The Fourth ISETS Energy Transition Forum
“When the energy transition meets energy crisis: A tale of two countries”
29 June 2022
Time:12-2pm (Sydney)/10-12am (Beijing)
Venue: Zoom Video Conference 865 6819 0862
The full event record is available on the ISETS YouTube Channel.
The Australian energy market made history on 15 June 2022 when the Australian Energy Market Operation (AEMO) suspended the national electricity market (NEM)–a wholesale electricity market and the physical power system, for the first time.
However, the high prices of electricity are not the market’s fault. On the contrary, it suggests that the Australian market is well connected to the global energy market.
Rising energy prices are the reality in the global markets. The Brent oil prices, a world benchmark, increased from US$ 74 per barrel a year ago to US$ $119 per barrel on 16 June 2022. The LNG Japan/Korea Marker (JKM), a spot benchmark LNG price in East Asia, increased from US$3 per Million BTU (MMBtu) in July 2020 to US$13 in June 2021 and US$37 in June 2022.
Given that Australia has an open economy and that our energy markets are linked with world markets, the fundamentals of the global market will be reflected in its domestic market. This, unfortunately, means that Australian consumers will face high prices.
The failure of NEM to generate sufficient supply is due to unreasonable price caps. Generators argue that they will lose money and thus withdraw their bids. This is rational market behaviour.
The situation of power generators trimming their production capacity despite an increase in power demand also occurred in China late last year. One proposed solution is to fast-track electricity market reform so that the electricity market can incentivise peak generation.
Apart from differences in their electricity markets, Australia and China also have complementary economic structures with clear opportunities for mutually beneficial trade. In 2018–19, about 30% of Australia’s total exports went to China, with imports accounting for 24.5% of Australia’s total. Australia’s trade surplus with China reached A$69 billion in 2019–20. Energy commodity trade, mainly coal and LNG, accounted for the lion’s share of Australia’s exports to China before the pandemic.
More broadly, energy crises are expected to frequently occur during the energy transition toward net zero over the next few decades.
In response to this, The Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI), in partnership with Energy Observer (“南方能源观察”) and the Collaborative Innovation Center for Emissions Trading System Co-constructed by the Province and Ministry will host the Fourth Energy Transition Forum organized by the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS).
Agenda
| Welcome | |
| 12:00-12:10 (AEST) | Dr. Roc Xunpeng Shi, Research Principal, UTS:ACRI; President, ISETS |
Ms Jie Feng, Executive Editor-In-Chief, Energy Observer
Keynote Remarks12:10-12:55 (AEST) Dr. Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS
Dr. Zhifei Liang, Deputy General Manger of Policy Department, Guangzhou Power Exchange Center Co., Ltd
Associate Professor Liam Wagner, Centre for Global Food & Resources, the University of Adelaide Panel Commentaries12:55-13:20 (AEST)
(5 Minutes each) Professor Feng Song, School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China
Associate Professor Rabindra Nepal, School of Business, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong
Dongsheng Liu, former principal analyst, AGL Energy Limited
Dr Muyi Yang, Senior Electricity Analyst, Ember; Researcher, UTS: ACRI
Ms. Li Jiang, Managing Editor, Energy Observer13:20-13:40 AESTPanel Discussions13:40-13:55
AESTQ&A13:55-14:00
AEST Roc Xunpeng Shi, President, ISETS
About the Organiser
The ISETS is a worldwide non-profit professional organization based in Australia, which has members in over 40 nations and many international organizations. ISETS aims to facilitate an equitable and inclusive transition of energy and relevant sectors toward a sustainable low-carbon future with consideration of economic development, social equity, and environmental stewardship through international partnerships.
About the Host
UTS: ACRI is an independent, non-partisan research institute established in 2014 by the University of Technology Sydney. UTS: ACRI seeks to inform Australia’s engagement with China through research, analysis and dialogue grounded in scholarly rigour.
About the Co-hosts
Energy Observer is a leading energy media in China, first published in January 2011. Energy Observer provides its professional audience from the energy industry with industry news, policy reviews, in-depth business analysis and international case studies, covering sectors such as oil and gas, electric power, coal, nuclear and renewables.
The Collaborative Innovation Center for Emissions Trading System Co-constructed by the Province and Ministry was founded in 2012. The research fields include national and regional carbon market theories, policies and practice, development of statistical methodology for greenhouse gas emissions, carbon finance, the realization mechanism and pathway of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization and the global addressing of climate change.
About the speakers (in alphabetical order)
Ms. Jie Feng is executive chief editor of Energy Observer Magazine for CSG the key power utilities in China. She takes major responsibility of eo’s final content output. She is also active in policy analysis, market and intelligence service to stakeholders on energy industry. In the past few years, her works mainly focused on the following topics:China natural gas price deregulation and marketization,international electricity deregulation and ,renewable energy curtailment case study. In 2018,she covered feature story “Breakthrough in Residential Wholesale Gas Pricing Reform: Why Does the Dual Track Energy Pricing System Have to End.” This story gained credits for its prospective vision and expertise and influenced the policy making of deregulation. 2016-2017,she collaborated with Renmin University in a research project on the accelerated marketization of natural gas price in China funded by NRDC. In 2015,she participated in the research project on international electricity market funded of National Energy Agency (NEA).
Ms. Li Jiang is the managing editor of Energy Observer Magazine for China Southern Power Grid. She is one of the key journalists and editors of China and international power policy and industry reports of the magazine. In 2017, she participated in the research of Guangdong power market reform, and wrote the country’s first power market documentary book Guangdong Power Market 2013-2017: Transition and Breakthrough as the first author.
