 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to the opening of Powering the Future, leveraging digitalization for efficiency, resilience and decarbonization. Today, we're gathered here in Versailles for a special event led by the International Energy Agency and the Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Network's initiative, 3Den, with the support of the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security of Italy. My name is Anna Rovzar and I have the great pleasure of moderating today's session. So a warm welcome to our audience here in Versailles, but also to those joining us online through the livestream which will be following throughout the event. Now, to start our event, it's my pleasure to invite our opening speakers to join here on stage. So if I could please invite Dr. Brian Motherway to join us here as well as Ms. Valeria Piazza to join us and Mr. Mark Radka please to join us on stage and if I can ask for a round of applause. So we will first be hearing from Dr. Brian Motherway who is the head of the Energy Efficiency Division at the IEA. Dr. Motherway oversees the IEA's vast work on energy efficiency including expanding the scope on through digitalization and standing at the helm of the annual Global Energy Efficiency Conference that starts and gathers us here today. So without further ado, Dr. Motherway the floor is yours. Thank you Anna and thank you everybody. It's great to see you all here today. We are here in Versailles in a three-day festival of energy efficiency among people who are so interested in this topic that they're willing to sit all afternoon in a dark room rather than go outside to sunny Versailles. So I commend your commitment and I really thank you all for coming. This is our biggest ever Global Conference on Energy Efficiency. Over the next three days we're going to have 100 countries converging on Versailles including many government ministers, many CEOs of companies, many thought leaders, people bringing a really wide range of perspectives to many questions around energy efficiency. And with a focus on action, how can we accelerate progress that we can make on energy efficiency around the world because we need to accelerate progress. This event is a particular highlight certainly for me personally because I think this topic is something on which our work has been growing in the last years thanks to our friends in the Italian government really thinking about almost a new paradigm of efficiency that isn't just about how much energy a device uses over the course of a year but how do we think about dynamic integrated energy systems that are balancing variable renewables with people changing lifestyles with supply and demand with unlocked by digital technologies that can manage grids better, can give more control to people, can optimize things in new ways producing cleaner, more reliable, cheaper electricity and bringing the benefits of electricity to all. There are many technical dimensions, technology dimensions that which I'm sure we'll talk about but for me at the end of the day this is a people question, this is a society question. How do we govern these complex systems that involve so many government departments, so many aspects of policy from cyber security and privacy to grid management, electricity pricing, infrastructure development but also how do we think about people benefiting from what technology is now making possible in terms of better access to energy, more affordable energy, better control over their comfort and well-being through digital technologies. These are not simple questions but the prize for getting it right is very substantial and therefore I'm really delighted and grateful that we have so many big brains here with us today and I want to thank Vida and her team for putting together a really fantastic event I think we're all going to learn a lot and I also want to say thank you Vida for bringing such a wide range of voices to this discussion we're going to hear many many different perspectives and I think that's going to be excellent. None of this would be possible without the support we get from the government of Italy and we're really grateful for that so so in handing the floor to Valeria Valeria I really want to thank you and all of your government colleagues for the support and great collaboration we get from you and you'll be hearing more about the collaboration over the course of this afternoon so with that let me please introduce to say some opening remarks Valeria Piazza who is the attaché for energy and industrial policies at the permanent delegation of Italy to the IEA and the OECD Valeria please. You can of course. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen good afternoon first of all let me thank on behalf of the Italian permanent delegation to the international organization in Paris the EIA for organizing the 18th annual global conference on energy efficiency and the today important event the conversation that we are about to have will allow us to link the concept of energy efficiency and decarbonization to the one of the grid digitalization to reach the net zero objective by 2015 we need of course to increase investment in energy efficiency and in grid automation especially in the emerging countries Italy as has been mentioned by Brian mother way is actively engaged in this direction we can leverage on a technical historical a technological leadership in the field of smart infrastructure and for this reason we have contributed to the IEA work with a special project named 3Den digital demand driven electricity network with a voluntary contribution from our ministry of environment and energy security this project was conceived to provide actionable guidelines to the decision makers on the policy regulatory technology and investment that are needed to accelerate process in power system decarbonization and modernization in fact this project in our opinion can be a vivid example of a concrete application of a sustainable twin transition where digitalization is the instrument at the vehicle of smart resilience and clean energy system digitalized grids represent indeed on one hand the most powerful tool for an effective integration and distribution of renewable energy and on the other hand many of the new technology that are necessary to achieve the decarbonization objective by 2015 need a strong automated and digitalized grid moreover digitalization is strictly coupled with energy efficiency at it leads to reduce the energy consumption for household a by consequence allowed to achieve a significant same being for consumers this is of course another very important aspect especially in this very moment to take a step forward along the path of an efficient digitalized and clean energy system and to achieve the net zero emission target tree den is for the italian government in a crucial milestone but to boost its impact the international cooperation is absolutely essential and for this reason italian government hence encourage other countries and organizations to join this initiative and actively contribute to it looking forward to hear your discussion I wish you a fruitful dialogue thank you very much thank you valeria thank you for those kind words but also thanks again to you and all of your colleagues for the support of this and as valeria said we're working in the context of a major project for us three den which you're going to hear more about today and you'll hear in fact we're launching a flagship report from this project looking at these issues how to drive greater levels of investment in smart technologies and grids in ways that bring benefits to the grids but to the people you know making use of those grids making use of that electricity and energy and one important aspect of that work is looking at what works in practice through a number of pilot projects taking place around the world and we're very fortunate that that those pilot projects are being managed by good friends of ours a good friend of mine mark radka and his team in unipo looking after many aspects in relation to energy efficiency questions but in this case some really exciting projects going on in the context of three den so mark i'm very happy to hand the floor to you mark is the chief of the energy and climate branch of united nations environment program based here in paris mark the floor is yours thank you thank you very much brian and excuse me a warm welcome and thanks to all of you who as brian pointed out chose to sit in the dark room rather than be outside in a very delightful spring afternoon here in paris so thanks for this opportunity we're really grateful the three done project as we call it has is the latest in a long line of what i think of is illustrious cooperation efforts a collaborative efforts between unip and the italian ministry of environment and energy security most of them related to clean energy finance and it's also a good example of many joint activities with that we've undertaken with the i e a over over the past several decades but to my knowledge it's the first time that our three entities have come together and so it's a very good opportunity to work in our three organizations and draw on our individual strengths which in the case of unip in this project is something we call transactional finance and by that we mean getting money to flow toward good energy ideas and in in conjunction with that or maybe upstream of that are the business models that that actually proved to be persuasive to those who are lending money to entrepreneurs and businesses so we know as brian pointed out digital technologies can help us decarbonize the power sector the power system at lower cost while improving system reliance reliability there you had a much longer list of positive attributes of coupling in the energy sector trans transformation with digitalization but there are many models a lot of simulations but surprisingly few real world examples of what works and what doesn't work and why it works in certain contexts and so on so from the perspective of this project the the opportunity is that there is a need for real world projects that allow us to quantify the impact and identify the sorts of bottlenecks to crop up that would hinder commercialization and in the end this is about commercialization it's it's absolutely critical to getting to the scale of the potential so our role in unip in the three-den project is is basically to get this data to get this real world experience so we as our part of a joint effort we launched a call for proposals in september 2021 there were close to 30 submissions received a jury i don't know if i used that right term but a panel evaluated those and we settled on four that are now underway as you could call them pilots or experiments or data rich environments for learning um one of them i'll just list them briefly and you're going to hear a lot more about them which i think is the exciting part of the afternoon so in india consortium is applying cloud-based digital twinning technology to electrical distribution grid in nudelly the first instance of this kind of i would say experiment in in that country in brazil um a different group is applying digital technologies to increase energy efficiency in social housing third columbia again in south america but investigation of how digital tools can um can signal flexibility and custard customer demand and allow the distribution system operator to reduce network congestion so sort of information flow from which customers would allow their service to be interrupted or downgraded or you know something you know we'll hear the details later but but basically optimization of the system and finally in morocco a water bottling company is putting in place a digital energy management system state of the art in its plans so you know four different experiments four different learning opportunities looking ahead um you know we're very we're absolutely confident that the pilot projects will provide very rich use cases of digital technologies information from which will make replication at a commercial scale more likely data from the project we also believe we hope will feed into your own analysis at i ea and your work on power system modernization including the the development of additional tools and guidance that that proves so valuable to the world so in short we see a wealth of information coming out of this sort of field application of the technologies different technologies that will help lead to a decarbonized resilient and smart power system so i think we're going to hear much more in detail and much more interesting detail from the speakers when we get to that part of the program thank you again for joining us it's a pleasure to be with you and like the rest of you i look forward to a really entertaining and informative afternoon thanks thank you very much mark and again thanks for the collaboration so thank you mark thank you berleria thank you everybody the ceremonials are over you're getting under the real stuff now so we're going to step off stage left and hand back to ana for the first panel thank you very much well thank you very much to our opening speakers for really having set the tone for the remainder of this event for our panelists for setting the scene speakers for keynote addresses to build on and in fact we're just as a reminder to our audience here in the room this side event takes place in the framework of the eighth annual global conference on energy efficiency that starts within the next 24 hours taking place over the next two days here in versay gathering CEOs ministers and senior energy leaders from across the world for discussions on the state of energy affairs energy efficiency in the world and many of which are present here in this room so let me just maybe walk you through the agenda very quickly so we know what we've got in store we've heard from our opening speakers just now we will now dive into a first change maker conversation on some of the big picture thinking that's going on in power system modernization and digitalization we'll then go to a central pillar of today's event hearing some highlights of the three-day initiative and more particularly the first flagship report that is launched today we'll then have a brief networking and coffee moment and then we will dive into two separate discussions looking more concretely into what digitalization actually looks like in emerging markets and developing economies as was just mentioned with these pilots and then we will look towards the future in the third and final discussion on what power systems will look like in the coming decades what we can start doing about that today and how international collaboration really helps and can really change shift the needle that is a little bit the full picture of today we are live throughout the event just for our audience online and here in the room to know and without further ado i'd like to move into our first conversation and invite the speakers that conversation to join me here on the stage so please miss odry zebleman laura sandis reena suri and rosanna santos to join us online and please give them a round of applause so hope that this works yes it does good start so to build on this first discussion which should be rather broad to kick things off you know we've we know that we're talking about power system modernization digitalization within that power systems of obviously the bedrock and and the backbone of delivering the energy transition and a lot is going on in this space and we'd like to zoom out a little bit in this discussion to really understand what is going on how do we make sense of this and try to manage some of the complexity around this and i think we're really in exceptional in the presence of exceptional speakers that who that are internationally known to be thought leaders on this and to really be shifting the needle in this space so maybe odry if i can start with you you know you you advise multiple organizations on how to decarbonize the power sector you've helped numerous senior positions in companies regulators government industry entrepreneurs and really have been working on some of the trickiest parts of the energy transition can i ask you for your take on some of the immediate challenges that you see and how we should be looking at that going further out thank you and first of all and thank you to the ia to for hosting this i think if anything that's happening and we know around the world there are probably thousands of events happening and talking about the energy transition but i think this may be the most important one occurring i to me what we need to be thinking about more than anything else is that digitalization of the power systems the tools that support the integration of renewables the integration of distributed energy resources the capability to manage the data that is going to be required in order to electrify our economies is not a thing to add but actually is a gateway for what we need to do and we need to be thinking about what are the policies and practices that are in place today that need to be changed so that the integration and the use of data and digitalization and tools for basically both designing developing and implementing a decarbonized grid are the first thing that we start looking at and and for me the biggest challenge i think we have is that we're starting we think about this as something that utility should be building themselves when in fact it's something that i think government should be insisting upon and utilities should be using so that we can move things forward so i i'd like to use the analogy when we we built the internet we didn't go to individual cities and said do you think you would like to have a digital version so that you could do commerce and would you build it for yourselves instead on an international level we built the protocol around connecting to the worldwide web what is the what are the aspects of interoperability how do we get matters on how do we protect data and as a result we were able to build the platforms that allowed us to then expedite a digital future and so that wherever you go in the world and i used it today you can use uber and it works the same way and we need to start thinking about the grid as an extraction a digitalization so the universe so that we can make those tools because as i could