Bulgaria - Euro Electricity Market Design and Implementation

Client: Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism (MEET).
NVE Mandate: Assistance to MEET on improvement of legislation and implementation of an efficient and competitive electricity market.
Contract Value/ Duration: € 383,000 (of which € 57,000 for in-kind expenses) from Innovation Norway within the Norwegian Cooperation Programme with Bulgaria. Project started officially 13 November 2009, lasting up to 14 December 2010.
Type of Activities: Preparation of guidelines and procedures for commercialized electricity market management.
Work Completed 2010: Final report from the project is completed. It has according to the plan also been held four work sessions.

Background:
The project is funded from the Norwegian EEA Grants as part of the Norwegian Cooperation programmes with Romania and Bulgaria. NVE had established the contacts with Bulgarian authorities in early 2008, and this programme component was based on the partnership agreement between the MEET and NVE. Some activities were allowed to commence already in September 2009, about a month before signing of the Grant Offer Letter between Innovation Norway and the MEET.

Activities and Outputs:
Project work started after a kick-off meeting in Bulgaria, September 2009. The Nordic power market has served as a benchmark for development of national and regional power markets world-wide for more than a decade. The project contains work on the preparation of draft guidelines, rules and procedures for important electricity market actors, working sessions and workshops/conferences as arenas for developing consensus, adopting recommendations and formulating plans for completion as per the original project concept.

Statnett SF and Nord Pool Consulting AS have assisted NVE during implementation of the Activity Plan. The first report presented some main features of the Nordic power market, in particular the roles of the Norwegian Regulator (NVE), the Transmission System Operator (Statnett) and the Market Operator (Nord Pool Spot) – and relating these to the Bulgarian situation. After outlining some main features of the Nordic power market, the main focus of the report has been to explain the market monitoring/surveillance functions of each of these three actors.

The last two chapters of the report deals with conclusions and recommendations on the way forward; - how the electricity market in Bulgaria can be developed further. There have been four working sessions, in accordance with the current plan, where key market management issues have been presented and discussed.