On June 10-13, 2014 the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC) cohosted regional workshop on Regulatory Support for Energy Efficiency, Electricity Markets and Regional Trade under the Black Sea Regulatory Initiative (BSRI) at the hotel Courtyard by Marriott Tbilisi. The workshop was organized by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and Sponsored by (USAID).

The main objective of the workshop was to engage the Black Sea regulators and the transmission planners to: provide third full review of the BSRI Regulatory Principles of Energy Efficiency and related analysis of the energy efficiency regulatory support schemes;Identify the key elements in national energy sector reforms in the Black Sea countries needed for further harmonizing the frameworks aiding the regional cross-border energy trading; Examine applicable experiences from the EU/Energy Community and the US Midwest region on regulatory-utility coordination in transmission planning and explore various ingredients related to system planning and reliability to inform better regulatory policy. Representatives of national regulatory commissions and state agencies of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine and USA participated in the workshop.

MurmanMargvelashvili, WEG Director in Energy Studies made a presentation on Energy Efficiency as part of National Energy Strategy in Georgia. He spoke about the current policies and activities in energy efficiency (EE), existing barriers to EE in Georgia and presented EE policy analysis with MARKAL Georgia energy planning model, finally he underlined the importance of EE in the new energy policy and strategy of Georgia and provided recommendations in this regard.