tell you as a system operator one of my most frustrating moments was to discover that i was having challenges on integrating renewables in the system that were the same challenges that people were seeing in california in texas in the uk in italy and we were all stumbling through it when in fact what we should have been doing is doing developing the digital capabilities to allow us to model what does the system look like when we retire fossil and we add renewables and what things do we need to do in advance and we should be doing that on a global scale not an individual scale so i will turn it over to the rest of my panelists but i i believe that the role today and if we leave anything today it should be the fact that we should be moving in a direction that digitalization is a first order business that we need to think about and that as as an international agency we should be thinking about not as individual demonstrations but what are the core capabilities that every country is going to have and how do we design protocol that can be universally available and ease so that because time as you know is not on our side thank you thank you so much audrey for putting that very clearly top of mind what it is that we should be thinking about and i'm sure i can already see that your fellow panelists want to pick in on that that's a very good sign laura if i may turn to you you know you bring a vast track record of of experience you're a true advocate for the low carbon economy you've been previous member of uk parliament chaired the uk government's energy digitalization task force and chair of the green alliance as well could i ask you for your take on this to build on this you know how do should we according to you understand the current context and pivotal moments that that we're facing in the power system field and see where we should be going from now on thank you and i just want to say everything audrey says is absolutely crucial and i think particularly at an international conference this is the sort of forum that really needs to harness these international assets knowledge and expertise that we can all share benefit from and to be frank as audrey says accelerate our transition because we don't have a lot of time um i i just wanted to paint not that there's anybody in this room of course that doesn't believe that digitalization is a crucial part of the transition but just in case there were any doubts um i i just wanted to paint from a uk perspective because it's the same in in many other markets so when we look at the future we are turning this whole energy system upside down and i'm not sure that everyone in the utility sector really understands this so think about the complexity currently in the uk we have 400 people who run the energy sector and they all know each other's golf handicap that's wonderful we are now moving to a hundred million actions and assets onto the system now that is not going to be done in an analog way so digitalization is not nice to have it's a necessity the other component that absolutely the energy sector has missed over decades and that is the power of customers if you think that in 2035 we will have as many evs on the system in the uk as equivalent to three nuclear power stations right we have to unlock that asset we have to enable it to participate to deliver us an efficient and optimized system currently the energy sector puts the customer into six archetypes amazon divides us into 150 000 different archetypes we are going to have to understand customers in a totally different way we spend our life worrying about the weather well i've never seen the weather take price signals or follow legislation but actually strangely enough customers are really boring we all get up more or less at the same time every morning so we need to have a huge level of insight and the last point about what the system needs net zero is a really interesting sort of model economic model it is an optimization model it is a productivity model it is about getting more from less and the energy sector has been quite resistant and sort of tolerant of waste right across its whole system design and we need to really optimize carbon cost and capacity and those are my three drivers by which digitalization can find the waste deliver optimization deliver a better experience for customers and unlock the decarbonization that is absolutely crucial so as i say if we continue down an analog way we will have system collapse we will be absolutely overbuilding right across the board and we won't be capturing all those assets to decarbonize at speed at cost and maximizing capacity thank you thank you very much Laura for adding such dimensions to Audrey's points and to really be showing what this is going to be all about maybe to invite Rena to come in here Rena Sui you know your executive director of the India smart grid forum you bring 20 years of experience in smart grid storage electric vehicles your global ambassador for energy web foundation in India can i ask you i mean if what Audrey and Laura are talking about is essentially perhaps architectural shift really how do you see that from your perspective coming in from India and the work that you do at ISGF sure thank you and a very good afternoon to all of you i take this opportunity to thank India international energy agency for having me here as a with this esteemed panelist and i'm really honored and you know it's a pleasure to be a part of this global conference here in this beautiful city of Versailles so and thank you enough for the kind introduction so as part of the paris agreement you know several countries have set their net zero targets as my fellow panelists have already mentioned and like you know to be net zero by 2045 or 2070 and globally the globally accepted pathways to net zero is to electrify almost all activities human activities that are there and all sectors have to be electrified to the extent possible and decarbonize the power sector with the you know instead of using the polluting fuels to go for the green energy and green hydrogen so for this strategy to be a successful and the power systems in each of these countries the net zero target for the power systems have to be met in the next 10 to 15 years and you know these places this this places in onus to all these countries for net zero in the next decade which is like 2030 to 2040 and which is a very tall target and with the kind of transition that we see in the power sector today with electrons flowing in both directions today like you know with integrated huge renewables are getting integrated to the grid and which are intermittent in nature and connected to the grid and the power system operators are finding it very difficult to manage this kind of load which is getting connected how much it's generating what kind of load the customers you know are intaking so with this kind of new scenario and going forward so huge demand getting generated with the electric vehicles coming into play so the power systems will be like you know a very difficult mix to manage for our power system operators and to manage this kind of power systems and with this unprecedented generation resources that is getting connected to the grid it is essential to have control on both generation and load through the automated control systems and you know have flexible resources getting connected to the grid so according to like to highlight you know for particularly talking about the Indian power sector and the transition that we are seeing according to the late the IEA reports projections that Indian power sector is set to grow you know to the extent of over 1500 gigawatt by 2040 and over 1500 out of this 1500 gigawatt over 800 gigawatt is expected to come from the renewable sources so considering this large share of renewables that is getting you know connected to the grid the generation in the generation portfolio the IEA estimates that there's a requirement of about 85 percent you know flexibility for the Indian power sector and which we have to achieve by 2040 to be able to manage the huge like you know renewables that are getting integrated and which is which will be a huge challenge for the to manage for our system operators so therefore to effectively manage a large number of flexibility resources have to be integrated we have to build demand side flexibility power plant flexibility have energy storage systems in place and have the right policy market and regulatory solutions in place for short term and medium term basis so lastly we just like to again emphasize in the fact that with this kind of a transition and achieving the net zero we are looking to have the you know the flexibility has to be harnessed in all sectors of the energy system including the generation the distribution and the transmission all together thank you thank you very much Rina many shifting parts there excellent to hear this from India's perspective as well where so much is happening maybe we'd like to move to another place where tremendous change is taking place and that's in Brazil Rosanna Santos I'd love to hear from you you're the executive director of E plus so energy transitions institute you've spent many years working with leading utilities especially leading vast smart grid technology expansion across Brazil in Latin America so very well placed here to be commenting on this given the many changes that Brazil's electricity system is going through now how do you see let's say specifically in the large deployment of distributed solar PV how do you see digitalization making a difference and really helping in this space yeah thank you thank you very much for being for me being here for the invitation it's a pleasure to be here with such a feminine panel we have to do this remark it's a wall women panel which is great yeah Brazil it's no doubt that digitalization is kind of key for us to move from where we are today in terms of operational efficiency of the how to operate the system I mean in Brazil we have a particularly different problem in terms of renewables integration because we can do we can use the hydropower plants in order to foster flexibility so we do not need a lot of very complicated intelligence in order to do this kind of system operation but this sad if without the digitalization we will never have the demand as a part of the equation and this is something that we are desperately in need there to get the demand to respond and also to sustainably integrate distributed distributed generation solar distributed generation because with some digitalization we can better market the energy price that those guys are getting so the way it is today we are just getting net metering and this is not okay for example with smart smart grid and smart meters we could do better we could do better tariff structure so it's a must this sad it is expensive it's awfully expensive tariff in brazil is already very very high the way regulatory tariff is set in brazil is an incentive regulation so every asset that goes into the distribution company goes directly into the regulatory asset base and in the end it's tariff and people cannot pay this amount of money so a cost benefit analysis has to result positive and clearly positive all the positive side of this equation has to bring value to the society and as long as this equation is not so clear in terms of costs and benefits I do not see how to foster that based only on tariff increase just because we have to go there so in a third world country or developing or emerging economy whatever you have to have very clear what you're doing with people's money and what I'm saying is that I worked just to finish I worked in a very big large project in Sao Paulo from you know I can say we were studying how to integrate smart grids and smart meters into the grid and one of the tasks we had was what are the benefits the real benefits that we can take out of it to justify such a project so as an opening remark is just saying that we have to take care thank you so much Rosana for bringing a couple of very important points on realities for emerging markets and developing economies I think it's something that will be hearing from more from the IA as well in terms of the 3DEN project that really looks at the initiative that really looks at this maybe to circle back on a few of your points because we have a bit of time for this as well Audrey if I may go back to you I mean you've been a policymaker and a regulator what does digitalization how do we approach that from a regulatory point of view and why is this something that consumers should really care about it's something that we'll like to touch upon later as well certainly thank you and and really to build on everybody's remarks here because one of the things that I think is is sort of more more than fascinating about the energy industry is that regardless of where you are in the world and and frankly where and where the your starting point is the problems are all the same we are not going to be able to decarbonize our economies obviously without electrification and we're not going to be able to electrify effectively or economically efficiently until we recognize that the power system is a two-way system and that in order to actually work renewables into the system we need to have demand itself be the device that responds to generation and actually helps keep generation in balance so as Laura said we have to turn the whole thing upside down we used to think of the grid as simply as generators would increase and decrease based on how we use energy now when we think about electrification because it's electric vehicles as well as heating as well as processing we need to be able to actually think about how we use digitalization to manage demand so that itself becomes the most efficient and can follow generation and to do that then needs markets where consumers are actually compensated by participating in the system because what we're doing is essentially moving to a zero marginal cost energy system and what we want is energy to be a service and for consumers to continue to have universal access to all the energy they need but actually get paid when they're willing to participate in programs that allow them to modulate their use that doesn't compromise their comfort but actually provides value back to the system and the point is the technology is there in Australia today we actually have multiple projects where we're looking at how we integrate distributed energy resources into the grid in New York when I was a regulator we used incentives to basically tell utilities that they could make more money by relying on distributed energy resources than they could by building their own assets and what we need to do is scale these programs so that they become the norm rather than a series of demonstrations just my earlier point but also I think to this issue of the economics we can make the entire transition cheaper by thinking about the role of the consumer as the center and the role of distributed energy resources and smart devices as the primary devices that are going to drive value and I and I think to do that then really starts in thinking about a systems challenge that we need to be thinking about markets in a way that everyone knows the same if you buy a car if you buy a smart washing machine or or heat pump it operates the same way universally and gets the same type of value thank you very much Audrey indeed you bring in this aspect of market creation I think that's that's fascinating that brings us into perhaps a segue towards you Laura if I can ask you you've mentioned this before and Audrey just did as well I mean what does this all mean for the consumer and the end user bringing into that well I mean I think you know Audrey I'm very very interesting around the cost to consumers so the whole decarbonization mantra for a long time has been this is going to cost consumers actually if you start to look at the system and you reward consumers for their whole system not just the electron but their whole system participation actually this is a payback mechanism because I mean it's quite interesting isn't it that the energy sector really doesn't like consumers because they're seen as very random weird wacky people right and they really do you know not engage with consumers but actually the physics tells us that demand and supply is equal right but when it when you start to look at let's say the subsidy mechanisms right offshore wind gets a contract for difference in the UK fantastic if 200 000 heat pumps that could actually optimize the system as much as the supply side it doesn't get any contract for difference but actually heat pumps and we did some work with with bays through a project called recosting energy we actually showed that every time you put a heat pump onto the system you reduce whole system costs that's of benefit to everybody but instead we look at the demand side as a dead weight rather than an active participant so it's absolutely crucial but this issue around whole system costs you talk about metering and then suddenly it appearing on a customer's bill but if that customer's meter is helping to optimize the system then it should be the system that pays for the for the metering and what we don't seem to understand because the sector as as Audrey says is in silos technology by technology rather than whole system design we end up with actually money that is captured in those silos and it is not flowing through either to the demand side customers or actually through those people who are properly optimizing the system so I personally think and this might be controversial um is actually other sectors have gone through this already this isn't new if what we did was get out a lot more and meet new people and those new people might be um if you look at what happened in the 90s we went from a mainframe system in data and technology to a pc mobile now cloud system right in some ways and I with my mobile phone I'm optimized I don't have to do it myself but I am optimized to utilize the data flows in the most effective way so when I see system operators or um energy companies starting to be run by a chief executive from DHL or somebody who has gone through the technology transition or somebody runs a food food company that will be the day when I know that we are meeting the right people understanding the whole system design