, the Customers and Retail Markets Working Group covers retail market and customer protection related aspects of the electricity and gas sectors while the Electricity Working Group and Gas Working Group focus on wholesale related aspects of the relevant sectors. The REMIT Working Group deals with regulatory and ECRB duties stemming from the REMIT Regulation. Cross-sectoral ECRB activities, such as Opinions on preliminary certification decisions of Contracting Parties’ national regulatory authorities (NRA), are addressed on Board level.

  • School

    Energy Community Regulatory School

    Established upon the Secretariat's initiative in late 2017, the Energy Community Regulatory School aims at supporting the technical knowledge of national energy regulatory authorities to effectively implement and efficiently apply the acquis  – such as but not limited to gas and electricity network codes and guidelines or REMIT as well as resulting increasingly developing market activities.

    Beyond the mere legal aspects, the Energy Community Regulatory School is dedicated to deliver practical insights and share experience made on EU level. Praxis oriented, interactive and in-depth discussions will be in the core of the training courses tailor made for the Contracting Parties’ regulators.

  • ECRB monitoring

    ECRB and Market Monitoring

    Market monitoring is a core element of regulatory responsibilities. Only in-depth knowledge of market performance and stakeholder activities allow regulators to create an effective market framework that balances the needs of market players. As of 2015 ECRB prepares Market Monitoring Reports assessing the functioning of gas and electricity retail and wholesale markets in the Energy Community Contracting Parties. This complements the input provided by Contracting Parties’ NRAs to the annual market monitoring report of ACER-CEER on retail market developments that is prepared in cooperation with the Energy Community Secretariat.
     

    Market Transparency Monitoring

    Gas Regulation (EC) 715/2009 defines a comprehensive list of publication requirements in the gas sector. For electricity a dedicated Regulation (EU) 543/2013 stipulates detailed transparency obligations for data owners. ECRB assesses and reports on the level of compliance in the Contracting Parties with the related duties stemming from the Energy Community acquis communautaire.

    ECRB published also a matrix which outlines each data set that is required to be published by the Regulation 543/2013 and if such information is published and where. This will be updated on ad-hoc basis by members of the ECRB.

    For state of play with data publication in the Contracting Parties access ECRB Info-matrix  

    SEEAMMS

    USAID supported development of the so-called South East Europe Automated Market Monitoring System (SEEAMMS). SEEAMMS allows the TSOs to upload data to a web-based interface where the data is stored, processed, and reported to regulators. SEEAMMS operates on regional basis with regulators acting as the regional monitor centre on a rotating basis. 

    Other regular monitoring

    ECRB electricity cross-border transmission capacity monitoring reports

    are published on bi-annual basis covering periods from January to June and July to December of each year. 

     

    Electricity Cross-Border Transmission Capacity Monitoring

    In the context of its Market Monitoring for South East Europe project, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)  supported the Energy Community national regulatory authorities in developing common standards for monitoring the activities of electricity transmission system operators (TSOs).


    Guidelines

    This resulted in development of the so-called South East Europe Market Monitoring Guidelines approved by ECRB in April 2014. The purpose of the Guidelines is to harmonize and coordinate the activities of regulators in monitoring TSOs with the aim to ensure that network users are granted access to the maximum amount of electricity transmission cross border capacity on a non-discriminatory basis.