In the face of climate change and with the vision for the future of humanity represented by the Sustainability Development Goals,sustainability has become associated with the major and rapid transformation of global systems and the resilience of transformed systems to adapt over time.This dynamic view of transformation has implications for both the design of transformational energy initiatives and their evaluation.As there is an urgent need to evaluate the scale,scope,nature,and sufficiency of transformation toward planetary sustainability,a framework (model) is proposed to determine the most effective energy evaluation capacity building strategies for achieving various individual and group level outcomes,most effective strategies for certain types of participants,and design of different strategies to maximize their impact in a sustainable way.Furthermore,a new energy evaluation organization is identified,which is expected to lead us into this new era.

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Rapid cost reductions have led to the widespread deployment of renewable technologies such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind globally.Additional storage is needed when the share of solar PV and wind in electricity production rises to 50-100%.Pumped hydro energy storage constitutes 97% of the global capacity of stored power and over 99% of stored energy and is the leading method of energy storage.Off-river pumped hydro energy storage options,strong interconnections over large areas,and demand management can support a highly renewable electricity system at a modest cost.East Asia has abundant wind,solar,and off-river pumped hydro energy resources.The identified pumped hydro energy storage potential is 100 times more than required to support 100% renewable energy in East Asia.

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The promotion of the energy security condition is one of the main aim of the cooperation between ASEAN and EU within the Plan of Action 2018-2022.The implementation of a regional integrated energy market among Southeast Asian countries will be the main driver to realize the ASEAN Economic Community,providing regular energy supplies (without disruptions) in order to meet the growing energy demand which will support the expected economic growth in the ASEAN region.

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In recent years,primary energy consumption in China’s urban areas has increased rapidly,facing the problems of extensive use of energy,high energy consumption and insufficient intensified use of energy resources.Improving multienergy supply,increasing the proportion of clean energy and integrated energy efficiency are the main goals of urban development.The integrated energy system with multi-functional synergy and open trading will become one of the new directions for the development of new urban energy systems.This paper summarizes the main problems faced by the current towns and the characteristics of the new urban energy system,analyzes the development of new urban energy system from three aspects including energy interconnection hub infrastructure construction,energy management platform construction and energy value sharing,and forecasts the future development direction of new urban energy systems.

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The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) comprises of the world’s largest producers and consumers of energy,accounting for 60.3% of primary energy supply,50.0% of final energy consumption,and 63.0% of electricity generation worldwide in 2016.This study discusses the primary energy supply and final energy consumption situation of the APEC and analyzes the characteristics of electricity in terms of its generation structure based on fuel,consumption by the end-use sector,access to electricity,and so on.The renewable energy and electricity generation projections up to 2030 based on trends in the APEC are also assessed.It is seen that electricity in final energy consumption has been on an upward trend,with an average annual growth rate of about 4.8% during 2006-2016; in 2016,its share reached 24.3%.The industry sector consumes the largest share of electricity,accounting for about 45.5% in 2016.Coal supply and consumption peaked in 2011 and then began to decline,while renewable energy has been on an upward trend,with its primary energy supply share increasing from 4.80% in 2010 to 6.29% in 2016.Solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power are on the verge of costing less than the operating cost of existing coal-fired plants in 2018.In the APEC’s target scenario in which renewable energy is doubled,the predicted net growth from 2017 to 2030 of solar,wind,and hydro power is about 963,497,and 157 GW,respectively,and to reach this target,the APEC economies need to accelerate renewable energy development.

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This paper focuses on pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plants’ current operations after electricity system reforms and variable renewable energy (VRE) installations in Japan.PHES plants have historically been developed to create electricity demand at night in order to operate base load power plants,such as nuclear power plants,in stable conditions.Therefore,many PHES plants are located midway between nuclear power plants and large demand areas.However,all nuclear power plants had to - at least temporarily - shut down after the Great East Japan Earthquake followed by a nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011,and renewable energy power plants have been deployed rapidly after the introduction of a feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme.Therefore,PHES plants are being used to mitigate fluctuations of VRE,especially in areas where renewable energy has been significantly installed.The daily highest capacity ratio of PHES plants in Kyushu area has recorded three times higher than it in the other areas where the past operating mode is still conducted.But those operations on PHES plants are simply followed as a dispatch rule of the Organization for Crossregional Coordination of Transmission Operators (OCCTO),market-based operations have not been conducted enough yet.The market design shall be changed to harmonize VRE installation and PHES plants’ operations are necessary to make the transition from the past operating mode of PHES plants across Japan.