thank you very much for changing a perception on demand on the one hand I think that's that's a very nice turning that upside down and to bring analogies into this I think Audrey and and you Laura you bring this very very clearly in front of us there is a lot of digital already being applied in other sectors even on the consumer side we all are familiar with this so indeed in the energy sector that's an extremely interesting point of view maybe Rena building on that in fact you know giving the the technologies that ISGF has been looking at more in depth and and especially some of the trends that seem to be the increasing use of digital technologies across India to manage energy systems also from a community level that they there is an increasing role there in terms of of making that work and reach scale could you comment on that and sort of see how you see the local community playing a role there as well thank you Anna so India smart grid forum you know we have been emphasizing that with the trans transformation of the past systems that we are seeing towards the decent towards decentralized power systems and as Audrey also mentioned that consumer is going to you know become key and we we say that consumers is going to be the king so they need to take an active role and lead the way when it comes to energy transition and by making lifestyle changes and investing in you know energy saving commodities and one of the projects one of the important technology implementation that we have ISGF has undertaken with the support of the communities and we just peer to peer like transaction of solar energy photo this you know between the peers so on using a blockchain technology so this technology has been around and has we have seen you know many use cases in the energy sector and India smart grid forum we implemented the very first one with around 16 consumers in a state of Uttapadesh and we again in Delhi with 147 consumers including consumers with electric vehicles getting integrated and also more than 1000 consumers in another state and this kind of like you know technology it allowed the consumers to you know have their extra energy the surplus energy getting traded between their peers and and and set a price which you know currently with the net metering system you know the regulator has fixed the price which is maybe one third or one fourth of the price that they have to pay to buy the electricity so it's a little unfair to you know get paid for green energy at a one third one fourth rate and you know buy polluting energy at like you know maybe four times the cost so like you know with blockchain technology playing a key role and peers getting into smart contracts and be able to fix a price that what I want to buy the green energy and what price I want to sell my surplus so we showcase this with the pilot that we have undertaken and like you know the local energy communities have played a key role in the success of this project and our regulator has already given a groundbreaking regulations around it which is the first of its kind to you know implement this project and scale it up at a larger scale in a state like Uttapadesh which is which has more than 200 million consumers and which is about two third of overall population of United States I would say so another pilot that we have undertaken where local energy communities have played a key role is introduction of time of use tariff so enabling like you know within objective for us to enable the government to frame regulations for moving to real-time pricing of electricity and again we went back to Uttapadesh to implement the very first one we have first 50 consumers on board with around 50 megawatt of load all consumers comprising of industrial commercial and residential consumers a price a real-time price signals is being sent to them on a daily basis there are 96 blocks in a day and there are different prices and at the peak time they are getting like you know penalized and at using the energy at in a non-peak hour they get the the rebate so with this kind of a project we have seen that you know some of our high usage consumers they have had a saving huge saving in their monthly energy bills and that's the kind of market we are looking forward to going forward you know with local energy communities supporting the local energy markets creation of and you know be able to manage their energy consumption and like you know this kind of a new scenario so it is quite evident that the communities like you know will play a crucial role in providing grid stability with this so much of distributed energy resources getting into play with the solar with batteries and consumers playing a key role in demand response helping the utilities reduce the like you know the money that they have to spend on managing their peaks and the upgrades that is required in the upgradation of infrastructure to support that kind of demand that they have to cater to so this kind of market definitely will help the utilities and of course empower the consumers to be able to manage their energy consumption better thank you very much Rina for commenting on the the role of local communities how they can help actually become an inherent part of the change that needs to be taking place I find that extremely striking um maybe Rosanna back to you if you know you made such a strong part about the tariff structures the importance of the importance of what how we structure tariffs around this type of scale and what digitalization needs to happen maybe would you like to comment on some of what has been said already here and trying to see how we do control these systems costs going forward ensuring that the business models keep in in in place yeah sure actually I start my answer by going back to demand response that you were you were mentioning this demand response is actually music to our ears so if we can do either a demand response that response as a response to price which is not dispatchable as a program or even a program a demand response program based on paying the customer to be there and to be dispatchable I don't know if this is a English word anyhow and but then for example New Zealand is using this kind of arrangement I didn't know about Australia I'll look for it and I see this is one of the wins wins wins that we have in the system it helps control costs because it avoids avoids investment it's a way of the customer to have the demand engaged in responding and helping the system to lower the cost because the alternative would be to use thermal energy to stabilize the system to balance the system to system balance so demand response I think it's one of the most important outcomes of using a smart smart meters for example the other thing is distributed energy resources for example solar distributed energy if we do not have a way of having a better structured tariff and a better better price signal to the ones inject injecting money into the grid maybe we will be ending up doing a cross subsidy between the low income well actually it's a hobing hood cross subsidy between the ones that do not have a solar panel towards the one who does have they do have solar panels so a solar meter in a better tariff structure help a lot and we we can go there easier if we do have a solar meter sorry sorry smart meters all over it's not the only way but it helps on the other hand on the system operation side we do have better operational efficiency if we have a better um a digitalized grid meaning for example if you do have a 3d 3d model of your grid so you can optimize trucks that go to cut a tree if the tree is touching the grid you can anticipate a lot of things so you better the quality of supply without doing a lot of investment if you do it smartly so um it's just some some thoughts here how you can help it yes um i'd like to add to to both of these uh to comments i think that they you know when you around the world you'll hear distribution utilities raise concerns about uh elect EVs and electrification is increasing peaks but the fact of the matter is and that's what we're saying if we create this digital network and Laura and I are been talking a lot about creating a digital spine that could be sort of globally in nature wherein in fact EVs as well as electric heat pumps as well as solar become assets on the system and that therefore at the at the distribution level you're able then to manage so that you're not increasing the peak of the system but instead using these assets to manage the system most efficiently and as we get back to then then having um customers really be compensated for that if we do that piece plus add the dimension that we want to electrify everyone so we need to put our programs in place so that there is no one left behind just like we had want universal access to electricity we want universal access to DER and electrification and we need to start thinking about these as programs because we go back to for example to this cellular industry we didn't just do fiber to the home in response to whoever might could afford it we said the entire network had to be rewired to provide access and we need to do the same thing on the electricity side so we can do it most efficiently and in a planned way and I think if we start thinking about that in terms of compensation electrification and the fact that these distributed resources if we have the right digital networks can be used both as a means to support access to electrification globally but also reduce the cost of the transition we start realizing and I love the way the UK and I think Laura you're responsible for it that customers shouldn't be seen and their assets shouldn't be a pariah on the system but an asset in of itself and I think that's where these kind of conversations need to be going and where we should be taking this now is to start thinking about well what are these core technologies that need to be developed including smart metering which I think should be first off the rank to so that we can move as quickly as we can very briefly as well unfortunately it seems like our discussion is so interesting we're getting caught off with time we have to close in terms of our timing now but if you want to bring in just really really quickly yes countries with developed grids are going to have to retrofit them for digital those countries without um you know extensive grid networks actually have a real opportunity to leapfrog the way we've designed our grids and I would urge you guys in you know here today to actually really start to design the grid of the future not the retrofitted one and certainly don't start developing grids that look like ours because actually that's not necessarily the right solution great thank you so much to our speakers for these excellent points thank you for the applause it's absolutely well deserved for helping us navigate this complexity I thank you thank you so it's now time to move into a central part of our event today which looks at some of the key highlights of the three then initiative and more particularly looks at the launch of its first flagship publication and without further ado I'd like to invite our next speakers to join here on stage miss Annalidia Pansini who's a senior advisor from the ministry of environment and energy security of Italy please miss Pansini join us here on stage and also of course miss Vida Rosita three then program lead at the IEA to join us here and please give them a round of applause thank you I'll be hearing a few key highlights of the three then initiative all that has been achieved so far and what it has stood for how this is going around and I'd love to hand over the floor here to miss Pansini to give her remarks thank you thank you Anna for this introduction and I'm very pleased to be here representing today my my ministry and let me thank again I here for having organized this meeting that give us the opportunity to share with all of you the state of the art of our joint initiative 3DN project three hours ago we decided as Italian government to finance this project being confident about the added value and important role who'd play the digital technologies and digitalization for the decarbonization of the energy system, energy affordability and energy security all this issue also considered in the historical moment we are living in are becoming more and more important so we were not wrong and we are facing many challenges on different front like for example last year we had an important energy crisis that have an impact on economies all around the world the adverse effect of climate change on power system is a matter of fact and also and this clearly is is creating I mean big big big problem for and at the center of these challenges there is the power system and in particular the the grid for this reason we decided to to finance 3DN which the main objective is to the main objective is to provide okay thank you because I have a presentation but I don't know how to this that doesn't work okay the big one this one okay the the aim of the project is provide the is provide I don't know okay is provide the policy maker of the beneficiary countries with I mean very practical and operational guidance on three main pillars regulatory pillar technologies and financial pillars in order to try to accelerate the the decarbonization the modernization of the of the power system in order also to promote an effective and efficient utilization of distributed energy sources and demand side resources through digitalization we start in 2020 and the first phase of the project will be finalized by the end of 2023 the beginning of 2024 the global the the scope of the of the of the 3DN initiative is global but at least for the first phase we decided in a case to focus on some countries so we decided to focus on Latin America Africa and the Southeast Asia Asia region why digitalization as I said before open opportunity on the energy system as a wall so we have a lot of technologies such as advanced simulation digital twins big data that can I mean have an impact not just on power system but for example other sectors such as transport and building that as you know I mean have a big impact in terms of a mission of greenhouse gases and this can create clearly and can have many benefits such as decarbonization can have a reduction of operative cost can have and can promote the reliability and resilience of the of the system when we decide to to to launch 3DN sorry but okay one of the main objective of our our idea was to try to promote an ab of knowledge and insight and we have done this to also the governance we create clearly a joint committee that normally is manage I mean give strategic guidance and overseeing the implementation of the project but besides the joint committee we decided to create a consultative group the consultative group advised our project on technical issue they provide input on project result they support the implementation of the pilot during the the the project phase was established since the beginning is consistent three seven stakeholder from 14 countries representing academia university multilateral agency international financial institution so as an important added value because create a community of practice also on sector that normally I used to treat it in a separated way and this is very important for the our our initiative the activities that we have we have finance until now main I mean the first one is clearly dissemination so 3DN organized or participated in more than 60 webinars a lot of workshop and we have an interaction with all those stakeholder that are involved in the energy energy sector like a private sector regional organization industry association startups then we elaborate policy guidance to be provided to the policy makers so 3DN first of all contributed to more than 35 publication but the main result the main output of our project are two report the first one will be presented from from Vida and the second report will be issued on on October November 2023 and finally we decided to together with IEA and UNEP and Mr. Radka at the beginning of this event I mean a presentation on this we decided to have a call with the UNEP a call for proposal in order to test on the ground to collect from the beneficiary countries also some input and insight on the the digitalization items so we promote a call in Brazil Colombia Morocco Tunisia Tunisia India Indonesia and South Africa and at the end we finance five pilot pilot project all we know that in order to reach the ambitious target that we decided all together in the framework of paris agreement we clearly need the international cooperation to promote international cooperation international collaboration as a catalytic catalytic role in order to promote the modernization of the power system so we need to stimulate public-private partnership we need to establish knowledge sharing platform and so I mean our our what we would like to have is Italian government is to have further countries further organization to join our initiative in order to participate in an active way for the development of new analysis new tools engagement in capacity building in training so my wish today my invitation is to join us and come on board thank you very much thanks so much Anna Lydia and I'll reiterate what Dr. Motherway said that we greatly value the collaboration with the Italian government and with our partner UNEP this is a unique project for the IEA which messes insights from underground analysis and continuously delivers new policy insights so it's my pleasure here today to tell you a bit more about our report but let me first reiterate that this year is a big year for grids at the IEA and we're extremely pleased that our finally grids will get the spotlight that they need we heard already in the previous panels how absolutely crucial power systems are for the clean energy transition we heard concerns that if investments in digitalization aren't made if modernization does not happen then we will have outages we will have inefficiencies consumers will have to pay more and and so this is our first report it's available today online first page of the IEA please have a look please share with friends and and so this I'll tell you a bit more about what's inside the report but before that then already in October we will have the IEA special reports on grids which will be a global stock