30.06.2025
The National Commission for Energy and Utilities Regulation (NKREKP), or the National Commission for Energy and Utilities Regulation (NKREKP), is a central executive body with a special status. Its main objective is to regulate the energy and utilities markets in order to ensure energy security, protect the interests of consumers and business entities, and promote the European integration of these markets.
The objectives of the National Commission include establishing rules, licensing, monitoring compliance with legislation and setting tariffs, ensuring the availability and quality of services, protecting consumer rights from unfair actions by suppliers, creating conditions for the development of a competitive environment in the energy and utilities markets, and bringing Ukrainian legislation and regulation into line with EU requirements in the energy and utilities sector.
The true independence and transparency of the work of the NKREKP is perhaps the key strategic challenge. “The National Commission for the Regulation of Energy and Utilities of Ukraine in wartime and post-war times should be an institution that not only performs certain bureaucratic procedures, sets tariffs, but also forms a vision of the development of the energy sector in accordance with the challenges of the time – war destruction, the European integration course, the need for energy security and transformation of the sector. Energy efficiency should be the key driver of development not only in the energy and utilities sector, but in all sectors of the economy,” is convinced Energy Club Vice President Valeriy Bezus, who in an interview with the Club’s media department shared his own vision of the areas of work, the challenges facing the Regulator, as well as the role of the National Commission – today and in the future.
– Mr. Valeriy, you applied for the position of a member of the National Commission for the Regulation of Energy and Utilities of Ukraine. What motivated this decision?
– For many years, I have worked in the real sector, as well as in the system of public governance and energy policy, and I am convinced that it is a high-quality, systematic and impartial regulator that is able to ensure an adequate balance between the interests of the state, consumers and business and, most importantly, to ensure the further economic development of Ukraine in the context of European integration through state policy.
The National Commission for the Regulation of Energy and Power Generation in wartime and post-war times should be an institution that not only performs certain bureaucratic procedures, sets tariffs, but also forms a vision of the development of the energy sector in accordance with the challenges of the time – war devastation, the European integration course, the need for energy security and transformation of the sector.
I sincerely sought to be part of a team that would strengthen this institutional and professional capacity, because it is obvious that the human resources of the Regulator are extremely limited, and this already poses a serious problem not only for this institution, but also for the entire national energy sector, and together with the latter, for the entire national economy.
It is important that a key component of my professional activity in both the private and public sectors has always been work with investments, and this is exactly what, in my opinion, the work of the national energy regulator should focus on in the context of global energy transformation, European integration and overcoming the destruction caused by Russia.
It is also worth noting that the intensification of the investment process is one of the main ideas behind the current reforms of the EU energy markets. Accelerated investment attraction is one of the main tools in achieving the goal of these reforms – clean and affordable energy for all Europeans. The unification of energy markets within the EU and the corresponding reforms can also be considered as a step towards increased attraction of investments in energy infrastructure, since the more efficiently energy markets work, the more intensive the inflow of investments.
– You headed the State Agency for Energy Efficiency. How can this experience be useful in the work of the National Commission for Energy and Utilities of Ukraine?
– I have already emphasized that working with investments is always the most important component of my activities. The position of Head of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency was a logical continuation of my career in the public sector, since the main driver for which I moved from the private sector in 2016 to the position of Deputy Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council for Executive Administration was precisely the improvement of the energy and utility infrastructure of the region through attracting investments. And the key reserve for such improvement, in my long-standing conviction, lies precisely in measures to increase energy efficiency at all stages – from energy extraction and production to its consumption.
From the first years of working on the development of comprehensive investment plans more than 20 years ago, it became absolutely obvious to me that all business plans and investment programs of energy and utility enterprises should be built around energy efficiency. Moreover, given the state of the national economy, it is energy efficiency that has
is to be a key driver of development not only in energy and utilities, but in all sectors of the economy.
Unfortunately, in Ukraine the understanding of energy efficiency is mostly extremely narrow and superficial. In modern economic and even political realities, this category deserves a much more comprehensive and broad understanding, as is generally accepted in civilized societies. Today, this category is basic for understanding the development of both energy and the economy as a whole. Energy efficiency is one of the key dimensions of modern EU energy governance.
It is precisely around energy efficiency that the policy of the national regulatory authority in the energy sector should be developed, which is also required by modern European energy law, and which, to a certain extent, has already been implemented in national legislation.
