Energy Regulatory Agency of Montenegro

Energy Regulatory Agency started its work in 2004 as a regulator of the energy sector of Montenegro The Law on Communal Activities, from 2016, extended its competences to public water supply and communal waste waters management - regulated communal activities The goal of regulation of communal activities is to provide: work of operators based on principles of objectivity, transparency and non-discrimination; provision of communal services to the user at fair prices; sustainable work of operators; balance of interests of users and operators.

According to the Law, the Agency: issues, changes and revokes licenses for performing communal activities; supervises the work and performance of operators within the conditions from licenses; implements benchmarking; issues by-laws; gives consents to the price list of operators; 6) prepares and submits the annual report on regulated communal activities to the Parliament of Montenegro.

Financing of the Agency In the area of electricity, the Agency is financially independent - financed from: fees for licensing and annual fees for the use of licenses, fees for determining and using the status of a closed distribution system fees for dispute settlement. In the area of regulated communal activities, until conditions for independent financing are created, the Agency is financed from the Budget of Montenegro (in the future: from fees paid by operators of these activities).

Beginning of work on regulated communal activities Department for regulated communal activities: formed in June 2017; contains: one lawyer, one civil engineer and two economists. In this initial period, this department is working with other departments from the Agency, in order to learn rules and principles of regulation and apply the best practice.  We’ve already visited all operators in Montenegro. We've studied the current situation of the sector, based on: available studies; documentation of operators; information that we got during visits of operators.

We are also working on by-laws with the help from consultants. Agency is obliged to create by-laws: Rules of licencing the operators; Minimum of quality and scope of services; Rules of benchmarking; Methodology for determining the price of regulated communal service. We’ve finished draft versions of these documents and we had public hearing for two of them. Our goal is to publish them during October 2018.

Thank you for your attention! www.regagen.co.me regagen@t-com.me