take of where are we at what is happening where are we with investments where do we need more investments how do we move forward towards the grids that we need and then come November as Anna Lydia mentioned our second three-day report zooming into grids of the future and touching upon many of the topics that our esteemed panel earlier also mentioned I'm building suspense before opening their port for you we already heard today about power systems facing challenges and we're facing both immediate challenges today but we're also facing new challenges in the future and as as our decarbonization journey progresses we will face even challenges that we may not have anticipated in the future just to highlight a few of these so in in terms of what's at stake so as we said electricity systems at the heart of clean energy transitions electricity demand especially in emerging and developing economies is set to increase an increase by a staggering amount to 2600 terawatt hours in just seven years this is massive this is as much as the demand of five germanies in seven years to compound things we're seeing a big increase in the need of cooling i think we're noticing here this is a hot room we are all thinking about cooling but increasingly due to climate change cooling is a life or death situation and we see that demand is already reaching as much as 30 of peak load in some countries set and the number of air conditioners to be deployed is set to double again in just seven years and a large share of these of course in emerging and developing countries and to make the challenge even more complex we still have more than 775 million people without electricity access and we were seeing after years of progress negative trends last year 20 million people lost access because they couldn't afford to pay for electricity and of course power systems are already being affected by climate change with damage to assets and outages on a monthly basis outages in the right unreliable supply particularly a painful issue for emerging and developing countries where some countries face outages for hours every day and unreliable supplies affecting economies making forcing businesses to purchase expensive diesel generators and spend a lot of money on fuel we we've been calculating at the IEA we love our numbers and we've estimated that unreliable supply and outages could cost 1.3 trillion just over the next seven years unless something urgently is done to fix this we see technical losses alone in power systems are costing in the region of up to 100 billion per year globally so on this backdrop we need to decarbonize and we need to decarbonize really really fast and IEA came out this week with really good news so investments in renewables finally surpassed investments in oil but if you read the fine print of that report that's the mid-term renewable market report we are emphasizing that grids need to be strengthened they need to be modernized to enable continued deployment of renewables and importantly effective and efficient use of these renewables so we already heard power systems are changing they need to change I think they needed to be turned upside down and change completely and what we do need here is to think about what are the capabilities that we need the new functionalities that we need and here we already heard today we cannot have these new power systems that are infinitely more complex that need whole system orchestration that need visibility in our analog way our power systems were designed for times when we had readily available subsidized fossil fuel resources and where we did not pay heed to any consequences the consequences are here now we are on a verge of climate disaster change needs to happen urgently so what role can digitalization play and I think one of the reasons why digitalization in the power sector hasn't taken off at the speed that it needs to is the complexity it's perceived as complex so what we've done in this report we've broken it down into functionalities what are the things that we want these digital tools to deliver we want to improve the performance of current grids now we want to improve access and affordability we want to start managing demand growth and electrification we need to prepare for the future including resilience management of distributed energy resources advanced energy system planning and we need to start leveraging data and we need to start building data governance systems and frameworks because even now with digitalization being I'd say partially deployed there are huge data resources that are sitting and not being used for analysis for insights for energy planning so this is a similar slide that you saw from Anna Lydia but just to re-emphasize because we are at an energy efficiency conference your many of you are energy efficiency policy makers or advisors to energy efficiency policy makers so we're very much focusing on expanding the scale and scope of efficiency because we cannot just continue looking at end uses we cannot continue working in our silos we need to think about how can we leverage energy efficiency more actively at the time it's needed in the place it's needed so a much more dynamic role for efficiency and we heard already about the importance of demand response going forward and just to mention in terms of policies it was already discussed today that everyone has a role to play and energy efficiency policy makers have a strong role to play in this area to ensure that the equipment that is being deployed is grid ready that buildings are interactive that we have the regulations that are being leveraged to provide this flexibility we we heard about a frightening amount of flexibility needed in India and it's the same world over we will need much more of it and we will need to find out how to leverage things so we do need more integrated policy making we do I think we we heard about people needing to talk to the right people in the energy sector we need to start talking across our silos to create the solutions that we need and then here just just to emphasize here's one of our load curves and this is a situation that will increasingly be facing as we decarbonize we're seeing generation at a time when we don't have supply or we don't have demand and then we all come home in the evenings we'll plug in our electric vehicles our tea kettle start cooking and we'll see a peak and we don't have the supply to match that while with smart solutions we can modify these curves we can find ways where we can utilize storage effectively and we can contribute to more secure more stable more reliable cheaper electricity going into the future and maxing out the value of renewable energy because what we're seeing today is that we could avoid curtailing 25 percent of renewable energy by leveraging smart demand response 25 percent we are wasting so investments as Anna Lydia said investments is a strong pillar of our joint work and we're not seeing a good situation we need globally investments to double double over every year over the next seven years and looking into the future that increases continuing we're seeing negative trends especially in emerging and developing countries we're rather than increasing investments in grids are decreasing they're decreasing at a time when grids need to be strengthened they need to be modernized we need to be able to provide access to people reliable electricity to people so that they can grow their businesses so that they can develop so that they can attend education so definitely need for for strong focus in this space and in our report we provide policy guidance around how to drive investments how to enable investments how to leverage different types of mechanisms and vehicles and we provide a a broad spectrum of policy guidance around a range of different areas worth to considering when you're at an embarking on a smart grid journey or you're already well along in your smart grid journey there's continuously things to to look about look at and think about and consider but but I'll end my presentation with our five steps to start the smart grid journey to start thinking about before embarking what do we need we need a vision we need road maps we need roles for people we need to consider involving people who haven't been involved in the power system and and finding new ways of collaborating we need to think about our priorities we need to understand the impact of technologies understand the cost benefits that's something we heard earlier today and we need new methodologies to do that we do not have the methodologies today to be able to assess the full spectrum of environmental and social benefits that digitalization could unlock in the context of power systems and so our investments are not going in the right direction collaboration data finding ways of sharing data making effective use of data and of course transparency communication communication of what is happening what are the roles what what what are we achieving is an essential part of this smart grid journey so so with that I'll end my presentation I'll thank you all very much for for your patience I think Anna will tell us about networking opportunity and please do do have a look at our report please do share it and please do keep in mind that a new report is coming already October the stock take and then Grids of the Future and for Grids of the Future I would very much welcome yourselves here in the audience people online to reach out to us at three dan and share your perspectives and share your views so that we can take best practices innovative approaches exciting new perspectives into developing this report because we're calling it Grids of the Future but it is very much about the actions that need to happen today so that we don't miss the opportunity so that we don't close doors but we get to the place where we need to forget thank you very much for your attention and I'll hand over to Anna thank you very much Vida and thank you very much miss Pancini for this really stellar part of today to really launch this report underline what 3 a dn is all about and indeed to end on on Vida's note here it's very important that we take into account any questions any comments any suggestions that based on what you've just heard whether from the floor here whether from the audience here in Versailles or online please do make sure that they reach the IEA the email is up here on screen and this is very important to the team and to the work that is ongoing and that continues so in that respect I'm very happy to now announce a brief networking opportunity time for a bit of coffee to build on what has been said and to also anticipate what will come after because we have two more very important discussions to build on all of these aspects so we'll reconvene in the next 20 minutes thank you very much our system transformation is absolutely vital for energy transition digitalization is a way to get there a conversation under some of the big puzzle pieces that need to be addressed with an initiative the flagship report that is out now what can be done about this why it's so important so perhaps now it's a good moment to really be looking at what digitalization looks like more concretely in emerging markets and developing economies and that's what our next segment is going to be about and to set the scene here with that's my pleasure to invite to miss alessandra fidanza who's a senior expert at the minister of environment and energy security to give a keynote address in this respect so miss fidanza the floor is yours thank you very much hannah thank you very much distinguish delegate guests offline and online i'm delighted to be with you today to address the importance of scaling up the implementation of digital technologies to support access to clean and affordable electricity and to introduce a discussion about the vital role of smart grid pilot projects digital technologies can provide significant benefits for climate and power systems reliance we're pleased that the 3dn initiative has become a flagship project to support the energy transition and let me add that added value of this project is the fruitful cooperation between the iaia and onep the focus of today's event is threefold first we aimed to convene diverse and insightful expert discussions the room here today in bersaia is a direct testimony to that second we aimed to launch the first 3dn flagship report and have just heard key highlights presented by the iaia let me address our appreciation for the iaia's remarkable work this report reflects on smart grid opportunities in emerging and developing economies how digitalization can tackle multiple challenges and most importantly the vast benefits it can bring to emerging and developing economies but today is also about a third objective to illustrate how change is already taking place within the 3dn project the italian ministry of environment and energy security launched a smart grid pilot program managed by the united nations environment program unab projects are currently being implemented in brazil colombia uh india and morocco the achievements and learnings from these projects will be used to inform further iaia analysis and policy guidance in line with 3dn's objectives the pilot projects focus on digitalization for flexible and resilient energy systems in emerging and developing economies each pilot showcases innovative applications of smarter digital power infrastructure update in doing so the pilot projects provide an opportunity to gain on the ground inside test new approaches and disseminate learning that fits into the 3dn initiative insights gained from the pilot projects will help scale up the implementation of efficient reliable and sustainable energy systems impacting people's lives across the continents as we heard during the report launch digital technologies help address current challenges power systems are fading worldwide digital technologies can improve system efficiency resilience flexibility and quality of electricity enhance energy access and enable affordability thereby improving livelihoods moreover digital technologies enable decarbonizing power systems to deliver a net zero future italy is firmly committed to modernizing energy efficiency and power system as a part of the overall european goal to reduce emissions of at least 55 percent by 2030 and reach climate neutrality by 2050 as the european green deal set out this commitment underpins our leading role in the 3dn initiative since the inception of 3dn italy has aimed to complement the analytical and policy work with supporting concrete digitalization solutions to take off in emerging and developing economies not only did we intend for the initiative to provide insights analysis and recommendations for policy action but we also wanted to enable tangible visible and measurable change the pilot projects reflect this and i'm glad to announce that representatives from each pilot projects are with us today and we will have the opportunity to hear from them in the forcoming discussion we thank wuneb for their fantastic work and capillary support to allow the pilots to operate the pilot projects are proving these benefits are real they reflect innovative solutions in urban smart energy islanded systems and existing asset enhancement mrs merian elemenisi mrs viviana vitto mr daniele russolillo mr pancage argh baval who are with us today will speak to these examples these pilots have in common that they help us better understand what is happening on the ground which is fundamental in spurheading the change at the scale and scope needed for decarbonization daniele russolillo speaks to the work of digital districts for flexible energy services by planet smart city and in which way the company is transforming how affordable housing is delivered in brazil mrs merian elemenisi represents the work represents the work of the mineral dolma in morocco making progress on changing global energy systems in food and drink processing companies by implementing digital measurements and energy monitoring systems to improve industrial energy efficiency thereby facilitating power system decarbonization pancage argh baval leads the work at panic tech on a cloud-based digital twin technology to an electrical distribution grid to deliver an answered operation and management and improve the reliability and cost efficiency of an emergency economy distribution network in deli india viviana vitto will illustrate how henner flex provides a digital demand response mechanisms that are already improving power system efficiency in colombia moreover she will provide insights into the need for power systems to evolve to meet the future needs this discussion will help shed light on how pilots can be taken to the next level and go from demonstration to reach scale we will also hear about the critical role of startups and technology providers in ensuring access to solutions and the capacity to utilize them for maximum value we know we must scale rapidly to reach our decarbonization goals and digitalization is a way to get there the panel will also host dr shiva nisharma from itachi energy in india itachi is in the 3d and consultative group who will speak about some of the challenges in the context of india and highlight the critical role of technology development to support the green energy transition and mr david darin ze from ddi a not-for-profit development service provider in agria who will speak about some of the challenges in the context of africa in deploying innovative technologies and solutions and highlight some success factors i look forward to hearing from the panel italy tanks unip and iaia for their support in making the 3d and project as a successful initiative enabling our ministry's vision to be realized with tangible visible and quantifiable outputs and achievements as my colleague anelidia mentioned we welcome further countries to join us on this vital journey towards digital-enabled clean affordable and efficient power systems i look forward to this discussion thank you thank you very much miss fidenza for laying out the key objectives of this event in fact gathering the discussions launching the report and of course discussing these pilot projects that we're very eager to hear more about and in that respect i'd love to segue into our panel discussion so my pleasure to invite our speakers to join us here on