On 27 and 28 November in Amman, international energy experts presented a concrete roadmap and technical solutions to Jordanian energy stakeholders to improve the country’s electricity licensing procedures on one hand and to accelerate investment in the Jordanian storage system on the other hand. Organised over two days at the initiative of MEDREG and in cooperation with the Jordanian Energy and Minerals Regulatory Commission (EMRC), the workshop was meant to support and facilitate Jordan’s major electricity market development.
The electricity sector in Jordan is indeed undergoing consistent changes due to increase of demand, which amounted to 4% on average in the last 5 years, as per MEDREG sources. This put pressure on the public bodies, including the regulator EMRC, to find adequate solutions that can ensure the balanced development of the Jordanian electricity market.
To cope with these market transformations, the Jordanian regulator sought to improve its capacity of issuing, monitoring and revising electricity licenses applied for generation, transmission and distribution. Based on a peer-review, MEDREG drew recommendations for EMRC, strongly encouraging the enhancement of market monitoring by the establishment an automated data collection platform, the periodical review of the licenses granted and the imposition of sanctions in case of non-compliance with the license requirements.
Applying these recommendations was not straightforward and, to provide a concrete path towards the application of these principles, MEDREG dedicated the first day of its workshop to explore what other regulators did. Representatives from the Turkish and Austrian regulators presented the procedures on licensing monitoring applied in their countries, and joined the Jordanian regulator, as well as RES4Africa, in a panel discussion identifying detailed lessons which could be beneficial for EMRC and at which stage of market development they should be implemented.
Energy storage is the second aspect being explored in Jordan to respond to the major transformation awaiting the Jordan’s grid due to the renewable energy generation facilities that will come on line. Energy storage has become an important grid resource in recent years at the transmission as well as the distribution level. Energy storage is expected to contribute to critical power and energy applications in Jordan, such as mitigate the limitations of renewable energy interconnections on the distribution system and manage renewables curtailment.
With this in mind, MEDREG's second day of the workshop focused on the barriers and technical solutions to accelerate investment in the Jordanian storage system. Investors, regulators and international banks provided their views on the impact that storage could have to improve the overall security and reliability of the transmission systems of the country.
For instance, in order to develop energy storage and integrate into the Jordanian power sector, investors such as EBRD invited Jordan to follow a road map able to support effective integration of renewables into grid operations, and to infrastructure procurement.
“This workshop has provided Jordan’s Regulatory Commission with various tools to improve the licensing procedures of electricity generation, transmission and distribution and to integrate energy storage technologies. It has enabled us to think about and start studying the experiences learned from other countries that we hope to apply to accompany the great revolution of energy storage technologies awaiting Jordan in the near future.” said Eng. Wejdan Alrabadi, EMRC Deputy Chairman
The value of this workshop, in the continuity of previous MEDREG’s support activities, lies in the fact that it brought together Jordanian decision-makers and energy actors with relevant national and international stakeholders to gather concrete regulatory elements that can be swiftly applied to the Jordanian energy market.