One of the important objectives of IAEA is to provide technical assistance to developing countries. IAEA assists Georgian Ministry of Energy to develop energy planning capacity and strategy by providing technical assistance and fellowships aimed to train energy specialists in different models designed for energy planning. Based on WEG experience in energy sector planning in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources it was invited to participate in one of the training fellowship programs.

FINPLAN helps assess the financial viability of plans and projects for construction of new energy infrastructure. It takes into account different financial sources – including export credits, commercial loans, bonds, equity and modern instruments like swaps – and calculates projected cash flows, balance sheet, financial ratios and other financial indicators.

SIMPACTS is a user-friendly, simplified approach for estimating the environmental impacts and external costs of different electricity generation chains. Designed for use in developing countries, it requires much less data, but produces comparable results, relative to more sophisticated data-hungry models. The SIMPACTS package covers: health, agricultural, forest and materials damage, airborne and water pollution as well as solid waste, and, different generating technologies.

Representatives of Ministry of Energy, National Department of Statistics and WEG have developed FINPLAN and SIMPACTS models for Georgia that will become a part of Energy Planning Study. These models will be further available for examining various options of energy infrastructure development.