stage mr daniele russellio mr pancage agarwal miss maryem elvenici mr david arinze mr shibana charma and mr viviana avito please join us with a round of applause thank you thank you very much for being here um in this second discussion building from the broad picture we'd now like to really get a better sense of what digitalization looks like on the ground and i think that um the speakers of this panel really can speak to that very very accurately um we've just heard that these the benefits of the pilot projects that what they're trying to achieve are real that they're being taken forward and uh would love to hear more of your perspective on exactly what is happening in this space and maybe if i can start with you daniele uh you are a c o o and deputy c o of planet smart city uh an expert on energy environment in the urban settings working across multiple continents asia africa uh europe and you represent one of the pilots in fact on digital districts for flexible energy services can i ask you within the space that you're operating can you highlight some of the challenges that planet smart city is trying to overcome in brazil thank you so much anna thank you everybody i also say hello to all the people who are watching us remotely this is a great day for us because we won the 3dn initiative and i need to thank ia and the italian ministry that was a very visionary action to put in place and of course i need to thank also the unip delegation miriam carolina who made everything happen i mean unip came to visit our development to ensure that the diligence was doing right and then we won this is a young company planet smart city was born in 2018 well actually a bit before but we started a scale up in 2018 and it's been a fast ride we are a really state developer with a twist what do we do it's important to understand we develop large neighborhoods for affordable housing in countries characterized by high level of housing deficit we build homes thousands of homes for lower income people india is the first country for us in terms of top line brazil is the second country and we were born in brazil this is why this project has been delivered there because we are more advanced there we just started up colombia and we have presence also as the eight quarter in italy uk and we have projects in the united states it's very important to understand the challenges and i was talking about challenges let me give you a very short picture in the world every single year 10 million apartments are built for the affordable housing sector what is it these are apartments for the lower income segments of the society usually people are first buyers they were usually used to live in informal settlements or many families in one apartment or in one apartment but very unsafe housing and they want a place to live affordable housing 10 million sectors 10 million homes every year produced you know what will be the demand of affordable apartments in 2025 350 million households are going to look for what the united nations called decent housing the gap between the supply and the demand is staggering what happens in this sector is that really state developers operate locally and very often if you travel with countries characterized by high level of housing deficit brazil tops eight million and a half housing units rural india and urban india tops 80 million housing units as housing deficit so we're talking about an enormous problem if you travel to these places you won't see very often beautiful projects you don't want to raise your kids there projects that lack mass planning there's no vision there's no design there's no quality of construction let alone what odry want us to go first which is digitization we want to do things differently i mean Miriam has been in our developments in brazil we sell homes to families in brazil for a million kaza minia with a program and i want to say this is all a private venture we don't ask any money from the public environment but our families are happy because our projects are actually beautiful and we look after esg compliance and of course innovations the challenges are that when you build their homes for less than 300 per square meter is complicated to go into this stream of innovation and to decarbonize properly and to go for resilience but there's a one little trick that we apply which is scale if you apply scale so you're not building little condominiums i don't know 20 30 apartments but you go for hundreds and hundreds and thousands then with a scale and a proper business plan you can integrate innovation so our idea in brazil with this winning project was that we want to digitize the local energy system of course we're going to go downstream the smart meter of course we're going to put iot in the system of course we're going to do pv systems in a distributed way of course we're going to do storage the platform for managing all the power flow at the local level is proprietary from planet and our partner energy of things which is a company in italy we're going to do that but the first for which i'm so happy to be on this stage is that it will happen for the first time in the world in an affordable housing development where in this moment 300 families live almost 500 in a little while and these are families whose income every month is around $500 a month do you understand the power the evocative power on these families on the kids who live there to stay in a development with such an advanced innovative technologies to decarbonize save money on the bills and decongestion the power network which means reliability which means improving the quality of life every day thank you daniele to really illustrate so well the people factor here because that is like brian said this morning really an important action in fact and an angle to keep in mind keep top of mind in fact and i think we'll circle back to that also your point on scale because i think that's one of the things that i'm i'm guessing many of you have in common pankej if i can turn to you now you're a ceo of india-based panic tech power group you're working on accelerating india's transition to net zero with state of the art technologies and in particular working here on cloud-based digital twin technology for electrical distribution grids can you speak to us i guess same question as to daniele so same passion in the answer could you tell us a bit what are some of the challenges you're trying to figure out to to really help resolve and how your technology is helping within that thanks ana and thank you everybody for being the thank you for the invitation i'm really really grateful of course to ia unab and particularly ministry of italian ministry of power for supporting this work what i thought was that you know pictures speak much much more than thousand words so i thought i'll share a few a couple of pictures in this presentation what you see is actually very fresh pictures from last week i was in delhi last week where we are deploying this solution we talked about in india we talked about of course in the in the palace before we talked about technical not non-technical commercial losses and this is what it looks like this is how it's a real life a complex situation and if you're trying to reduce these losses in this environment how do we go about doing it mix into all this the transition that's happening with distributed energy coming in with electrical vehicles coming in this is a complex problem the whole nature of electricity is changing the approach that we are taking therefore is to create a digital twin what the body does and i'll talk to you about talk that we will show some things about this is essentially we've installed and what you again see are this is the way we are at the very early stage of the project we just deployed state-of-the-art meters and data collection devices to collect complex set of data in this complex environment and to demonstrate also the complexity of the problem of the system here and our approach you're taking is that you know in india india is is is is very interesting compared to the western world i always like to use the example of mobile telephony you know 30 30 years ago we leapfrog from a very very poor telephone network to one of the most advanced mobile network and same india has the same potential when it comes to the transformation that's happening in the electric sector if you look at advanced countries european countries they have they're very they have good legacy systems so the meters they are are old rotating time meters in india we are now leapfrogging the plan is the government is planning to install in every house in the next five years smart digital meters that means there'll be 250 million smart meters in the next five six years which means the kind of data that can be collected and we use now to completely transform the way energy is distributed is consumed and we can show the world so that's the message that's what we are trying to do we had a very very early stage of this project we have chosen one of the most complex sites because what we want to make is you know something which is scalable and finally you know we are a company or for-profit company our idea is not just to have another pilot the idea is use really use this learning to scale it up not only in delhi but india and also hopefully across the world i i thank you for this prankage because i see a similar very nice bridge with what daniella was saying huge potential markets that are absolutely tremendous and technologies that are now showing proving what they can do i understand it's early days but still it seems that this is heading into the right direction and that scale will be the next question i'd like to circle back to that in just a bit in fact so thank you for also the examples that really do make this very very clear if i can turn to you now meryem el mernici sorry meryem el mernici you're a productivity and go to market a director at leso mineral dolmes you have extensive experience in increasing energy efficiency from an industrial perspective but also from a measurement perspective and i think that that's to some of that speaks to some of the work that you're doing at leso mineral dolmes can you speak to the massive role that energy efficiency in industry can really help deliver in this respect okay thank you ana i'm pleased to be here today to share with all of you our experience the experience of leso mineral dolmes in terms of energy efficiency digitalizing and give some few insights on on the project this project for which i would like to thank the minister the italian ministry of environment and energy security the united nation environment program and the international agents energy agency for for making it happen and for helping accelerating our energy efficiency roadmap in such a transformative way now coming back to your question ana the project is digitalization of energy management and industrial performance monitoring systems it's it's it's a focus it's a special focus on data management because we know that data management is crucial to achieve efficient usage of energy especially in large facilities like leso mineral dolmes so the the project consists of in a very first step of enhancing our measurement system by using smart devices and instruments and it has it is being implemented in our two main factories in morocco totalizing over 80 percent of our production industry so these measurements or these data is automatically collected and integrated into two digital platforms the solutions the digital solutions that we have been choosing in in this project first one is called power studio scada and it is uh dedicated for energy management combined with the second solution which is line view for industrial performance management so both platforms or both digital platforms provide predictive analytics these analytics are based on artificial intelligence and machine learning and they provide forecasts on supply and demand and consumption patterns and we all know that we when when we take like data in in like an isolated way it cannot be used in an efficient way so that's why the predictive models that we are working on currently they combine other factors other factors linked to the activity specific factors linked to the activity like production schedule like machine capabilities like quality of power maintenance planings in order to give a global picture and valuable insights and these insights are used by the stakeholders the top management level in order to identify where do we have losses where we can implement our action plans in order to get immediate optimization uh if effects or impact and also in order to take effective informed decisions about capacity increase about continuous improvement project uh and uh and and other investment that are linked to cost reduction and in terms of well impacts we are talking about productivity impact efficiency but in numbers if I can translate this in the numbers this project will allow us to to to reach energy consumption reduction of 20 percent which will lead to to reduction of carbon footprint of 15 percent. Awesome very striking numbers there and and from what I recall here you know predictive analytics data machine learning I think this really builds up very nicely with some of the big concepts that were mentioned earlier this this afternoon um and what that goes to show I think it mentions what you can't change what you can't measure right so. Exactly we cannot improve what we cannot measure you can't we cannot change it exactly. So that's that's the the the ideal way to go uh on that indeed maybe if I can turn to you now David um you're a program officer for off grid uh at diamond development initiatives uh you accompany and and and really uh support many successful clean energy off grids into their next stages uh you do this throughout West Africa um and you're an advisor to UNDP energy you're part of the SDTC have a youth constituency as well so you bring an interesting angle to this debate as well which is to look at this from a startups innovative business models perspective and also from the African continent perspective where there are many specific challenges but also so much potential ahead so can you speak to us a little bit um in terms of how you see these new technologies solve perhaps the biggest challenge of them all the energy access challenge. One greetings everyone um such a pleasure to be here I would say um thank you for the question Anna and as I think around the different facets the question presents in Africa today we have over 500 million people without access to energy um when we want to look at um the subject of uh that's like on this on the perspective of electricity when we look at the subject of clean cooking it's even scarier and as we think around the challenges that this presents it also creates a very brilliant opportunity you know for businesses to take advantage of in Nigeria today we have supported the implementation of several multiple projects across um different value chains from mini grid solutions to standalone solutions to clean cooking and even solar equipment manufacturing and one of the things that we have seen that could or that has been a game changer and that could also inform um funders and how they spend is being able to ensure that they create platforms like Trident and other platforms that ensure that companies can turn their idea to product and when you're trying to answer this energy challenge you need to look at the fact that you have a business to do it and it must make sense to the financier energy is a business and while it has a socioeconomic impact we need to be able to look at it from their perspective and sometimes that that's where the role of different financiers and different types of financing come into place there'll be those who would fund idea to product there'll be those who will be able to fund that idea that has turned to product to go through multiple levels of iteration those there'll be those who would fund that formidable product that have gone through those levels of iteration to go to scale and ensure you grow these businesses across board there's a level of hand holding that needs to be provided support that needs to be given to all of these companies and the kind of support that we're giving to category a would differ from the type of support that we're giving to category c in all of this we have seen the tremendous impact that can happen when indigenous companies are being supported to provide indigenous solutions to a very complex problem as energy access in Nigeria today we funded the only solar manufacturing plant manufacture a private led manufacturing company who manufacture solar PVs in Nigeria we have tremendous successes as well with mini grid companies and the rest of them what makes the difference we must be willing to walk the long haul with these companies we must be able to also gather data and why am I really very passionate about clean energy businesses and start up running this sort of trying to provide this sort of solution because they understand the market they understand the people why are we trying to even solve an energy access challenge because it has a direct correlation to us taking people out of poverty and so we look at it from that perspective and we're not just trying to explain other technology today or show a fancy idea today no we have a critical problem to address and that is energy poverty and how it impacts on people's social economic growth and activities and so when we look at all of this that influences the kind of work that we do and of course youths have a critical role to play over 70 percent of the companies that we fund today are youth led and so we have seen tremendous ideas impactful solutions that youth can bring on board and so I would like to call we already have some of these innovative ideas on stream we already have them available but I would like to call the attention to relevant state governments relevant country governments relevant partners funding organizations as well to look at how do we fund clean businesses do we need to revise the kind of mechanisms that we have today to be able to ensure that we have much we have the imagines of much more companies who can play in this sector opposite here Anna thank you David you seem to really illustrate where technologies development and