Member Committee 2015 best moments

As 2015 came to a close with a very busy year end culminating in COP21, we asked member committees what were their best moments of the year.
Find out more about the highlight events covering key regional issues as well as discussions on global topics that cross the world from North America and Latin America to Europe, Africa, Thailand, Japan and New Zealand and what is happening with the Future Energy Leaders programme.

Ecuador
In September 2015 in Quito, Ecuador, the First South American Energy Forum was held. This event brought together more than 150 national and international participants, including representatives of governments, international organisations, academia and directors of public and private companies. The Forum was aimed at analysing the problems associated with the three dimensions of Trilemma Energy: security, energy equity and environmental sustainability.

In the opening speech, the Vice President of Ecuador, Jorge Glas Espinel, highlighted the achievements it has made in the country over the past eight years in the energy sector, highlighting the implementation of large hydroelectric projects that exploit renewable energy. He further noted that energy integration should be the focus of integration and work in South America.

The Forum included panel discussions, lectures on renewable energy, energy efficiency, regional integration and spaces for business meetings. The conclusions of the Forum were focused on the need for definition of energy policies of the countries of the region to improve Trilemma indicators and thereby integration processes.

France

The Conseil Français de l’Énergie best moment in 2015 was certainly the COP21in Paris, and the path to it. What the energy sector dreamed of has at last been accomplished: the Paris Agreement!

Behind this, there has been a long process of close relationships, and its committee is proud of the European Energy Forum it organised around the theme ‘On the way to COP21’, which was a step forward to the agreement.

Paul Watkinson, Head of the French climate negotiation team, who participated in the Forum, heard the Council’s messages. France was also pleased that its voice has been heard during special meetings with ambassadors and other informal exchanges before the official negotiations. It hopes that the good start of 2015 in the sector will continue to flourish in 2016, especially during the next European Energy Forum and the Congress!

Germany
Together with its members, the German member committee is strongly committed to support and shape the programme of the World Energy Council. To facilitate the visibility of global Council publications in the German energy debate is an important challenge that the German member committee wants to address. In order to find new communication strategies it invited all German experts working in different study groups within the Council to a national workshop in Berlin.

In a half-day session they discussed and developed ideas of how publications could be presented in Germany. Thanks to this workshop it received an impression of the current status of the various working groups, as well as many concepts for communication. Moreover, it was a great opportunity for their experts to learn from each other. They are looking forward to the next workshop in Spring 2016.

Japan
The highlight of 2015 for Japan was the Executive Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Teruaki Matsumoto, Chair of the Japanese member committee said:

Mexico
During 2015, the two main events that the Mexican Committee was either involved or was responsible to organise was the Joint Energy Associations Annual Congress and the energy actualisation seminar based on the World Energy Council’s publications.

Our first highlight was one of the five sessions that the Mexican Committee organised as part of the above mentioned Congress. Our session on "The Energy Trilemma and the Energy Reforms" had as its main speaker Christoph Frei who made an excellent presentation based on the Trilemma and Issues Monitor documents to support the transformation of the Mexican energy sector to a competitive market structure. The attendees evaluation of the presentation gave him the highest points.

The second highlight was a seminar carried out for the first time as described above. We had 85 registrations to 38 seminar sessions, each of one and a half hours, over a period of 5 months. The average attendees evaluation for each presentation was 4.5/5.0, with a high recommendation to repeat it in 2016.

New Zealand

The highlight for the BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) was the launch of its new report – ‘New Zealand Energy Scenarios: Navigating energy futures to 2050’ which outlines two different scenarios of what New Zealand’s energy future could look like over the next 35 years. It is a report which is continuing to attract wide attention.

At its launch Hon. David Caygill, BEC Chair said: “New Zealand, like the rest of the world, is facing rapidly changing energy needs, emerging technologies and an uncertain energy future. It needs to make choices on the nature of New Zealand’s economy and society, and how to meet our associated energy needs. The scenarios – ‘Kayak’ and ‘Waka’ – are designed to help us consider where we could find ourselves in 2050.” 

North America
One of the best moments was when Marie José Nadeau, Council Chair, opened the 2015 North America Regional Energy Forum in October in Washington, DC. At the meeting Ms Nadeau and the Regional Vice Chair for North America, Dean Oskvig, President and CEO of Black & Veatch Energy, both spoke to the theme ‘World Energy Council on the Global Stage: How Does North America Fit In?’

