On November 1, 2016 Energy Links team participated in the meeting of the Science and Technical Commission of Intergovernmental Council on Metrology, Standardization and Certification and presented the Energy Links achievements in introduction of the IEC standards in the Kyrgyz Republic. To increase energy security for the region, ECODIT currently implements the USAID/Central Asia Energy Links Project, which addresses key challenges facing the energy sector. The Kyrgyz participants recommended adoption of international data exchange standards in energy sector by other countries in Central Asia region to simplify the data exchange between the energy systems and to support regional cooperation. 

In total, 40 representatives from respective agencies from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Belorussia, Moldova, and Russia, participated at this regional meeting. Energy Links (EL) team facilitated the session’s discussion on adoption of international data exchange standards by countries-members of the CIS Intergovernmental Council on Metrology, Standardization and Certification. EL representative described the process of acceptance of international data exchange standards in Kyrgyz Republic energy sector and outlined achieved results. Kyrgyzstandart and JSC Severelectro made presentations on their roles in this process. JSC NEHC and JSC Severelectro representatives described the importance and practical benefits of adoption of data exchange standards. The introduction was followed by more than an hour-long discussion with active participation of all delegations which demonstrated the strong interest from the parties for the subject. As the result of discussion, the meeting attendees committed to conduct consultations in their countries and reflected their intentions in the meeting minutes. National standardization agencies agreed to do the following:

• Inform Ministries and companies of all stakeholders in their respective countries about success in implementation of international data exchange standards adopted in Kyrgyz Republic

• Conduct a survey in their countries on the interest to implementation of international data exchange standards adopted in Kyrgyz Republic

• Notify Kyrgyzstandard by February 2017 on the activities related to the standardization of data exchange processes in their countries and the interest to the adoption of the standards implemented in KR as intergovernmental standards.

Preliminary feedback from the national standardization agencies inspires on positive acceptance of the IEC standards in their respective countries and lays hope for adoption of these standards as CIS interstate standards.