While serving as the Head of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency, I managed the implementation of policies on energy efficiency and clean energy and decarbonization of the economy, and also actively participated in activities to form such policies. These are exactly the topics that the National Commission for Energy Efficiency and Energy Management should actively consider and focus on when regulating markets in its areas of responsibility — not as formal trends, but as real drivers of modernization and investment.
– Your experience at the local level — in regional self-government and management, how is it valuable in the context of the work of the National Commission for Energy Efficiency and Energy Management?
– This experience was very rich, because I had to deal with a wide range of issues related to ensuring the life of one of the largest regions, but the main thing that this experience gave me is a deep and direct understanding of the quality of approaches to public management, based on transparency and inclusiveness.
This experience gave me a clear understanding that better and more sustainable decisions in public administration are made on the basis of deep analytical and communication work involving all stakeholders to whom such decisions concern. Unlike the private sector, where the efficiency of decisions is often more important than their absolute quality, in the public sector the quality of decisions is much more important, since the consequences of poor-quality decisions are usually more extensive, and the possibilities of compensating for them through subsequent decisions are much smaller.
It is clear that management experience, which provides a direct and operational connection with the sphere of management, is much more valuable than the experience of abstract activities of most employees of central government bodies. For me, this experience was an important stage of the transition from very substantive work in the real sector economy to work at the level of the head of a central executive body.
In addition, this experience has focused attention on the direct connection of regulatory decisions with reality, that is, what the real life of regulatory decisions looks like on the ground – how consumers, mayors, directors of utility companies perceive and follow these decisions. Among other things, what challenges arise when dividing responsibility between the regulator, central government and local authorities. This knowledge is especially important now – when regions have received more opportunities to develop local energy and utility infrastructure, and the Regulator must remain the guarantor of the balance of interests even in the context of decentralization.
– You mentioned challenges, so what are the main challenges currently facing the NEURC?
– They directly reflect the challenges facing the national energy sector. These are the efficiency of the functioning of energy markets, especially in conditions of war and terrorist attacks; damage and destruction of the material and technical base of the energy sector and infrastructure; debt crisis; European integration and energy transformation. Against this background, the formation of conditions for the receipt of investments, without which the national energy sector has no future.
There is also an internal, for the Regulator, challenge of adequate institutional development, which should qualitatively instrumentally ensure the search for optimal answers to the aforementioned challenges. This challenge is in the area of real independence and provision of high-quality managerial and analytical personnel.
– What, in your opinion, should the regulator focus on in the coming years?
– Strategically, the NEURC should be a leading partner in the restoration and transformation of the national energy sector. This concerns the creation of effective market conditions for the development of clean energy, the introduction of investment support mechanisms, such as guarantees of origin, the development of networks and distributed generation, and the digitalization of energy.
True independence and transparency of the work of the NEURC is perhaps the key strategic challenge. Without achieving a high level of independence and an adequate level of transparency, the role of the Commission will always be instrumental in terms of political conjuncture, and this will always undermine the very idea of the existence of the Regulator. Without independence and transparency, it is also impossible to achieve at least the minimum level of professionalism that is needed today and in the future to regulate such a complex area as energy.
At the operational level, this is quickly
on the integration of energy markets and the implementation of European energy law, fair tariff formation, ensuring the quality of services, real transparency and justification of decisions, strengthening the information and analytical base for such justification. Ever since my membership in the public council at the National Commission for the Regulation of Energy and Power Generation of Ukraine, I have systematically insisted on the development of information and analytical tools for making decisions on the acceptability of tariffs. Unfortunately, this issue has not been developed and to this day there is a single approach to tariffs – “the less, the better”, which is deeply unprofessional.
A separate and important point of focus is the staffing of the Regulator. Today, the staff of the National Commission for the Regulation of Energy and Power Generation of Ukraine is mostly professional officials, whose skills mainly consist in forming and following bureaucratic procedures, but there is a lack of professional analysts of energy markets.
It is important that the NEURC is an active participant in the pan-European discourse on the development of energy markets, and not a passive executor of the “instructions” of the Energy Community Secretariat, but today the Regulator simply does not have the personnel for such participation.
– What do you see as the role of the NEURC in the future?
– It should not only be an executive body, but an analytical center and an effective regulator that actively forms a market philosophy – based on objective data, not political slogans. This is an institution that must restore trust – through transparency, professionalism, and stability of decisions. In its hands is the formation of the rules of the game that will allow the energy sector to emerge from the crisis not just surviving, but renewed, sustainable, and ensuring accelerated development of the national economy.
