High-level officials and stakeholders at the Joint Conference on Northeast Asia Regional Power Interconnection agreed to establish a framework promoting multilateral energy cooperation and interconnection in North-East Asia.

The two-day conference was organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Energy Systems Institute (ESI), China Electricity Council (CEC) and Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO), with the support of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation.

In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness on the benefits of power interconnections in the subregion with a number of initiatives and projects such as Asia Power Grid, Gobitech project, Northeast Asia Super Grid, and East Asia Super Energy Ring.

“Regional power interconnection will lead to a reduction in the cost of electricity, improve the reliability of power supply to consumers, and make it easier to solve environmental problems,” added Mr. Nikolai Voropai, Scientific Leader of the ESI.

Realizing multilateral power interconnection, however, requires a multilateral platform for dialogue and cooperation. Therefore, the Conference was organized to discuss multilateral and multistakeholder platforms which help share respective plans, identify common grounds of cooperation, and coordinate multilateral and domestic processes.

Mr. An Hongguang, Deputy Secretary General of CEC, underscored the importance of “getting support from the governments of North-East Asia, establishing a regular communication and dialogue mechanism, as well as strengthening research and cooperation on the institutional frameworks, laws, regulations, and standards of power sectors of different countries in the region” to reinforce power interconnection in Northeast Asia.

After being first proposed at a conference in Beijing in October 2016, the Northeast Asia Regional Power Interconnection and Cooperation Forum (NEA-RPIC) was formally launched to facilitate information sharing and to support coordination of activities among stakeholders.

The NEA-RPIC Forum will be convened once a year regularly, and ESCAP has been requested to take the lead in the steering committee of the NEA-RPIC.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Jiwon Kim (Ms.), Communications Consultant, ESCAP East and North-East Asia Office, Incheon City, Republic of Korea, T: +82 32 458 6617; E: kim123@un.org