BACKGROUND 

Connect for Growth (C4G) is a five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project that strengthens the energy security and resilience of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, and other priority countries in the region. In close partnership with host-country governments, C4G works to:

  • Advance competitive market development and market integration, including support to domestic markets, to participate in regional markets more effectively for both electricity and natural gas
  • Support the energy sector transition to a decarbonized future, including promotion of clean energy development and sound investment-promotion frameworks
  • Strengthen energy security and resilience throughout the region, including modernizing utilities and promoting diversification of energy supplies away from Russian sources

C4G NORTH MACEDONIA ACTIVITIES 

  • Market Scanning: Recommend strategies to advance regional market integration, decarbonization, and social inclusion. 
  • Market Development and Regional Market Integration: Facilitate regional electricity integration by supporting the Macedonian Electricity Market Operator (MEMO) to function effectively as the power exchange with Bulgaria, Greece, and/or Albania/Kosovo.
  • Regulatory Support on Market Reforms: Review the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC’s) readiness to adopt the European Union’s Regulation 1227/2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency, improve market monitoring, recommend a communication strategy, assess the Universal Services Tariff, propose solutions for revenue gaps, and review social support mechanisms.
  • Investment Screening and Promotion: Propose changes to the investment framework to accelerate investments for critical energy infrastructure, modernize utilities, and support ambitious decarbonization.
  • Clean Energy Development: Propose amendments to the energy law, recommend legislation and amendments to transpose the 4th Clean Energy Package, and provide legal and regulatory support for rules/approaches toward small-scale self-generation.
  • Comprehensive Gas Sector Development: Advance decarbonization and energy sector efficiency by facilitating the merger of National Energy Resources (NER) and GA-MA to structure and set up a new gas transmission system operator, develop gas network codes, improve sectoral development plans, and strengthen institutional capacity in gas modeling, planning, and training.
  • North Macedonia/Greece Gas Interconnector: Support the operationalization of and recommend gas supply options for the Greece–North Macedonia gas interconnector, including a regional market assessment for gas offtake and analysis of necessary regulatory improvements to promote the interconnector.
  • Decarbonization Planning: Support the Ministry of Economy (MoE) by establishing working groups, define a methodology for decarbonization, develop a plan, support advocacy efforts, and plan implementation.
  • Distributed Energy Resources (DERs): Support the MoE and ERC to adjust the policy and regulatory framework for promoting DERs, including for self-consumption and delivery to the network (prosumers).
  • Energy Management System Evaluation: Evaluate energy management systems that the USAID Development of Regional Energy Markets (DREM) program provided for Sasa, a private lead and zinc mining operation in the country.