Asia urged to push for energy interconnection

“The discrepancy in energy consumption and distribution decides that building energy interconnection in Asia is an inevitable way forward to promote energy transition and realize clean development,” said Liu Zhenya, Chairman of Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO) and China Electricity Council (CEC) at the high-level panel of Commission on Energy, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) held earlier this week in Bangkok. 
Upon the invitation from Shamshad Akhtar, the UN Undersecretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), Liu delivered a keynote speech entitled Accelerate the Asian Energy Interconnection for Energy Transition and Sustainable Development in the meeting held in Bangkok, which attracted minsters and political leaders from over 30 countries including Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Kazakhstan and other ESCAP members. 
Discussions were carried out on the theme of “Opportunities and challenges of energy system transformation in Asia and the Pacific” to share visions and strategies of energy reform in Asia-Pacific countries. 

System reform 
The event also called on policy makers to take immediate actions to promote energy system reform in order to realise the SDGs set by the UN, specially SDG 7 “affordable and clean energy for all”. 
Liu analysed that the root cause for resource constraints, environmental pollution and climate change was the over-reliance on fossil fuels. He came to the conclusion that the most effective solution was to develop low and even zero carbon energy. He believed we needed to follow the developmental law, evolving from the high-carbon, inefficient development model to a low-carbon and highly efficient one with the focus shifting from local balance to large-scale allocation. 
In his design, people could follow the path of “Two Replacements, One Restore and One Increase” (replacing fossil fuels with clean alternatives in energy production and replacing coal, oil and gas by clean electricity in energy consumption, restoring fossil fuel to its basic attribute as an industrial raw materials, and increasing electrification), leverage Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) as the platform to create a new global energy development pattern with clean energy as the priority, electricity as the centre, global allocation as the feature to ensure a safer, cleaner and more sustainable energy supply for the world. 
Combining the theme of the conference, Liu studied the energy problems in Asia and emphasised the key in Asian energy system transformation was to accelerate grid interconnection and build transnational power transmission channels. 
He proposed to quicken transnational grid interconnections in Asia with clean energy development as the priority and UHV AC/DC transmission and smart grid technologies as the pillars to establish a green, low-carbon, safe and reliable platform for the optimised allocation of clean energy to meet the power demand in Asia in a clean, green, and sustainable way. 
The general outline for building the Asian Energy Interconnection is to form a “1+5” interconnecting patterns comprised of grids from China, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia.