GENI Report on the World Energy Conference

October 6-12, Tokyo

19 October 1995

3000 utility executives, energy ministers, World Bank specialists and engineering firms gathered in Tokyo for a full week to discuss "Energy for our Common Future." For the first time, GENI had the opportunity to present our work exhibit at the World Energy Conference. (We also posted the Dymaxion Map with grid, quotes and energy statistics on every message board. — a bit of guerilla marketing!)

The World Energy Council (WEC) is the global organization of industry executives responsible for developing and implementing energy policy. It meets only once every three years, since the wheels of change move slowly in this industry. Environmental protection was given more lip service, because renewable energy scenarios are still "a prospect of the future" for most of these people.

GENI was represented by three Board members: Joe Falcon, Graeme Edwards and myself. We were able to attend several of the panel and paper sessions on topics relevant to our agenda. In most sessions, we submitted questions to the panelists that raised the benefits of electrical interconnections to the delegates present.

A very important result: our name, both as GENI and Global Energy Network International, was mentioned in four separate panel sessions with hundreds people present. In one session on long range energy prospects, two panelists spoke several times about a global energy grid linking renewable energy resources. This lays the foundation for us to follow-up with WEC members and bring that vision of the future into the present.

It was wonderful to have key utility executives and energy thinkers come by our booth hours after hour to hear this global solution on our turf. For many, it was a brand new conversation. Others were well aware of regional interconnections but didn't realize the expanded limits to transmission distances. Some found this idea to be very intriguing and wanted all the information we could give them for further study.

To give you a taste of the level of contacts made, I'll mention a few names and titles, so you can see the importance of being at this conference:

Secretary General of Energy, Zaire: Barumawaki Muyeye
Vice President, ABB: Hans Stackegard
Asia Regional Energy Advisor, World Bank: Anil Malhotra
Editor, Modern Power Systems, David Smith
Senior Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO: Robert Williams
Managing Director and CEO, Black & Veatch Asia: Thomas Kalin
Manager, Emerging Technologies, Westinghouse: Frank Bevc
Executive Director, WEC Brazil: Jose Malhaes da Silva
Executive Director, UNIPEDE: Georges Lucenet
Vice President, Electricité de France: Christian Stoffaes
Director of International Relations, Israel Ministry of Energy: Mendel King
Correspondent, Reuters: Eiichiro Tokumoto
Chairman, WEC Zambia: Romance Sampa
Environmentally Compatible Energy Strategies, IIASA, Nebojsa Nakicenovic
President, Institute of Engineers, India: P.M. Chacko
Executive VP, Kansai Electric Power: Mikio Kitada
Executive VP, Ontario Hydro: John Fox
Executive Director, Electric Power Development Co, Japan: Kunio Morikiyo
Senior Advisor, Washington International Energy Group: Anthony Churchill
Vice Director, The Arab Fund: Mervat El-Badawy

just to mention a few....

It was clear to us that the interconnection of regional grids is progressing all around the world. All projections show increasing energy demand (a doubling) in the next twenty to thirty years, mostly from the population growth of the developing world. The opportunity of the GENI proposal, and what is still "the edge" for our speaking, is in "linking remote renewable energy sources around the world."

The most exciting request came from Anil Malhotra, Asian Energy Specialist for the World Bank. He would like an energy model that encompasses the entire Asian region (where India, China and SE Asian hold half the world's population). He said he would "shop" such a proposal to several regional governments whom he thinks would fund such a study. We are now putting this package together.

Critical to our discussion and this proposal is the "what if" research work we are advocating. The issues covered in an Asian computer simulation model will be:

• ignore political boundaries for the time being
• plot existing energy networks (and capacities, etc.)
• plot existing and planned generation capacity
• identify all renewable energy sites, development costs and long term price projection
• plot Asian demand centers: population and industry, and the expected growth patterns of the coming decades
• link supply and demand with state of the art in ultra high-voltage (UHV) transmission
• compare the cost and environmental impact of this scenario over the "reference case" and "environmentally driven scenario" of the WEC.
• finally, factor in the social, developmental and political expectations from "linking remote renewable energy resources in the Asian region"

Our job now is to follow up these contacts — seeking partnership with each organization: as a sponsor, endorser and/or advocate. Amid the complexity of providing affordable, clean energy to a growing world, GENI is now being viewed as a serious solution.