The State Energy Regulatory Commission was established with a Decree of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria No 181 of 10 Sep 1999, based on art.11, para.2 of the Energy and Energy Efficiency Act (EEFA). The Energy Act (promulgated in SG, issue 107 of 9 Dec 2003) was amended by the Regulation of Water Supply and Sewerage Services Act (promulgated in SG, issue 18 of 22 Feb 2005, RWSSA) and the Commission was transformed into State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission. By the Amendment and supplement Act of the EA (prom. SG. 17 of 6 March 2015), the Commission was transformed into Energy and Water Regulatory Commission.

EWRC Chairperson
Ivan Nikolaev Ivanov

Members
Aleksandar Yanakiev Yordanov
Dimitar Georgiev Kochkov
Evgenia Hristova Haritonova
Georgi Tonev Zlatev
Remzi Dormush Osman
Svetla Petrova Todorova
Valentin Dimitrov Petkov
Vladko Genchov Vladimirov

EWRC Secretary General

• Organizes the preparation of the Commission’s sessions and carries out the coordination and control on the preparation of the materials and their handling;
• Elaborates a draft agenda for the Commission’s sessions;
• Assists the members of the Commission in the performance of their obligations;
• Organizes the distribution of tasks among the administrative units of the Commission;
• Organizes the Commission’s sessions protocol storage and the original decisions together with the accompanying documentation;
• Carries out the general control on the performance of the tasks assigned arising from the Commission’s decisions and the Chairman orders;
• Attends the open and closed sessions of the Commission, as well as the public consultations;
• Together with the Chairman signs the Commission’s decisions which may represent individual or common administrative acts.

І. Key powers of the Commission in regulating the activities in the energy sector, pursuant to art.21 of EA are as follows:

