OREANDA-NEWS. October 02, 2013. The World Smart Grid Forum 2013, jointly organized by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), IEC and VDE in Germany, held a grand opening on the local time in Berlin.

The Forum's theme is "A high-level perspective of Smart Grid". More than 500 representatives from 40 countries of Asia, Europe, South America, North America and Africa met in Berlin, shared the development results and discussed the future direction.

Liu Zhenya, the SGCC President, Klaus Wucherer, the IEC President and Joachim Schneider, the VDE President made up the general chairs. Mr. Klaus Wucherer delivered the welcoming remarks and announced the Forum’s open. Liu Zhenya, Joachim Schneider, Jean-Francois Faugeras, the EDF Research Director on Renewables, George Arnold, the Director of US National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) and Nobuki Kawamura, the Deputy Secretary of Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) attended the Forum and made keynote speeches.

Klaus Wucherer said in the welcoming speech that promoting the development of smart grid and smart city required the analysis of successful experiences in order to achieve the progress from small to big, from research to application, and based on the progress should be scientific decision-making procedure, innovative business models and perfect policy systems. He believed this forum could provide new perspectives, enrich the concepts and foster innovative thinking and decisions, so as to make a unique contribution for promoting the development of Smart Grid.

Liu Zhenya pointed out in the keynote speech that “safe, efficient and clean” was the strategic direction of energy development. The “macro energy concept” should be established to solve the energy problem, which was using global vision, sustainable concepts, strategic initiatives and innovative technology to changing energy development pattern, coordinating the development of energy, economy and social environment, promoting energy structure transformation from high-carbon to low-carbon, from extensive use to intensive use, from local allocation to a global scale, from one-way service to interactive ways, in order to build a safe, efficient and clean modern energy system. Since the new century, electricity replacing coal and oil became an important trend in energy development with its high-quality, efficient and clean advantages. Grid is the basic carrier of power transmission, resource allocation, market transaction and customer service, having irreplaceable significance on ensuring safe, efficient and clean development. Therefore, the only way for the sustainable energy development is to focus on diversified development of electricity and give full play to the basic role of the grid.

Liu said Strong and Smart Grid was the world's common goal. The world grid experienced the process from primary power grid to the interconnected grid and then Strong and Smart Grid. Smart Grid is a powerful platform for energy conversion, efficient allocation and interactive service, a modern power grid combining strong grid and smart control and an intelligent electric system covering generation, transmission, substation, distribution, accommodation and dispatching. Developing Strong and Smart Grid has great economic value, social value and environmental value. It is a strategic choice to achieve sustainable energy development and will provide safer, more efficient and cleaner power protection for the economy and society.

Liu Zhenya introduced SGCC’s innovative practices in Strong and Smart Grid construction. He said the company would uphold the openness, innovation, cooperation and win-win spirit to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in basic research, science and technology breakthroughs, equipment development, projects construction, standards formulation and personnel training. The company would cooperate with others, devote in innovation to promote the development of Strong and Smart Grid, making a positive contribution for economy, society and environmental sustainable development.

Joachim Schneider said in the keynote speech that the future energy revolution required the smart power supply and the transition from conventional energy systems to innovative solutions, that the key was just the development of Smart Grid. In the future, power supply should be economic, efficient, safe, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Jean-Francois Faugeras said in the keynote speech that constructing Smart Grid need strengthen the international exchanges and cooperation and achieve universal international consensus. In a unified standard guidance, the cooperation among electricity enterprises and equipment manufacturers would effectively speed up the Smart Grid construction.

George Arnold introduced in the keynote speech that the benefits of Smart Grid appeared initially, including reducing the load and electricity consumption in the peak period. In addition, Smart Grid improved the reliability of power supply and reduced the average outage time by 20%.

Nobuki Kawamura said in the keynote speech that the international technology standard system should be established to achieve the safe and stable operation of Smart Grid. He hoped that the standard system would promote the technological progress of Smart Grid.

In the afternoon, the Forum held a media conference and two sub-forums – “Future Electricity Grid Supporting a low-Carbon Energy Supply” and “Smart Energy – Visions for the Smart Grid Evolving towards Smart Customers and Smart Communities”.

SGCC Deputy General Manager Luan Jun attended the Forum.

The Forum has two sub-forums: one is “Future Electricity Grid Supporting a low-Carbon Energy Supply” covering the areas of generation, transmission, distribution and grid operation, with four technical sessions - Smart integration of new types of generation, Network stability in design and operation, New developments for smart transmission grids and Evolution of the distribution grid. The other one is “Smart Energy – Visions for the Smart Grid Evolving towards Smart Customers and Smart Communities”, covering electricity market and customers, with four technical sessions - Smart energy market design, Smart Grid communications & information technology, Smart customer and Smart community infrastructure. A number of experts from SGCC served as the session’s chairman or deliver speeches at the session.

SGCC proposed to develop Strong and Smart Grid in May 2009. Now it has carried out fruitful results on theoretical research, standards formulation, key equipment development, pilot projects construction and capacity test, achieved the core technology breakthroughs in multi-areas and get widely attention at home and abroad. Developing Strong and Smart Grid has great economic value, social value and environmental value. It is a strategic choice to achieve sustainable energy development and will provide safer, more efficient and cleaner power protection for the economy and society.