Energy Community contracting parties must speed up reforms to meet market coupling deadlines – report

The pace of reforms in the WB6 region overall must be accelerated if market coupling is to take place within the time horizon foreseen. The establishment of a legal framework harmonised with the Third Energy Package and a power exchange, the key prerequisites, are yet to be completed by all WB6 Contracting Parties, the Energy Community (EnC) Secretariat said in its latest WB6 Electricity Monitoring Report.

The report underlines the positive developments in the establishment of day-ahead markets (DAMs) in Montenegro and North Macedonia.

After the cut-off date of the report, Albania informed about the Government’s decision of 15 May 2019 on establishing the power exchange (APEX). The Secretariat also received the Minister’s confirmation that the concept of re-integrating the two state-owned companies KESH and OSHEE, which have raised concerns by Albania’s international partners, is not being pursued any longer. The report, however, outlines the significant delays in OSHEE distribution system operator (DSO) unbundling.

Spot Market Development – progress in Montenegro, North Macedonia

The process of establishing day-ahead markets continued in Montenegro and North Macedonia.

The Montenegrin company responsible for establishing a day-ahead market, BELEN, has selected Nord Pool as its strategic partner. The Montenegrin electricity power exchange (MEPX) is expected to go-live in Q1 2020.

North Macedonia advanced in operationalising the electricity market operator MEMO, which is in the licensing process. The Government will have to pass a decision on whether to appoint MEMO as the day-ahead market operator or to select an operator via a tendering procedure.

Cross-border Balancing – legal gap analysis produced

North Macedonia continues to delay the adoption of the new balancing rules, which were due in September 2018.

A legal gap analysis on cross-border balancing, developed as part of the WB6 regional energy market connectivity programme, unveiled that procurement of balancing capacity in WB6 is generally regulated on an annual basis and that the prequalification procedure for service providers is missing.

Regional Capacity Allocation – Serbia to rectify breach of EU law by the end of May

The dispute on capacity allocation between the transmission system operators of Kosovo* and Serbia needs to be resolved, following the Ministerial Council’s decision in Case ECS-3/08, requiring Serbia to rectify the breach of European law by the end of May 2019.

Progress towards the entry into force of the Connection Agreement between KOSTT and ENTSO-E is pending the licensing of a Serbian supplier in Kosovo*.

Cross-cutting measures – technical assistance project for unbundling of DSOs

Tangible progress towards finalizing the unbundling and certification of transmission system operators (TSOs) in Kosovo* and North Macedonia was made in the reporting period.

BiH remains the only WB6 party where the certification procedure has not been initiated yet due to the lack of legislation compliant with the unbundling requirements of the Third Energy Package.

Except North Macedonia, where functional unbundling of the DSO was completed in the reporting period, no progress was made to finalise legal and functional unbundling in those WB6 parties where this issue still remains open.

To provide further support to the WB6 parties in this process, the Secretariat launched a technical assistance project to efficiently implement, monitor and report on the functional unbundling of DSOs under the WB6 regional energy market connectivity programme.

On the retail side, the only progress was made by North Macedonia, which selected a universal and last resort supplier in a competitive procedure.