entrepreneurship meet and I think there's probably few areas that are so exciting for that space than Africa in fact than sub Saharan Africa and I really think you know the hand holding all the work that you're doing in that space is there's a lot going on there to take forward maybe Shivana if I can turn to you at this stage you're a principal technical consultant at Hitachi Energy in India you bring 16 years of experience within smart grid sector and an industry in particular and I'd like to hear maybe from you what technologies and solutions exist today to be able to decarbonize and digitalize the grid also from India's perspective which a lot to have heard about already all right thanks a lot Anna and thank you Vida and the complete IEA team for inviting me here I represent Hitachi Energy and we are pioneer leaders into technology solutions and power consulting as well where we do different kind of power system analysis to integrate all these new kind of technologies that we talk in and as my friend Vida she just told in the morning right for all of us who are feeling uncomfortable sitting in this room here as a parent and as a professional I was really very concerned when the last year in India we did see a cold wave we did see a heat wave and there was a situation where my daughter's school went online due to a bad air quality index so you know climate change is not something that we are talking over it'll come 10 years later or something it is just right here on our face and that's how you know I'm so happy we are all the important stakeholders we are here to solve these challenges and also as you mentioned from the India's perspective I would really like to say that the kind of demography that we have the kind of you know strong renewable availability that we have in our area we are talking of 500 gigawatt in the next couple of years which is a very very huge renewable that we are talking about there's also an ongoing debate like should you know completely replace the coal powered power plants and move to renewables and so on so that's where it's very important that when we say yes decarbonization when we say yes more renewable we would also like to see that what are the kind of implications that these resources would bring into the grid and as a consumer I may really not be concerned whether you use a microgrid a solar or a coal the ultimate point is that we are trying to solve a dilemma of energy where we are also trying to add clean energy we are also trying to make it secure yes it has to be reliable as well as we are also trying to make it affordable where it's very economical for the consumer to use it and and and as we discussed the people factor in the first half I I would like to take it a little ahead where we have a onus and important responsibility not today but for the generations to come that whatever actions we are doing we do not come back to zero and we plan it in such a way that it's a very optimal kind of energy mix it's a very optimal kind of implementation in a phased manner that we are going ahead with and coming to you know the industry readiness so we all talk of decarbonization of resilience of energy efficiency it's very important again to understand that today we are at a stage where organizations are no more about just profit and loss we are also committed to the carbon emissions yes the step one a dipstick assessment what is the kind of carbon emissions that your organization is making so you could be a factory you could just be an office you could be an academic institute but let's measure what is that emission that you make and how do you reduce it and while we sit here in Versailles talking of all these decarbonization activities it's also important to understand that electricity it's going to be the backbone of the complete energy sector so do we really have those products which are readily available for us to implement so yes there are many including one of my organizations there are many products available so just to give you a very brief glimpse sf6 is a gas which is like you know the monster or I would say a very harmful for the environment so there are sf6 products available in the market there are development stage activities that we are doing so for example we would say more renewables replace all the diesel generators right there's this ongoing trend going on kill the DGs so when we say this we replace it with a sustainable solution say for example a hydrogen powered diesel generator and when you do that what are the auxiliary benefits you would like to have so there are many such products many such solutions but I think the key remains a seamless integration into the grid for today and for the coming generations yeah thank you thank you very much Shivani for illustrating that much further in terms of technologies that do exist what's to expect in that space and what implications the technologies themselves will have for the grid that is transforming so it really is also a two-way street in that in that direction and that would like to take the floor now to you Viviana your head of market strategy and regulatory analysis at NL grids you have 25 years of experience in global generation business development carbon credits as well building on carbon that we've just heard from Shivani can you speak to us about the pilot project also from an ill grid side in Colombia what's going on in that space and how of course that connects to the bigger issues that we are discussing today thanks and I'm let me express also from my side so I'm glad to be here to celebrate let's say this initiative and thanks to the collaboration of italian ministry and international agency the capability to give hamster to a big challenge like the transition is bringing on the table in particular for electricity grids we have seen in the previous panel that is particularly that's the majority of renewable growth will happen on medium and low voltage and this will create a tremendous impact and the needs and responsibility from the distribution operator to do more of the conventional role and I think that this is already happening in 2022 we connect five times the consumers of the previous year so we reach like near to 500,000 versus 100,000 consumers sort of more than five gigawatts of renewable capacity on democratic let's say territory moreover we have also the mobility and so how the demand is keeping parts of the energy from the sides I think that the challenge needs to be to find an answer in the challenge and this is the scope of the NFC projects in Colombia because we need that the disability resources will participate to find so it's just about consumers but in general terms about consumers that can answer to that and the key area of topics that the project will struggle to find solution is about also regulatory aspect in terms of how to enhance the current framing regulation on local flexibility market because it's a new markets only few countries are deployed this market and we need also to collaborate to integrate among the player to find common solution for that on the innovative space because it's clear that we need not just to answer with the standard solution but to find that new solution and the project will find a way that the resources will cooperate integrates as a platform with the network for enhancing the operation of network through the products of flexibility so any answer from the resources will become part of the operating solution for the network this does means that the network has not to deploy investment but should optimize and this is to be done also with the cost benefit analysis that's clear was mentioned before it's very important in K because the we need a lot of investment to challenge this transition and we need to create priority and this also flexibility could be part of this capability of creating priority and the third aspect is about this participation so we need stakeholder and in particular consumers consumers completely in the in the game it's not a game of the disabuse or that are to challenge the consumer but it's a common game and I think these are the dreams of the project and is in general terms what we have in our portfolio of projects trying to do also in other country so we have a project in Italy also in the umbrella let's say of the sandbox of the regulatory area asking for distributed for the market of flexibility where project is spain also more concentrated on the flexibility is also from mobility another one from demand response and also we are near to launch also project in Brazil also very similar to the columbia project wonderful to see that all these examples are really taking root in many different areas of the world judging no going bridging back there we go bridging back to Audrey's point this morning's challenges happen in many countries they have they share a similarity and so to be applying this across across different countries is definitely a way to to prove that as well time is a bit against us as usual on interesting panels but I would like to maybe do a quick lightning round in terms of a follow-up question for each and I want to start actually with a duo Daniele Pankaj because you both spoke about scale you both are mentioning big market potential in your respective spaces tried and tested models really already well behind your thinking of the next stage how to scale that all up how do we shift the needle on that to get to where both of you would like to see those markets go and I'll let you decide how you want to take that thank you so much Pankaj thank you Anna for your question before answering your question I want to make a statement we call in this three-day activities pilots what I wish is actually there's no prefer concept there's no testing there's no piloting this is us to be real real to scale it's about integration of technology that we already know what to do we as planet because we are digital business you develop the digital platform to insert flexibility of the demand in the in the equation we have a planet for final users Pankaj I'm sure you have an amazing technology in India it's not about there's a lot of learning but there's no testing we need to do it and this is a wish for all the activities on this panel scale for us is very easy and I'm going to give you two numbers planets more city and so far we never missed one one one actually milestone as an objective because in the last two years we sold the two thousand apartments every year and we are basically building out ten thousand apartments in India Brazil Colombia in the United States we want to get in eight years as a company that produces design build and sell modern forty thousand apartments every year it looks like a lot is not 50 percent of these apartments will be for India because India is about volumes right so this is normal the other countries will be sure brazil colombia but we also are in Mexico and vietnam in asia and then we're done in 2022 this is a company that would have a top line of more than two billion dollars we would have make our investors happy more than everything our people happy come and visit our developments what we feel are not energy systems are the life of people and this is so people-centric that this is why I said before that the italian ministry was visionary because doing these kind of activities and giving us the possibility to implement something that radically changes the life of people is key so this is to answer the scale question Anna the second thing is my beneficiary is if the mortgage every month is more than let's say ten dollars more they won't buy the house this is the level of income we're talking about so anything I can do to give them efficiency and savings that from a point of view the money in their pockets kilowatt hours and for the younger people also the carbonization because they want that we will all win thank you pan cash to you and actually right after also to you david on investment how to reach that to scale you mentioned this please yeah so again I completely agree with with david that you know it is not really about pilot I think freedom as a it's a very very important program but it's really about finding a business model which is does not have to eventually depend on subsidy and then the scale will come naturally and I think that is what I think the way this program has been designed as well is a very good combination of looking at real life problem with some really commercial technology giving that kickstart and then scaling up finding a business model and so on then you do not want to have something because if you keep depending on subsidies like a drug you know you will never be able to scale I think that to me is really the strength of this program and that is what our objective is market is there just to find the right way to it is clear you know we all know now that today you know in India solar solar energy is the cheapest form of energy that period right so I think you know it's now about how do we integrate it how we find the right business model the impact through business david you said it it's a business make it scale needs to come from a business sound business with a sound business model that provides the resources not to ask money for the public administration they need to look after education and health we as business people need to solve this issue with business money that generated from what we do david would you like to comment on investment there absolutely um very briefly I'm very sorry that's fine when it comes to the way we deploy energy solutions coming from the people perspective we also need to look at how we can improve the capacity to pay and when we deploy energy solutions we need to deploy it with the sense how can we improve the life and livelihoods of these people through the way we deploy energy solutions so like we have a lot of solutions in rural communities we see that typically if you have a farmer who would wait a couple of months to harvest his product and he sells at that level he would not be a rich man he would just be an average farmer but when there's the element of agro processing that comes in that increases the value for x 5x so we need to be able to look at these sector because when the farmer when we look at energy access you're looking at different other sectors that are interconnected and so we need to look at it from their perspective for its off-take but much more importantly when we find models that are already existing there has to be sharing of information there has to be these entities need to be given the kind of incentive that they require to scale but more importantly also ensure that there are programs that create an enabling environment for new entrants because one company you don't want to be labeled each company is looking at its own market share but we need to look at more players on the scene who can now approach it from a broad perspective thank you thank you very much for that David and I'd like to turn we had a lightning round with three speakers we have three other speakers I'd like to hear your quick thoughts just on a few key topics Meriam I'd like to hear from you on skills how the methodologies that you're using that you're really putting forward is really helping you also to upskill what is going on in your in in the industry companies and from Shivani if I may to hear if you have any distinct elements on international collaboration for example because that's what the next panel is going to be about and Viviana if I can hear from you in a few words what the new DSO role the the sorry the DSOs that you have been discussing that you've been setting out what do you where do you think we stand there in terms of regulation what will that mean going forward what should we keep in mind on a lightning round Meriam thank you Anna indeed actually people is is very important dimension in in in businesses and in this project as well for because it's it helps the valorization of of people and upskilling our workforce first by job creation and and transformation because when we invest when we implement a new technology tools it needs it means that we we need high qualified profiles that were people who are skilled in software development in analytics and all the second second point is is about training I mean having the digitalization of our systems it creates opportunity for people for our employees to to to to to be trained to go through upskilling and training programs in order to enhance their capability to to follow up with the implement and system and the the last one is is access to to real-time information because when we have like the the information or the data reachable people or the workers are not obliged to lose their time looking for the data and they are focused on added value tasks rather than losing time on searching everywhere where of data Shivani yeah I remember the lightning word Anna yeah okay thank you so coming to the wonderful word that you've mentioned international collaboration I think that's what IEA and the 3DEN project is a very amazing example of and when we talk of you know the grid integration when we talk of decarbonization we have different countries who are at different stages like my friend Reena she mentioned carbon neutrality goals of each country by 2050 2060 and in fact there were few countries who also had to revise their commitment due to different various reasons so what remains on the collaboration front is that yes Anna we need to come out of that tug of war between you know who takes the first step first and first let the policy come then the manufacturing would work and then the consumer the utilities and so on sustainability decarbonization is the north star all of us have to move towards it it's only the speed that matters the scaling up that matters and when we say this the implementation has to be in a very well phased manner where we see that yes this particular country whether it is already developed is it in the developing stage we do have the specific unique characteristics of each country we collect the best practices the lessons learned which may essentially not be a copy paste but a very useful kind of document for the other countries and that's where we would have long-term policy measures we would have the grid codes which ensure that the integration of all these technologies digital decarbonization are made seamlessly where