Regulations in the energy sector are there in order to ensure improvements in efficiency and service quality. They are essential because many actors in the energy sector of any country are state companies and/or natural monopolies for which efficiency and quality of service are somewhat foreign concepts.

An EU-funded twinning project "Strengthening capacities of the regulatory cost audit and market monitoring" brings together the regulatory authorities of Georgia and Lithuania in order for them to learn from each other’s experience (and mistakes). As part of this project, on March 15, 2016, ISET hosted a workshop involving energy regulators from both countries. The Lithuanian National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (NCC) was represented by Vygantas Vaitkus. The Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC) was represented by three ISET alumni (class 2011): Giorgi Kelbakiani, Nikoloz Sumbadze, and Irakli Galdava, chief specialists with GNERC’s electricity and gas departments.

Mr. Vaitkus focused his remarks on NCC’s methodology of accounting for energy companies’ long-term costs in an effort to rationalize electricity tariff formation (using the so-called “Cost+” approach). Mr. Kelbakiani reciprocated with a presentation of Georgia’s approach to regulating electricity tariffs and service quality. Messrs. Sumbadze and Galdava discussed GNERC’s methodology for calculating normative losses in the electricity and gas sector.
The audience included students in ISET’s energy and environment concentration, as well Georgian energy sector stakeholders.