The Asia LEDS Partnership and the LEDS GP Energy Working Group launch the ‘grid-integrated renewable energy’ community of practice, which gathers members to share experiences and learning on grid-integrated renewable energy.

Nominations for the community of practice are now open. To express your interest, please fill in this form.

Countries around the world are increasingly looking at ways to decouple carbon emissions from economic development. In Asia, many business and government leaders understand that low emission development strategies can lead to sustained economic growth, resource efficiency, resilience, and environmental protection. Engaging in large scale renewable energy deployment is central to achieving these climate goals.

The Asia grid renewable energy community of practice brings together national and subnational governments, regulators, system operators, technical institutions, businesses, non-profits, and international organizations to discuss the policy, financing, and technical challenges and solutions related to developing renewable energy projects. It is a collaborative, member-driven platform for deep learning that will highlight the best tools and expert assistance available, as well as foster champions to serve as role models for other countries in the region.

Based on feedback from Asia LEDS Partnership members, the community of practice will prioritize the following two topics in 2018:

• Building blocks for grid renewable energy development – enabling holistic approaches for addressing data and analysis needs, incentives and market design, competitive procurement, integrated power system generation and transmission, planning, financing, and technical grid integration solutions.
• Renewable energy grid integration – supporting use of best practices and cost-effective approaches for grid management, transmission and distribution infrastructure, storage, regional integration, and demand response.

The topics will be explored through regional peer learning and training workshops, peer-to-peer site visits and exchanges, country-specific expert and peer advisory support, cross country collaboration on common measures, topic specific webinars, online discussions, and sharing case studies.

Join the community of practice

Participants can be from national and sub-national government agencies, regulators, system operators, technical institutions, private firms, NGOs and/or international organizations working on renewable energy analysis, policies and deployment. The direct and active involvement of these stakeholders across Asian countries is key to the success of the community of practice.

Nominations for the community of practice are now open. To express your interest, please fill in this form.

Activities

Session 1: Strategic energy planning

This online session introduces participants to the fundamental building blocks that can help countries establish the policy, regulatory, and investment environment needed to achieve large-scale deployment of renewable energy. This session provides a deep dive on strategic energy planning; helping participants to become familiar with the methods, terminology and potential benefits of energy planning and target setting and the linkages into long-term and cross sectoral planning for low emission development strategies.

• Agenda
• Presentation: Session 1 – Strategic energy planning
• Webinar recording: Session 1 – Strategic energy planning
• Summary report

Session 2: Smart incentives and enabling environment for renewable energy development

This online session focuses on understanding how the implementation of innovative renewable energy policies and incentives can accelerate private sector investment, increase cost competitiveness and spur large scale renewable energy deployment. It covers the key aspects of creating an enabling policy, regulatory and financial environment necessary for scaling up renewables, as well as tax policies, quotas, subsidies and other financial mechanisms. The session also summarizes best practices and emerging trends in other countries.

• Presentation: Session 2 – Smart incentives
• Webinar recording: Smart incentives
• Summary report

Session 3: Training workshop on Renewable Energy Grid Integration

This in-person session conducted at the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2018 provided a platform for country representatives to engage in deeper discussions on key priorities and challenges of renewable energy grid-integration. The peer-learning session built on key concepts and findings from a deep-dive workshop organized by USAID, GIZ and NREL on June 5, 2018 on ‘Grid Integration of Variable Renewable Energy’. CoP members also participated in a second deep-dive workshop on ‘Renewable Energy Auctions: A New Paradigm for Asia’ organized by USAID on June 8, 2018 at ACEF 2018.

• Agenda
• Presentation: Session 3 – Integrating renewable energy into the grid
• Summary report

For more information, email alpsecretariat@iclei.org and Carishma.Gokhale-Welch@nrel.gov

Photo: Green MPs/Flickr