What the power plant licensing regime covers
Building and operating a power plant in Georgia falls under the mandatory authorization established by the Georgian Law on Electricity and Gas Supply (the Electricity Law). Under Article 11 of that law, the Commission issues licences, in accordance with the Georgian Law on Licences and Permits and the conditions provided by the Electricity Law, for the following activities in the electricity sector: generation of electricity (except the cases provided by paragraph 3 of Article 11), transmission of electricity, distribution of electricity, and operation of the electricity market. The same norm also lists licensable activities in the natural gas sector and in water supply, but for a power plant the central question is precisely the generation licence.
Paragraph 2 of Article 11 imposes a direct prohibition: it is forbidden to carry out the activities listed in paragraph 1 without a valid licence issued by the Commission — a licence that gives the enterprise the right to carry out the corresponding activity. Operating a station without a licence is therefore not a mere administrative defect; it places the operator outside the legal framework and under sectoral supervision. In practice, the seeker of a generation licence is usually the enterprise that owns the station and intends to bring it into operation after connecting it to the network.
When electricity generation does not require a licence
The law defines the exceptions in paragraph 3 of Article 11. No licence is required for: generation of electricity by a person solely for its own consumption (household and/or non-household), where the object of both generation and consumption is not connected to the transmission or distribution network; generation of electricity at the time of acceptance of the object into operation, in accordance with Article 36 of the law; generation of electricity by small and micro capacity power plants; and the activity of a closed distribution system operator which, by decision of the Commission and in accordance with Article 82 of the law, has been granted the status of a closed distribution system operator.
Paragraph 4 of Article 11 complements the list of exceptions with a declaration duty: a small capacity power plant or an energy enterprise that carries out — or intends to carry out — the supply of electricity or natural gas, trading in electricity or gas, or administration of a bilateral contracts platform without a licence, is obliged to declare this in accordance with Article 102 of the law. Through this rule the legislator keeps record control over market participants who remain in the simplified authorization regime.
Documents accompanying the licence application
Paragraph 2 of Article 13 lists the documents that a licence seeker must submit to the Commission together with the licence application, in addition to the requirements of the Law on Licences and Permits. These include: documents confirming ownership of the devices necessary for the specific activity, or documents confirming the right to use such devices — and where necessary, the Commission is authorized to require the extension of the right of temporary ownership for a minimum period determined by it; documents confirming acceptance of the devices into operation, where obtaining them is mandatory under Georgian legislation, and/or documents confirming the compliance of the condition of such devices with the technical requirements provided by Article 97 of the law.
For water supply activities the law additionally requires documents on compliance with technical regulations and standards in force in Georgia — covering drinking water supply systems (all visible structures participating in the abstraction and treatment of drinking water), drinking water pipelines, with information on the possibility of safe (drinking water quality), continuous (24-hour supply of drinking water) and reliable supply to consumers, and sewage systems with their treatment facilities. For a generation licence the following are particularly significant: the technical condition for connection to the network, or information on the technical parameters of the connection point confirmed by the operator of the respective network; the environmental decision provided by the Environmental Assessment Code, where such a decision is mandatory for the specific activity (under an amendment to the law, from 1 September 2026 an integrated environmental permit under the Law on Industrial Emissions must also be submitted in the relevant cases); the list of operating assets with their values, together with the audit report on the financial statements of the enterprise; and information on the organizational structure confirming that the enterprise has human resources with the qualification and competence needed for the professional functions related to the activity, or documents confirming the performance of those functions through third parties.
Issuance procedure and the licence certificate
Under paragraph 1 of Article 13, an activity licence is issued in a transparent, objective, legally substantiated and non-discriminatory manner, in accordance with the conditions established by the Electricity Law, the Law on Licences and Permits and the licensing rules approved by the Commission. At the Commission's request, the licence seeker must present all factual circumstances, including documents, data and information confirming compliance with the licence conditions sought. The Commission ensures the publication, and constant updating, on its website of the complete list of documents to be submitted, the relevant regulatory acts, the authorized public bodies and the standard forms related to licensing — which makes the procedure predictable for the applicant.
The issuance of a licence is confirmed by a licence certificate which, among other data, must indicate the licence holder, the licensed activity, the services to be provided by the licensee, the location of the main assets, the area of validity of the licence, and the date of issuance. The standard form of the licence certificate is approved by the Commission.
Refusal and appeal
A licence may be refused only on a ground established by the Electricity Law and the Law on Licences and Permits. The refusal must be legally substantiated, must rest on the principles of objectivity, transparency and non-discrimination, and must be duly explained to the licence seeker. A refusal may be appealed under the procedure established by those two laws. In addition, every refusal to issue a licence for an energy activity, together with its reasons, must be notified to the Secretariat of the Energy Community — an international transparency mechanism that gives the applicant an additional layer of protection against arbitrary treatment.
Generation conditions and acceptance into operation
Article 32 provides that the construction, maintenance, operation and connection to the transmission and/or distribution network of electricity generation objects and related devices must comply with Georgian legislation, including the technical standards, norms and other mandatory conditions established by the transmission network rules and/or the distribution network rules — including requirements related to the environment, public safety and the protection of property. Generation, apart from the cases provided by paragraph 3 of Article 11, is subject to mandatory licensing under the procedure established by the law and the licensing rules approved by the Commission.
Article 36 governs the trial run and/or complex testing of the object for acceptance into operation. An enterprise that has built a generation object or carried out its reconstruction — including an increase of its capacity — and has connected it to the network in accordance with the established procedure must apply to the transmission or distribution system operator to whose network the object is connected; representatives of the transmission system operator participate in the process. If the network rules do not provide otherwise, the operator must declare its consent or refusal to accept the object into operation within no more than 90 calendar days from the trial run. During the acceptance period the owning enterprise is not required to obtain a generation licence, and the purchase and sale of electricity produced during that period is regulated by the electricity market rules. Once the object has been accepted into operation, generation is allowed only on the basis of a generation licence issued in accordance with Chapter V of the law or, in the exception cases of paragraph 3 of Article 11, on the basis of the document confirming acceptance into operation.