we are aware of what situation we are into what country we are into what is the kind of sources the kind of risk the kind of climate changes and when we say climate change it's not you know just some weather change and we sit at one place if you talk from the power grid point of view there's a cloud the generation goes off there could be a substation fire there are things we are exploring in case you have to excavate how do you go about it and so on and also decarbonization to the extent of the circular economy as well can you have some usage of the second hand hv equipments in place and so on so there's so much that we can do globally and collaboration I think is the key where all of us at as somebody said that you know we need to talk because there are people who have gone through the same experiences we may go through it in the future and that's how we do not reinvent the mean but we do a seamless integration we are aware of the situation and we are confident with the operation for the generations to come that yes this is a seamless a secure a reliable grid a smart grid a digital grid which we are handing over to you and then you know it remains seamless and the consumer ultimately doesn't have to remember us for some outage or for some costly power and so on yeah thank you thank you shirana and the final words to wrap up our panel here today yeah until you vote difficulty market we need more and more sandbox to exercise and standardize a little bit the product in order to be a common language and we can replicate easily and plug and play let's say similar market elsewhere with the adaptation that is necessary clearly on the innovative solution we need also that's a regulation should be more and more an output based regulation my opinion because it's important to have correlation in between the effort and the results and and this has been done in several countries but probably we need to correlate and think oh best practice for that it's about resilience we can do this about smart meter any type of a device or digital implementation especially when it's massive tonight thank you very much to my fellow panelists for helping me keep with time and for giving such incredible insights on the whole the the pass up my gosh sorry the fascinating work you do thank you please join me for a round of applause let's see yes and with that I'd like to segue straight to our next and final discussion of today to be looking at our next topic where we will be looking towards the future and I know we've already been looking towards the future because that's essentially we're talking about power systems and where we will be going towards that how they can help us really reach our climate goals our energy transition goals our energy security goals affordability accents and so on but the point is now to really discuss how can we prepare for the power system the grids of the coming decades what can we do about that starting today and how can international collaboration help and I have the great pleasure of inviting our next speakers to join us here on stage uh Mr Luciano Martini Miss Bertha Dlamini Miss Agnes Tacosta Miss Jang Limping Mr Chris Dunstan Mr Samir Rashidi and Mr Andre Silvio Covatario so please help me and join me in a round of applause for our next speakers for our final panel of today and if I can have some help thank you very much to introduce just set a bit of the scene on the discussion that we will be having in just a moment I'm very happy to hand over the floor to Mr Luciano Martini and to give some setting the scene remarks on this thank you thank you Anna good afternoon everyone in the room and also connected remotely no much time to sit on my seat I have to stand up right away okay so I'm very glad to be here today I think is great to be at this very nice interesting event organized by 3Den I think I'm also excited to set in the scene for the important discussion will take place soon in a minute with a distinguished panelist from really around the world many continents represent us here and the topic is a one that I like the most is about the role of international cooperation the importance of international cooperation to accelerate development in innovation especially in the field of the power sector today I will speak on behalf of two leading global initiative namely the green power future mission in the framework of mission innovation and the ISGAN the IEA TCP on smart grids and the key message from these two initiative are that 3Den is really an outstanding project we would like to collaborate with and we fully recognize the importance of the topic that 3Den is addressing in namely and very importantly power system digitalization demand response energy efficiency we also like the special attention to the distribution network this is the part of the system that change already and is going to change the most because of the trend of integrating massive amount of renewable energy sources especially when we talk about distributed energy resources so what we is clear that we have to find and leverage a synergy among initiatives that's why 3Den and GPFM are looking at 3Den as an important initiative to link we have synergy we have also to develop complementarities for example GPFM is not having a focus on developing country or emerging economies that's why 3Den is important to us because we can expand our view to see which are really the innovative solution to be implemented in the grid that matter for those countries and what is really important is to pay attention to what we can do by international cooperation I a big fan of international cooperation because I believe is the easiest way to accelerate the development and the pace of innovation we have so much to do and by linking each other by working together by exchanging and harmonize our program we can advance faster so a keyword we heard before in the panel is accelerating and to accelerate we need to exchange view we are to be able to really compare solution and to make sure that those solutions are applicable in the different power system context so we don't only like the topic that 3Den is about but also the approach I think the approach is very welcome on one side you develop a pilot project you want to see really an application implementation of your solution that maybe was proven in the lab now in the real environment in the real grid and this is really fully in line with the green power future mission and then on the other side you want to inform a policy maker about what is already available what other country already did so in this way this is very relevant to ISGAM because informing policy maker about what are the needed solution what are the needed funding for those solutions to be implemented is really clear so guideline recommendation for policy maker I think is an outstanding important issue that's why I really glad that this first report from 3Den is now alive because we want to look it we want to see it we want to disseminate these results I think I can close just by saying that I'm very eager to listen to our distinguished panelists the new ways for international cooperation we can certainly do more we can certainly do and far beyond what we are doing today as changing view and other things but maybe there is a way that we can maximize this link and make our collaboration fruitful we look for a win-win situation where everybody can advance faster to our main challenges that are so huge that we need to join forces and thank you to 3Den for giving help on this thank you thank you very much Luciano for setting the scene please and to gather well to set the scene for this final discussion I think international collaboration is the keyword here so with our panel here let's focus on some of the actions that in your view we need to be taking to be taking digitize into the next level decades from now really taking a long-term view and in which ways collaboration can help in this sense I think we've got a very an excellent representation such variety coming from all different continents indeed and Bertha maybe if I can start with you you are the founding president of African women in energy and power seeking to accelerate the participation of women in Africa in Africa's energy and power sector and have helped numerous industry roles in the energy sector in South Africa and beyond Africa has its own challenges as we already been discussing in the previous panel but a lot of potential there how should we appreciate the scope of the challenge here from an African perspective and what should we know about that to be able to really look ahead thank you Anna and good afternoon everyone who has stayed behind to listen to this discussion we're quite delighted to join this esteemed panel of speakers digitization deregulation decentralization and decarbonizations are drivers of transformation in the power sector globally and more so in in Africa on the continent we are looking at a number of issues in fact if you if I can give you a metaphor to hold to visualize a rubik's cube with all its multiple dimensions is how you should consider the the african continent and the opportunities and challenges that present we have 600 million people that have no access to electricity so you also have to think of the difference between energy security and energy poverty and as you overlay this transition that is required you have to ask the question what is priority for the different countries on the continent because there isn't one africa there's 55 countries with different identities different challenges and different priorities and different capacities to generate revenue for their state responsibilities 600 million people with no access to electricity 900 million people with no access to cooking energy the president of the african bank said recently that for the continent to achieve sustainable development goal number seven it would need to electrify 90 million people per year and it would need to move 130 million people from dirty cooking fuel to clean cooking alternatives per year and this is at a current environment where attracting sustaining or retaining investment clean energy investment is still a challenge for the continent in fact we've had a call that developing countries should make good with their commitment that they made at the various cop gatherings to raise a hundred billion dollars a year to fund energy transition but not only energy transition to fund electrification on the continent and so when you consider this dynamics you have to look at let's look at a different dimension of the rubik's cube that i gave you as a metaphor creating an inclusive energy ecosystem on the continent is necessary to ensure that women youth and persons with disability can participate as professionals as value adding service providers across existing and emerging value chains some of the value chains that the transition will require have not even been created or don't even exist on any one of the markets on the continent so at the genesis of this transition there lies in an opportunity for a multistakeholder collaborative effort that ensures that the energy sector transitions and it becomes inclusive and truly the continent can move people from poverty a recent report i was released when i say recent it's literally off the press it was released yesterday by mckinsey talking about the fact that africa is home to the world's youngest and fastest growing population with its population expected to nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050 this is given the old infrastructure of the limited electricity capacity that exists on the continent that is already straining because of rapid urbanization that we are seeing it says africa will add 796 million people to the global workforce by 2050 by 2030 the services sector on its current trajectory will create at least 85 million net new jobs and if you're talking about new jobs you're obviously talking about new skills that must be supported and so the the narrative also that africa does not have the requisite skills is also not truly true there are engineers and actually women are graduating at a faster rate than men from universities and from stem fields the necessity for exposure to operations to projects that are already advanced in digitalization in decarbonizations of systems that are existing is what is necessary and so the philosophy of partnership with africa has to change across the globe if we are partnering to bring technology and repatriate revenues out of the continent without transferring the skill without transferring the market participation africa will not change and so we are requiring and we are seeing as an organization identifying intro points across value chains for women youth and persons with disabilities to participate we are identifying that there is a need for access to market there is a need for access to technology to on trade there is a need for access to finance for entrepreneurs this is at a point when the african union has launched an african single market electricity um sorry african single electricity market a master plan that is being built that will interconnect the all the entire continent 55 absolutely incredible opportunities that require a different way of partnership and collaborating thank you bertha for making this point so eloquently we need to reimagine partnerships this is more than important and we clearly understand from from your point of view indeed why that is and why this is so urgent thank you for making that that point maybe if i can move to you now with agnes da costa your executive director of the brazilian electricity regulatory agency you've spent many many many roles in brazil's electricity sector also at the ministry of minds and energy what's your perspective from brazil maybe to transition from bertha's point here we've spoken about brazil also earlier today where you think from the challenges that the electricity sector is facing where digitalization could play a role and maybe you could highlight some good practices happening in in brazil in terms of regulatory innovation um so thank you very much i'm very pleased to be here i love what you thought about africa now and the women so from our side we are always open to build partnerships in this way i'm also also very active in the empowerment of women especially younger women and in the energy sector so we can work it together for sure so one of the best things of speaking at the end is that we change a lot what we will speak listening to what people have spoken before so what are the things that i wanted to highlight on the experience in brazil considering what was mentioned here today i love today when we were discussing that we should work together to design protocols that are made universally available but then what what is the point from states from from the side of the state of the government is that sometimes you don't have the answers ahead things are changing so fast that you need also the agents of each country to come also with solutions and ideas but of course we cannot we have to work in this paradigm and work with the two efforts so trying to think together in protocols and standards but also listening to what is coming from the private sector from the agents in each country to see if this is something that is feasible and then and then the other comment that i loved that has to deal with it is that there is an availability of an enormous amount of data in the sectors so this is one agenda that i i recently i recently decided to work on in anel because this is really true so we have a single system operator in brazil and this enormous system and i have started talking to the agents and say also you have you send a lot of data to the operator yes we stand and what what do they does the operator do with your data oh we don't really know we know when something's goes wrong they go and look into the data and i say but do you think that if we sat together with the agents and looked into this data that you could use it in a more creative ways to come up with technical solutions and of course to increase the real reliability of the system all of course and so sometimes there is knowledge in the agents and we have seen here from from people who have been working with this and so governments have to sit with these agents and and and and and and incite them to come up also with the solutions and so that we can see what the bottleneck is or why is missing in terms of regulations so that we can work on it so because we don't have these answers ahead what else and so in another thing then looking to international cooperation that when we have the data is what you were mentioning here we were mentioning here then we can measure things so we have been working very closely with the ia collecting and and and informing data on for example energy innovation and this could be done also with all this data that we have on system real reliability and all those things so these are things that then we can share and then share with other countries and share best best practices as well um what else uh so we have spoken also a lot of the modernization of tariffs and and i love the point that uh the pilot projects were not really pilots they were more scaling up things so what have been what have we been doing and now we have been designing tariffs sandboxes so we are trying new tariff designs modernizations using digital meters in specific areas of concessions and and seeing what how this works and and how we can change tariff designs and if this works then we can scale up to the whole country so these are things that we are doing at the regulatory level um and then we have talked about a distributed uh energy resources it is uh in the regulatory agenda at annale so several technologies we have been analyzing and seeing how we can uh foster their implementation if there is need for regulation but what we have been seeing and witnessing and this is something that i commented on a panel before is all the services that are being created by the agents behind the meter so services they are helping industries to discard the carbonize they are coming up with solutions for energy efficiency so when we have all this digitalization and data this makes lives much more easier for people who want to add value to the sector with other or the services that we didn't have before yes