Also, at the Forum there were two keynote presentations with a focus on Intended National Determined Contributions that addressed the ‘Inputs and Outputs of the Paris UNFCCC-COP’. Canada was represented by Lisa Demarco, Senior Partner with Zizzo Allan Demarco, LLP and Mexico was represented by César Contreras Guzman, Chief Advisor to the Under-Secretary for Planning and Energy Transition at the Ministry of Energy in Mexico.

 
Romania
In 2015 the Romanian member committee held 19 events on topical power industry subjects, with a total participation of over 2000 attendees. It was honoured to have the Council’s Programmes Director, Mrs. Elena Nekhaev attend their event ‘Renewables Integration into the Grid’.

It also launched the first issue of the ‘EMERG’ publication, together with the Romanian Engineers Association, highlighting key energy topics in energy, environment, efficiency, resources and globalisation.

The Romanian FEL Programme has run successful activities: the Symposium, Position Paper and Declaration ‘The Romanian Energy Strategy viewed by the FELs’, the CSR activity ‘Let us plant a tree’, a visit to the Cernavoda Nuclerar Power Plant and nominations of its FELs, Emil Macovei to the Council’s FEL-100 Task Force. The appointment of Claudiu Butacu, as a personal adviser to the Romanian Secretary of State with the Ministry of Energy was another success of its FELs in 2015.

Romanian Council members were awarded for their contributions: Mr. Gheorghe Balan, Secretary General - the ‘Life Time Achievement Award’ at the Diplomat Magazine Year’s Awards Gala, Claudiu Butacu, Romanian FEL member - the ‘Young Energy Professional Award’ at the Energynomics Awards Evolution 2015, Mrs.Elena Ratcu, FEL manager - the ‘Excellence Award’for promoting Romanian FELs at the Energy Focus Gala 2015.

 
Thailand

Last year was an important one for Thailand. The Ministry of Energy of the Kingdom of Thailand launched the Thailand Integrated Energy Blueprint which is aimed at developing a single energy blueprint that incorporates all existing energy plans. These plans include those for capacity development, alternative energy, energy efficiency and gas and oil projects. It is the first long term master plan for the energy sector. The plan sets out goals for Thailand’s energy policy over the next 21 years which will focus on energy security, fair energy pricing and eco-technology.

The Integrated Energy Blueprint consists of 5 master plans that form the pillars of Thailand’s energy development strategy: 1) Energy Efficiency Plan, 2) Power Development Plan, 3) Alternative Energy Development Plan, 4) Gas Plan and 5) Oil Plan. These plans will support Thailand and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to fulfill the security, prosperity and sustainability objectives. The plan, which sets out actions until the year 2036, is based on three principles : Security, Economy and Ecology.

Zimbabwe
The 2015 highlight for the Zimbabwe Energy Council, was a week of activites focussing on the topic of ‘Clean Energy,Clean Cities’, in Harare where the Minister of Energy and Power Development, Dr Samuel Udenge, spoke about work on sustainable energy solutions.

At the Forum there were wide-ranging discussions on urban clean energy which included the potential of energy efficiency initiatives in buildings and the launch of a National Solar Water Geyser programme to address the country’s serious power shortages.

There was also a ‘Youth in Energy’ Forum, where several energy leaders presented on different topics on energy issues affecting Zimbabwe and the world at large. Other events and topics included: The energy innovators roundtable; Opportunities for young people to participate in climate change agriculture; The role and expectations of tertiary institutions in greening the economy; Sustainable energy utilisation; Energy access in Zimbabwe and Opportunities in the energy sector. 

 
Pirjo Januten, Future Energy Leaders (FELs) Chair

 

[Pirjo Jantunen]

“Year 2015 was very important for the Future Energy Leaders Programme,” said Pirjo Januten, FELs Chair. “We renewed the FEL Programme completely, nominated new and energetic members, kicked-off a punch of taskforces and created a FEL Alumni network, only the most important to mention.

“The highlight of year was the first ever FEL Week during the Council’s Executive Assembly in Addis Ababa, where I had the pleasure to meet new and ‘old’ FELs from over the world and develop FEL activities even further. What was most important, was that we got a lot of enthusiastic feedback from MC representatives, and I felt that we are truly an important part of the World Energy Council’s family.”