Quarterly Report: Enhancing Stability and Technical Expertise in European and Eurasian Energy Markets (ESTEEM) for July - September 2020

The program is implemented by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The ESTEEM program focuses on four main programmatic categories: Task 1: Competitiveness, Task 2: Energy Security, Task 3: Fostering Investment, and Task 4: Institutional Enhancement. Task 1: Competitiveness focuses on enhancing market performance through topical areas such as market coupling, regional market integration, load flow studies, and production simulations. In the July-September 2020 quarter, significant progress was made in Task 1: Competitiveness. The Albanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ERE) approved the country's first-ever cybersecurity regulation for the electricity sector, titled "Regulation on Cybersecurity of Electricity Sector Critical Infrastructure." The regulation established incident reporting criteria and requirements for electricity system operators to assess and improve their cybersecurity maturity and protection and response capabilities. Additionally, a new cyber guide was developed to help regulators utilize cyber maturity models for energy regulation. The guide, titled "Understanding Cybersecurity Maturity Models within the Context of Energy Regulation," provides regulators with a means to measure the cybersecurity readiness of a utility and compare this level of preparedness against previous assessments, a target baseline, and other utilities. Furthermore, two new publications were developed to assist regulators in supporting the development of functioning electricity markets. The first primer, "A Regulator's Guide to the Use of Load Flow Study Tools for Transmission Planning," focuses on the use of load flow studies for transmission planning, while the second, "A Regulator's Guide to the Use of Production Simulation Tools for Market Analysis," focuses on the use of market simulation tools for generation expansion planning and market simulation. Technical assistance was also provided to select National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to equip them to take action in linking distribution service quality with investments. Customized roadmaps were developed in collaboration with the Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia (AERS) and the Regulatory Commission for Energy in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FERK) to guide regulators as they work to ensure electricity service quality and sound investments on the distribution system. The ESTEEM program has made significant progress in strengthening regulators' capacity to develop stable, efficient, transparent, and competitive energy sectors in the Europe and Eurasia region. The program's focus on enhancing market performance, energy security, fostering investment, and institutional enhancement has resulted in notable achievements in the July-September 2020 quarter.