On March 27, GEIDCO held the Press Conference for the Fourth Anniversary of GEIDCO. Via live stream, the conference released the development of GEIDCO and GEI in the past four years through web conference. Representatives from international organizations, energy companies, consulting agencies, and universities at home and abroad delivered speeches through video. Many well-known media attended and asked some highest-profile questions live online, to which GEIDCO spokesperson and speakers answered in real time.

On March 29, 2016, GEIDCO was established in Beijing in response to the Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. Over the past four years since its establishment, GEIDCO remains committed to "promoting GEI to meet global power demand with clean and green alternatives". Bearing the founding mission in mind, it has made idea dissemination, planning and research, international cooperation and project promotion the focus of its work. Now, it has grown into an influential international organization dedicated to global energy and power.

GEIDCO spokesperson introduced what GEIDCO has achieved over the past 4 years. First, it built worldwide consensus on GEI. Looking back, it held talks with more than a dozen national leaders and over 100 ministerial officials as well as heads of international organizations and key institutions, and organized more than 400 international conferences and important meetings worldwide. As a result, GEI has received positive support and response from international organizations like UN, OECD, AU, AU and ASEAN, as well as governments, enterprises, institutions and universities in many countries. Second, it consolidated and deepened international cooperation. Over the years, it established cooperative relationships with governments, enterprises, institutions, associations, and universities in more than 100 countries on five continents. On the data front, 43 cooperation agreements and memoranda were signed and four professional alliances of GEI University Alliance, GEI Think Tank Alliance, GEI Power Alliance and GEI Equipment Alliance were founded. Third, it made fruitful results in research. It organized more than 100 research programs in topics covering theoretical strategy, interconnection planning and technical standard innovation, and achieved more than 30 important results. Fourth, GEIDCO has matured and become a world leading organization. So far, it has a membership of 860 covering 115 countries, a global work system consisting of global headquarters, two committees of Advisory (Consultant) Board and Technical (Academic) Committee, seven regional offices and 62 national representative offices, and a communication platform covering portals, social media and academic journals. GEIDCO has grown from scratches into a leading international organization dedicated to sustainable development.

As GEIDCO spokesperson noted, clean energy is becoming the mainstream of global energy supply, electricity the mainstream of energy consumption, and interconnection the mainstream of energy allocation. Against the backdrop, GEI development has made significant progress. Now, this initiative has been incorporated into the frameworks for the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda, Paris Agreement and global environmental protection, addressing power access, poverty and health issues as well as BRI development. In addition, this initiative has been written into the achievement documents of 2019 Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), the 54th Summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the 8th Ministerial Meeting of China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) and so on. GEI has provided a feasible and viable solution to global energy transformation and sustainable humankind development. Over the years, China is active in clean energy development and power grid interconnection with neighboring countries, and has achieved major breakthroughs in UHV grids, smart grids, and clean energy.

Mr. He Jiankun, Deputy Director of China's National Experts Committee on Climate Change, Mr. Tomas Kåberger, Chair of Executive Board of Renewable Energy Institute, Mr. Michael Sterling, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Ms. Li Li, Deputy Chief Economist of China Three Gorges Corporation and Mr.Yang Ming, Deputy Dean of School of Electrical Engineering of Shandong University addressed the conference. In speeches, they spoke highly of GEIDCO's efforts in spreading GEI concept, establishing international cooperation platforms, and promoting green, low-carbon, and sustainable development all over the world. Furthermore, they called for a broader-based consensus in order to put GEI on track towards faster, sounder development.

Noting global climate governance has entered the phase of implementing the Paris Agreement in an all-round manner, Mr. He Jiankun pointed out that building GEI is an important move for accelerating deep global decarbonization. He advised worldwide countries to coordinate and optimize allocation and management of renewable energy resources based on respective time and season differences in renewable electricity supply and consumption, thereby ensuring safe and stable operation of domestic power grids and promoting energy transformation and win-win cooperation. Mr. Tomas Kåberger affirmed the feasibility of GEI proposed by China and the visionary “two replacements” concept put forward by GEIDCO in his speech. As he said, new energy power generation is growing more and more competitive and electricity price going down. While on the consumption side, replacing fossil fuels with electricity is becoming possible in, for example, transportation industry. Expecting higher requirements by global electricity connection on power grid operation and control on the demand side, Mr. Michael Sterling suggested that worldwide countries introduce cutting-edge technologies like smart meter and simulation. That’s because a sophisticated control system is necessary for us to know in real time the operation situation of global transmission and distribution power grids, if we want to identify and satisfy consumer needs more effectively. Only in this way can GEI be better promoted worldwide. Ms. Li Li pointed out in her speech that the global community has gradually reached a consensus on building GEI since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed it four years ago, and development achievements like UHV power grid, smart grid, and clean energy have promoted world energy transition. She added that in the future, China Three Gorges Corporation will give its strengths in clean energy planning, investment, construction and operation into full play, deepen its role in energy source construction in African countries concerned and drive the co-development of electricity, mining, metallurgy, manufacturing and trade, thus contributing to Africa's economic development. Mr.Yang Ming said in his speech that Shandong University has established Global Energy Interconnection Strategy and Technology Research Institute as a technology incubation platform featuring cooperative innovation involving multiple disciplines like electrification, law, economics, and foreign languages. So far, a series of related major scientific research projects have been carried out. As the first chairman unit of GEI University Alliance, Shandong University has forged sound partnerships with dozens of well-known universities around the world and organized academic exchanges and talent training seminars on a regular basis to offer wisdom and strength to GEI building.

Reporters from People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Radio International, China Daily, China News Service, China Environment News, China Meteorological News, China Energy News, China Electric Power News, China Investment, Energy Review, Neng APP and other media attended the press conference and asked questions.

This year 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of GEI. On January 16, GEIDCO held the annual work meeting in which it put forward the plan to take organizational growth, development platform, capability building, and economic strength enhancement as the focus of its all-round reform endeavor, in an effort to accomplish the overall goal of achieving coordinated development of GEIDCO and GEI. GEIDCO plans to hold seven conference activities in the second half of 2020. Among them are the Fifth Anniversary of GEIDCO to be held in Beijing on September 26, the 2020 Global Energy Interconnection (Asia Energy and Power Conference) to be held in Beijing from November 1 to 4, and Global Energy and Climate Conference--A Cross-disciplinary Dialogue as well as series activities to be held in Glasgow, UK from November 9 to 20 during COP26.