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Natural gas is widely used because it is environmentally friendly,particularly in reducing carbon emission and improving the Air Quality Index(AQI) around densely populated cities.China has initiated a coal-to-gas project (CGP) to improve the air quality in northern China.As a subcompany of China National Petroleum Corporation,PetroChina Natural Gas Marketing North Company has been focusing on natural gas resource allocation while considering numerous issues such as ensuring the bottom line of livelihood requirements in winter and the performance of economic indicators for an entire calendar year in the northern part of China.Therefore,the accurate prediction of natural gas consumption is important to PetroChina Natural Gas Marketing North Company.It has become a challenge to forecast natural gas consumption because the natural gas market has changed considerably because of the CGP.Natural gas consumption cannot be forecasted using conventional models.This study analyzes the characteristics of the CGP based on the data obtained from rural individual users and company users.Based on the analysis,the gas consumption in winter is predicted using two different forecasting approaches.The methods presented in this paper provide a basis for formulating effective measures for natural gas scheduling in the northern part of China.

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In this review,we primarily analyze the hydrogen production technologies based on water and biomass,including the economic,technological,and environmental impacts of different types of hydrogen production technologies based on these materials,and comprehensively compare them.Our analyses indicate that all renewable energy-based approaches for hydrogen production are more environmentally friendly than fossil-based hydrogen generation approaches.However,the technical ease and economic efficiency of hydrogen production from renewable sources of energy needs to be further improved in order to be applied on a large scale.Compared with other renewable energy-based methods,hydrogen production via biomass electrolysis has several advantages,including the ease of directly using raw biomass.Furthermore,its environmental impact is smaller than other approaches.Moreover,using a noble metal,catalyst-free anode for this approach can ensure a considerably low power consumption,which makes it a promising candidate for clean and efficient hydrogen production in the future.

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ASEAN is an interesting case study of regional power connectivity in Asia and the Pacific due to its geographic location and ongoing power connectivity within and beyond ASEAN.This paper reviews ASEAN’s power connectivity within ASEAN and between ASEAN and its neighbours (hereafter ASEAN connectivity).Through literature survey,it identifies challenges to the ASEAN connectivity from political,legal,economic and technical perspectives.Based on these analyses,it then explores what,how and when regional cooperation may be able to facilitate ASEAN power connectivity.

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With the increasing demand worldwide for power grid interconnection,a growing number of related projects are under planning or construction.Despite the rapid growth of cross-border interconnection projects,the systematic research on profit models for these projects is insufficient.This paper first analyzes the profit sources of interconnection projects.Based on the analysis results,profit models are considered under different regulatory systems for three types of crossborder interconnection projects:fully market-oriented,semi-marketization,and fully supervised.Finally,measures for increasing the profitability and sustainable development of power interconnection projects are proposed.

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Power grid construction projects are distinguished by their wide variety,high investment,long payback period,and close relation to national development and human welfare.To improve the investment accuracy in such projects and effectively prevent investment risks,this paper proposes an investment optimization decision-making method for multiple power grid construction projects under a certain investment scale.Firstly,an in-depth analysis of the characteristics and development requirements of China’s power grid projects was performed.Thereafter,the time sequence and holographic method was adopted to conduct multi-dimensional,multi-perspective risk assessment of different parts of power grid projects,and a holographic risk assessment index system was developed.Moreover,an investment decision model considering the comprehensive risk based on combination weighting was developed according to the output and input of power grid construction projects.A new combination weighting optimization method that takes into account the investment willingness of enterprises was designed to improve the current weighting evaluation methods.Finally,the validity and applicability of the proposed evaluation method were verified by case examples.

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