April 29 (SeeNews) - The power transmission system operators, regulators and energy ministers of six countries in the Western Balkans signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the integration of their day-ahead markets, the Energy Community, a Vienna-based organisation, said.
The MoU signatories - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo - aim to achieve market coupling of national organised day-ahead markets with at least one neighbouring country in the Western Balkans or an EU member state by July 2018 and cross-border balancing cooperation between the Western Balkans countries by December 2018, the Energy Community said in a statement published on its website earlier this week.
“Integrating power markets in the region and with the rest of Europe is an important step in delivering more social and economic welfare to all customers,” the statement quoted Konstantin Staschus, secretary general of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), as saying. “Transmission system operators will continue working hard towards the goal of creating a regional electricity market in the Western Balkans in a consistent and coordinated manner with the work already undertaken within the European Union, and of integrating it with the overall European Internal Electricity Market.”
This MoU is open for signature by other countries in the region and EU member states, the statement added.
The Energy Community was established by an international law treaty in October 2005. As of July 1, 2013, the parties to the treaty are the European Union and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine. The key aim of the organisation is to extend the EU internal energy market to Southeast Europe and beyond on the basis of a legally binding framework.