1. Issues, amends, supplements, suspends, terminates and withdraws licenses for electric/heat power generation, for electric/heat power or natural gas transmission, for electricity or natural gas distribution, for natural gas storage in natural gas storage and/or liquefaction facilities or import, unloading and regasification of liquefied natural gas in a liquefied natural gas facility, for electricity trade, for the organized power exchange, for electricity or natural gas public provision, for electricity or natural gas public supply, for electricity or natural gas supply from end suppliers, for traction electricity distribution through rail transport distribution networks, electricity supply from a supplier of last resort;
2. Adopts and publishes basic guidelines concerning its activities;
3. Adopts secondary legislative acts, provided in the EA;
4. Approves the common conditions of the contracts, provided in the EA;
5. Approves Rules on the work with energy services consumers;
6. Exercises control, analyzes, periodically reviews and may request amendment of the pricing mechanisms contained in the long-term contracts for availability and electricity purchase concluded with the Public Provider, when they are contrary to the European Union law or are not in accordance with the European Union policies;
7. Monitors the implementation of all measures adopted aiming the fulfilment of the public service obligations, including energy services users protection and environmental protection, and their possible effect on national and international competition and informs the European Commission of these measures and their amendments;
8. Carries out price regulation in the cases provided for in EA and sets annually the balancing energy market transactions marginal price;
   8а. determines for each price period a marginal cost value for the electricity network operators to purchase cold reserve availability through a tender procedure;
9. Adopts at the proposal of energy companies Electricity Market Rules, Natural Gas Market Rules and Network Technical rules, including security and reliability rules and controls their compliance and reviews results from past periods;
10. Adopts and monitors the compliance with Rules for electricity supply by end suppliers and suppliers of last resort and Rules for the natural gas supply by public provider and end suppliers as part of the rules under art. 21, para. 1, p. 9 of EA, including services and supplies quality standards, as well as Rules for heat supply to customers, including services and supplies quality standards;
11. Adopts and controls the application of a balancing electricity pricing methodology as part of the Electricity Market Rules under Art. 21, para. 1, p. 9 of EA;
12. Adopts and controls the application of a methodology for determining the electricity prices of the  suppliers of last resort;
13. Lays down Rules for access to the electricity and gas transmission network, respectively to the electricity and gas distribution network and the natural gas storage facilities, including services and supplies quality standards and, if necessary, revises them in order to ensure efficient access;
14. Decides on the affiliation of electricity lines, heat and gas pipelines and their ancillary facilities to the transmission or distribution networks and give binding instructions to repurchase and/or provide access to them, at the proposal of the transmission system operator, respectively the distribution network operator;
15. Carries out competitions under Art. 46 of EA;
16. Requires information and documents related to the energy market operation, including supply, transmission, distribution and storage contracts and any subsequent agreements to them, and it may provide parts of this information to market participants, provided that no commercially confidential information or information protected by law has been disclosed;
17. Examines energy companies’ requests for compensation of stranded and resulting from imposed public service obligations costs under Art. 34 and 35 of EA, approves their justified amount and determines the manner they should be compensated, in compliance with state aid requirements;
18. Issues certificates of origin to electricity generators for the goods electricity produced in high efficient cogeneration of electric and heat power;
19. Sets maximal electricity, heat or natural gas technological costs, which can be eligible under the price regulation of electricity generation, transmission and distribution, of heat energy generation and transmission and natural gas transmission, distribution and storage, according to a methodology or guidelines adopted by the Commission;
20. Shall evaluate the economic feasibility of the smart metering systems implementation at a proposal of the network operators, and should the implementation appears to be economically justified, the Commission prepares schedules for their implementation, ensuring the smart metering systems interoperability, taking into account the appropriate standards, the best practices and their importance for the development of the internal electricity and natural gas market;
21. Sets the generated power availability for electricity generators, which the public provider purchases electricity from and the electricity amount, in accordance with which the public provider shall conclude transactions with end suppliers;
22. Approves the division, separation, consolidation or merger of energy companies – licenses’ holders under the EA;
23. Permits the property disposal for the licensed activity in the cases provided for in the EA, as well as other transactions that affect or may affect the security of supply due to energy companies’ indebtedness;
24. Provides the competent European Union institutions the information provided for in the European Union law;
25. Addresses to the competent institutions of the European Union requests and notifications for granting temporary exemption from the provisions of the European Union law and transitional periods in the energy sector in the cases provided for in the European Union law and in accordance with its powers;
26. Publishes an annual report on its activities, including the monitoring results of preventing competition limitation and distortion in the energy markets and their efficient operation and sending it to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the European Commission;
27. Certifies electricity and gas transmission networks operators in meeting the independence requirements, monitors their compliance and sends appropriate notifications to the European Commission;
28. Cooperates with the regulatory authorities of other Member - States of the European Union and with ACER on cross-border issues, conclude cooperation agreements with national regulatory authorities;
29. Contributes to the exchanging data compatibility processes on the most important market processes at regional level, ensuring the necessary level of information confidentiality;
30. Monitors the investment plans performance of the electricity and gas transmission networks operators and presents in the annual report an assessment of the investment plans in terms of their compliance with the 10-year development networks plans in the European Union under Article 8, paragraph 3,  item b of Regulation (EC) № 714/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on the conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity and repealing Regulation (EC) № 1228/2003 (OJ, L 211/15 of 14 August 2009), and Article 8, paragraph 3, item b of Regulation (EC) № 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 13, 2009 on the conditions for access to the gas transmission networks for natural gas and repealing Regulation (EC) № 1775/2005 (OJ, L 211/36 of 14 August 2009), and this assessment may include recommendations for the change of investment plans;
31. Applies and monitors the implementation of legally binding decisions of the European Commission or ACER;
32. Adopts the submitted by the Chairperson draft annual budget and financial statements and a report under Art. 20 item 4 of EA;
33. Monitors the obligations implementation of the electricity and natural gas licensed suppliers to provide customers with access to their consumption data;
34. Monitors the implementation of transparency obligations of the energy companies in pricing, accounting and work with energy services consumers;
35. Monitors the level and effectiveness of market liberalisation and competition at wholesale and retail markets and monitors the connection with the energy markets of other countries - members of the European Union;
36. Promotes market integration and supports the related research activities;
37. Monitors the technical cooperation between transmission system operators of countries - members of the European Union and third countries;
38. Requires transmission and distribution networks operators, when necessary, to submit amendment proposals for the rules and general conditions of contracts provided for in EA and approved by the Commission;
39. Exercises control in the transition from regulated prices market to organized market at freely negotiated prices in accordance with the Electricity Market Rules;
40. Monitors the notification and fair allocation of the available networks capacity between all users;
41. Supervises the electricity and gas networks development for the benefit of all participants, which shall ensure sufficient and available for all users capacity;
42. Exercises control in the cases provided for in this Act;
43. Has other powers, specified by the law.

EWRC handles complaints referred to in Art.22 of EA.

ІІ. Key powers of the Commission in regulating the activities in the water supply and sewerage services sector are as follows:

• Regulates the quality of W&S services;
• Carries out price regulation of the W&S services (the prices at which W&S operators supply water to the consumers, discharge the wastewater, treat the wastewater, connect consumers to the water supply or sewerage systems, and the prices at which supply and sewerage operators or other companies supply water using their own or rented for operation water intake facilities or systems to supply water to systems of other W&S operators);
• Handles complaints of customers against W&S operators or of W&S operators against W&S operators, related to the regulated activities under RWSSA;
• Approves the common terms and conditions of contracts for the provision of W&S services to consumers;
• Exercises control and imposes sanctions in the cases provided for in RWSSA;
• Keeps a register of W&S services assignment contracts;
• Registers experts involved in carrying out control under RWSSA;
• Approves proposed by the W&S operators business plans;
• Carries out preliminary control, delivers an opinion on the compliance of concession and other types of W&S system managing contracts in the process of their preparing with RWSSA and the regulations for its implementation.