In the water management sector the PUC regulates water supply services (water abstraction and preparation; water delivery) and sewerage services (wastewater collection and drainage; wastewater treatment) if the volume of services provided by a company exceeds 100,000 m3/year for at least one of the four afore-mentioned service types. In order to provide water management services, a public service provider must be registered in the register of water management service providers and requires a water management service tariff approved by the Regulator.
The Regulator’s competence is to monitor so that a public service provider ensures uninterrupted, safe and high-quality public services up to the boundary of provision of water management services at tariffs of water management services approved by the Regulator.
In the water management sector the boundaries for provision of public services are:
- For water supply services – water delivery to a service user along the water supply infrastructure (external water networks) owned, managed or used by a public service provider up to a commercial meter which meters the total consumption of water and has been installed in the collective node of water metering on the input into a building or a group of buildings or up to the input into a building or a group of buildings
- For sewerage services – provision of sewerage services from a manhole to which sewerage networks owned, managed or used by a public service provider are connected.
In order to receive water management services, a public service user must conclude a contract with the manager of a residential building (for an apartment building) or directly with a service provider (for a private home). When concluding contracts, binding regulations issued by local governments which determine mutual relationships between providers and users of water supply and sewerage services in a specific administrative territory must be taken into account.
One administrative territory may have several providers of water management services. The local government is responsible for ensuring water management services in its administrative territory. The local government when concluding a contract delegates a public service provider to provide water management services in a specific territory.
Tariffs differ in various urban areas and these differences are determined by conditions of service provision – the chosen technological solutions for a water supply system, compactness of the water supply system and the technological condition thereof, as well as geographic, demographic and other characteristics of each urban area (topography, urban development, the number of service users, density and so on).
More information on regulation of water management services is available in Latvian.