e-News for power industry leaders

Dear Reader,

Welcome to this special edition of In The Loop (ITL) which provides an overview of current thinking regarding the many challenges associated with the energy transition to a zero-carbon power system.  It has been developed by reviewing a number of CIGRE Electra strategic articles that have been produced over the last twelve months together with a limited review of other associated articles.  From this, five challenging areas have been identified as needing global attention.  They are: 

• Reliability, security and resilience

• Standardisation and optimisation of supply chains

• Evolving Technologies

• Markets and Regulation

• Environmental and social impacts 

The articles are intended to provide a brief overview of the issues and references are provided for those that wish to delve into more detail.  It is proposed to hold a Senior Executive Forum at the CIGRE Cairns Symposium that will be held in September this year and this edition is designed to provide background reading on the topics for discussion.  

The Forum will be modelled on the one held at the biennial Paris Session and key summary points from that session are provided below.  

This ITL was produced with contributions from David Bones, Terry Killen and Phil Southwell as well as from NGN representatives Adrian Lloyd and Natasha D’Silva. 

2. Summary of Key points from the 2022 Paris CEO Forum  

The 2022 Paris session included a CEO forum which enabled exchange of ideas on key challenges for industry transformation. The following key points were raised:  

• All sectors need to work together to meet emission targets

  • End use efficiency

  • Lower emission generation

  • Buildings

  • Industry

  • Transport

• The power sector can help reduce emissions by driving electrification

• Energy security, affordability and reliability must be addressed in parallel

• Resilience is needed to deal with more extreme events

• Long duration storage is needed (hydrogen, thermal, hydro, pumped storage, etc)

• Communication, computation and control must be expanded for a decentralized system

• Policy and regulatory changes are required to support innovation and new technology

• Market structures should facilitate resiliency investments

• Discussion should cover:

  • New business models

  • Risk factors and energy security

  • Company changes 

The content and theme form the basis for our Senior Executive forum to be held during the Cairns Symposium 4th -7th September 2023.

Our intent is to build on these themes through providing more information as we progress toward the Symposium and then to publish key points or issues of the discussion.

I hope that you find the information and references useful and look forward to seeing you at the Cairns Symposium.

On a closing note, this will be my final ITL as I am stepping down as CIGRE Australia CEO and will, during the month of July, handover the reins to Peter McIntyre.  I will stay on in an advisory role and to run the Symposium and leave CIGRE at the end of the Symposium.

I have enjoyed putting the 34 editions of ITL together over the last nine years and thank you for your subscription and submission of articles and of course a big thank you to Phil Southwell - our Technical editor who sources and edits the technical articles.

Best Regards

Terry Killen
CEO 
CIGRE Australia

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Technical Editor
Phil Southwell