yes i think my so less topic then to to to conclude the so international collaboration i think it's very important to create the ecosystem of interested parties that can share best best practices experiences and also a place for capacity building but on the other hand what is a problem for me or for maybe for developing country countries is that there are so many initiatives that is sometimes too hard to participate because you have to follow up a lot of things at the same time and sometimes they are talking of similar things in in different initiatives so this is something sometimes hard so i think we might i don't know together think a bit more about this governance of all these discussions on on similar topics so yes this would be my points thank you very much because you've actually summarized so many important points mentioned today it's almost like a recap of the entire event but i i underline very much your point on data i think we could have talked about that a lot more in fact because it really seems to be also a red thread between all speakers in fact on this so so thanks a lot for this if you know after hearing the african perspective the perspective from brazil as well could i turn to you jang on coming in from china where you know of course so much is changing at tremendously rapid speed indeed your consultant and at the sgcc and formal repeat at the sacred energy research so working very hard on the energy transition in china a couple of words maybe on what digitalization means in china right now and the trends that you see going forward thank you and it's it's a big player for me here and i think all the discussion is quite interesting and i can say technically i i can say each country have these similar challenges but for china we have three i think we have three specific ones one is we are in the still in the how to demand demand grade a demand increase period in the next 20 years and we have a biggest might be the biggest power system in world and it's needed to be decarbonization and to be neutral within less than 40 years and also the market building market building is still on the way it's not ready so i think that's a big challenge for the chinese china's power sector so in this sense we think the digitalization should they have a huge help for us to to to face this kind of challenge and we can say in the government already issued the data digitalization planning guidance and also the government take power theater as the main the main place to promotion the digitalization so that's a good news for us but also it's a pressure it's also a pressure pressure yes so anyway it's a good news and we can say we have a another good news is the power sector power sector enterprise have been put to the digitalization as a main call task to promotion and also we have the other how say internet enterprise into this area for example for tension Huawei and Anibaba so i think this guy is coming to the power sector it's a good news following digitalization i think anyway thank you very much jiang for making these really good points and these direct you know the the indications of what still is driving all this digitization going forward in china a tremendous demand increase still a lot to ongoing and a lot to happen much more thank you for this could i turn to you chris you are a junk associate professor at university of technology in sydney have worked played a key role in in the country's most significant energy innovations here can we speak a bit to what has already been alluded to cost pricing and what how that plays into digitalization so how do we approach the least cost strategy to the to the decarbonization the future of grids to really build on that thank you ana yes i also wanted to express my appreciation for the opportunity to be here i think it's a great event and you know appreciation to the ia and to unip and also the italian government and i think it's perhaps fitting that i should follow jiang because i understand i don't know if it's true or not but i'm told that there is a a chinese curse that you would say to someone now you live in interesting times and in australia if i look back 25 years ago the energy sector is not very interesting it was actually quite boring we had about 82% coal fired electricity electricity prices were fairly low and constant and things things chug along quite quietly apart from the fact that we had one of the dirtiest most carbon intensive electricity industries in the world but things are not boring anymore and i think that's when we look in terms of international collaboration this is an area where australia can actually be of use to other countries because we're going from as i said 82% coal fired electricity we had about 10% renewable energy 20 25 years ago last year we had 35% renewable energy and we have a government policy that by 2030 we will have 82% renewable electricity and that will be dominated by wind and solar power that's that's so interesting it's a bit scary and so if we're going to achieve that and we need to do that for decarbonisation reasons but also in terms of reliability because we can't build fossil fuels electricity generation anymore then we're going to need a lot of flexible capacity we're going to need track loads of it and that then goes to the question of what is the most cost-effective way of achieving that resource and we're still struggling in australia to even work out how we ask that question so i think they say that history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme and i'm conscious that it was 50 years ago when we had the first or the the major global energy crisis will soon be 50 years and out of that a few things happened the OECD established the international energy agency was what was one thing another thing that we learned out of that it took a little longer was the need to take a balanced strategic holistic approach to solving our energy problems and some people called that integrated resource planning other people call it least cost planning but the essence of it was to how do we achieve what we want to achieve the lowest cost and if we look at how we apply that today we feel like we're we're reinventing the wheel where we can draw from that if we apply those those fundamental principles of a least cost strategy number one is purpose being clear about what the objectives are number two is about people it's about participation and you can't develop your purpose your objectives unless you engage with the people that they're intended to serve the third one goes directly to your question about pricing and if we can't have effective and efficient pricing then there is no way we'll get a least cost outcome and the final two elements are to consider all of the options not just a subset but all of the the relevant options and finally in doing that to consider all of the relevant costs and the question is well what are the relevant costs well again you can only answer that by going back to what's your purpose and to the participation of the people so I think they are very useful mechanisms or elements that we can address globally in trying to solve this this global problem and I have some more but I think I might leave it there Anna thank you very much Chris you said a lot of very interesting things but what stuck in my mind was energy used to be boring it's not boring anymore so I'll I'll I might steal that thank you very much Chris for for those points can I turn to you Samir, Samir Rashidi you are acting director of Iresen so of the Institute of Energy Research in Morocco which complements very in a very long-term manner the decarbonization pathways and national strategies that the kingdom has set on research and innovation in particular so it would be great to hear from you what do you think the role of research and innovation is and especially how international collaboration can take place around that from your country's perspective well thank you so much for the opportunity to speak and for the kind invitation well it's it's really interesting for us because we were created kind of recently like 12 years ago and the idea of the of the let's say the the founders of the institute was to support the energy transition of the country by that time from the scope or the point of view of innovation and R&D and I liked so much the I mean the phrase or the sentence from from Bertha that I will quote again and we have many Africans and in my Africa or my my country Africa Morocco we had we had a challenge that was that we were and we are still dependent like 97.5% from fossil imports it's quite also unique in Africa normally more lots of African countries has have their own fossil resource but we are a sort of exception and we were also with a big ambition to grow economically speaking so we need to energize this and we felt like we need to have a virtuous cycle and try to get out from this boring let's say day-to-day life so the idea from our point of view back that time was really to build on our capabilities mainly and the tremendous renewable energy potential that we have we are known for solar but we are having lots of wind and also some hydro and the idea was to build on that in order to try to be less dependent from imports and to be resilient which is a very nice fancy that word that is useful today and is trendy and to be able to energize our own economic development especially we have lots of ambitions and also expectations from our youth that are also part of the international youth we have today and from this point of view let's say if I have to summarize and to answer really quickly your answer your question sorry our role as I see it as a researcher is really to demystify technology to help also adapt technology to the local context and by context I mean the I mean constraints but also the opportunities and if I give an example for for example solar panels in our countries they are designed differently they are designed elsewhere but when you try to test them or at least to work with them in our context in my Morocco we can find at least two or three challenges that you can you cannot find here in Europe for example one example is the UV for example the high ultraviolet radiation that reduces the yield typically of the solar panel and another challenge that we face in in our research facility is dust so just to give you those examples to see that there is and Bertha says this there is no transportation to have or to I mean to a copy paste of technology to be we need somehow a sort of vehicle to localize and to to to adapt this technology to the local market the other thing I would I would say and it's kind of an ambition for myself and for my fellow colleagues is really to help localize the industry because when you start to demystify by demystifying technology then you understand what are your boundary conditions what are your needs what are your constraints and also when you start to build capacity around and expertise around the technology it's then for you easier to to to create an economic answer to that and from this point of view I would say that we have kind of succeeded in developing some some let's say a repeat as we say in in in France some success stories or startups that face somehow those challenges but we will have probably the opportunity to discuss about it later thank you Samir for illustrating in which way Irizen is taking the lead on on on research and development within Morocco and trying to demystify technology making sure that that goes in the direction to accompany all the targets all the objectives set for Morocco for the region and also for for Africa as a as a wider whole turning to you now André Europe and international energy policy specialist co-chair of the UN Economic Commission for Europe and digitalization energy task force so you work on this vastly with many different think tanks on these topics can you maybe give us your take on how international collaboration takes this forward because I think that's what you do a lot throughout your work and if digitalization is a uniting force in this vis-a-vis a dissociating force thank you very much and thank you for the invitation and also from my side congratulations to the 3D team for the report published today mindful of time I will just I'll try to not be redundant with my fellow panelists a lot of very interesting points raised here but I'll just mention three quick points in which I think are important one is that I think we are living in a quite a polarized world when it comes to how to approach the energy transition process a lot of scenarios a lot of proposals on how to to do that but one common denominator if you want among all stakeholders no matter the part of the spectrum they come from is digitalization no one disagrees with that it's not a castus belly everyone is fond of that probably because we are all on a personal level aware of the benefits unlocked by digitalization in general in other in other sectors so I think this is important and critical for all of us policy makers decision makers analysts whoever we are to to build on that to take this ground and build on top of that and to steer our scenarios towards net zero because we are indeed moving from a one-way energy flow system to a two-way energy and data flow system and that's actually bridging to my second point the data part we've we've discussed about that and I think it's important because of course there are in the energy sector electricity sector we have data that is for marketing purposes like any other sector of course but the data that we urgently need and we lack is actually the one related to system efficiency so operational efficiency efficiency in general how to help socially and economically help and users and so on and so forth so in that sense and bridging to the international collaboration I think peer sharing and more important than ever probably a collective race to data I think that's that's important because I do agree that problems are the same when we talk about digital starting points and digital solutions and only by doing that we will basically unlock system efficiency and we will grasp the full benefits of digitalization and the last point that I want to make which I think is very important that we often talk about digitalization as a cross topic let's say a element or or concept and I'm bridging here with with what Vida was mentioning to some extent I think we are taking digitalization sometimes for granted because it's a cross cutting concept it's somehow similar to grids and you are everyone is discussing about grids and everyone is discussed no sorry everyone is discussing about scaling up renewables but not too many people are talking about the need for grids in order to accommodate that somehow it's similar to digitalization we we discuss about that like it's there or it will be developed organically we don't need to you know focus that much on that which I think it's not correct fully correct we still need policies we still need incentives in different forms to focus investments and projects into that and to bring this pilot projects that we have discussed today at scale because only at scale we will see the the full benefits not only having scattered successful stories but still scattered stories and I'll close here for a moment thank you Andrea you mentioned here digitalization seems to really be a common denominator among us all I think that is probably the best way to wrap up not just this session but actually also the the event that has gathered us here today I thank you very much for having been on this panel and I'd like to ask the audience to join for a round of applause thank you very very much and I'd now like to leave the closing remarks to Vida Rosite who's the three-den program lead because we've arrived to the end of our program today and I'd like to extend another warm thanks to all the speakers having been here with us today thank you thanks so much Anna and thanks to all the speakers and panelists I won't even attempt to try and summarize all the valuable insights the experiences the suggestions that have been shared today I've been taking notes I ran out of paper but I know that my colleagues have been taking notes we'll take all of this on board I know that you've given us all here in this room and all of us online food for thought there are lots of topics that resonated we have similar challenges a theme that came up across very strongly is it's time to act there is a looming sense of urgency the digitalization of power systems does involve challenges but the opportunities are vast and international collaboration plays a huge role and especially as an accelerator so I'll leave my summary at that I'll thank again all our speakers I'll thank our excellent moderator Anna thank you for helping us navigate this complex but hugely exciting area as we heard we live in exciting times and the indications are they will only get more and more exciting and also again thank our colleagues in UNEP for for your support and of course the Italian government for their foresight in spearheading this topic area and ensuring that we we are part of a process towards accelerating progress and of course I will thank my fantastic team at the IEA for all the hard work and all the support and all the preparations that went into making our report making this event a success so thank you very much and yes and then I'll just reiterate what Anna Lydia said we are open to partnerships do reach out as I said we are looking to build our community as we heard today there are great opportunities for furthering international collaboration finding synergies between initiatives there there's a lot in that space that we can all do together you have our contact details reach out reach out with ideas with suggestions as I mentioned this is the first of a series of grids reports please please do share your best practices your pilots your experiences of scaling up and we look forward to continuing to engage with you on what is an absolutely fundamentally crucial journey so thank you all very much and I'll just mention that for those of you who still have power left there's an exciting session at six o'clock on revolutionizing energy efficiency narrative that will be in room Lully and then we have a reception with some food and drinks at seven o'clock so I hope to see you all there thank you very much