Dr. Zhifei Liang, PhD of Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, has worked in the power dispatching & control center of China South Grid (CSG) and Guangzhou Power Exchange Center Co., Ltd. He has been committed to the construction and planning of inter-provincial power market in southern China, the research of power market reform policy, the theory and application of power market, designing of long and mid-term unified power market of southern China. He took the lead in the preparation of “Trading Rules for Inter-Provincial Long and Mid-term Power Market in Southern China” and “The 13th Five Year Plan for Southern Regional Electricity Market”.
Dr Liam Wagner is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Food and Resources at the University of Adelaide. He has secured more than $5 Million in competitive research funding to examine energy markets and their impact on the community. His research interests are primarily in areas of Energy, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Dr Wagner has previously worked on the trading desk of large electricity generation business as a Trader/Analyst. He has also had extensive experience in research and consultancy environments with a range of clients.
Dr. Dongsheng Liu has over seventeen-year experience as an energy market analyst. His working area covers hydro-electric system and water management, storage water valuation, merchant gas portfolio analysis, gas market research and strategy, electricity demand forecast and residential energy consumption analysis, computer simulation of electricity market and trading strategy analysis, electricity financial instrument pricing, long-term electricity price projection, company long term scenario planning, renewable energy market and carbon policy and last but not least, retail electricity pricing methodology. Over these years, he has provided analytic supports not only to energy company’s business decision-making, but also to their submission for government energy policy consulting.Prior to joining energy industry, Dongsheng Liu had been a research scientist of Particle Physics/High Energy Physics. He had published over 30 research articles on peer reviewed journals, including Physical Review D and Nuclear Physics B. Dr. Liu holds a PhD Degree of Science and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment. Dr. Liu had travelled frequently around China in past, presenting Australian electricity markets, including the NEM, electricity financial markets, retail competition and the renewable energy certificate market, for government departments and bureaus, State Grid, energy/power companies, research institutions, universities, conferences, workshops, seminars and training courses. Dr. Liu has been participating several research projects, in China, of energy policy consulting, electricity market developments and business strategy and operation in the environment of electricity markets. He is affiliated with South China University of Technology, as a visiting professor.
Associate Professor Rabindra Nepal is an internationally recognised scholar specialising in energy, environment and resource who has successfully led and participated in collaborative research projects at UOW involving organisations like the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the National Research Institute (NRI) of Papua New Guinea and the South Australia Productivity Commission (SAPC). Prior collaborative projects includes with other international organisations like the World Bank, the European Commission and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). He has a distinguished publications track record with more than 70 journals articles and book chapters already published out of which with more than 35 journal articles appear in high quality journals (A*/A journals) including The Energy Journal and Energy Economics. Prestigious international media outlets such as The Financial Times has profiled the applied economics focus of his research at UOW. He enjoys teaching and has a recognised track record of teaching diverse economics subjects across Oceania. His professional bodies of engagement include the International Association of Energy Economics, the Economic Society of Australia and the Australian Research Council (ARC). Associate Professor Nepal has more than 2,100 google scholar citations count (‘h’ index score > 26).
Prof. Xunpeng (Roc) Shi is a Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics and Research Principal at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney, President of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS), and a Council Member (President, 2016-2018) of the Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA). He serves as a Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Environmental Economics, a co-Editor of Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy (SSCI), an associate editor of China and World Economy (SSCI), Journal of Environmental Economics (in Chinese), and other editorial roles for more than 10 journals. He is an advisor to Global Gas Center (GGC), APEC Sustainable Energy Center (APSEC), and UN ESCAP and is frequently participating in the United Nations and other international policy debates. He was listed as Australia’s leading researcher in the field of Environmental Law and Policy, the top 2% of the world’s top scientists in the energy field, and the top 1% authors in the world’s largest database of economists (RePEc). Previously, he was senior fellow and deputy head at the Energy Studies Institute (ESI), National University of Singapore, chief researcher at the Brunei National Energy Research Institute, and energy economist at the Jakarta-based Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia and had diverse positions in China’s energy sector before 2006. He received LLM from the University of Dundee, MERE and PhD in Economics from the Australian National University.
Dr. Feng Song is a professor at Renmin University of China. Her research focuses on China’s energy economics and current research topics include energy efficiency, renewable energy development and power sector reform of China. Before she joined Renmin University, she graduated from Michigan State University with a Ph.D in Environmental and Resource Economics. She has published papers in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Applied Energy, Energy Economics and Energy Policy.
Dr Sven Teske is an Associate Professor and Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney with a research focus on energy decarbonisation pathways for specific industry sectors and regions towards Net-Zero by 2050. 100% renewable energy concepts required to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement for countries, regions, cities, microgrids for islands and the development of National Determined Contribution (NDC) reports. This includes technical analysis of power grids regarding integration of solar electricity, onshore and offshore wind power generation and electricity and heat storage systems. Furthermore, Dr Teske has over 25 years’ experience in renewable energy market and policy analysis. as well as solar and on- and offshore wind power grid integration concepts in public grids. During the Climate Conference in November 2021 in Galsgow (COP26), Teske published the remaining global carbon budget for 12 main industries to limit global mean temperature rise to +1.5°C – the first analysis of this kind globally. Furthermore, during 2021 Dr. Teske published ‘Offshore Wind: Prospects for Australia’ – an analysis of Australia’s offshore wind project and ‘Planning, Policy and Integration for Sustainable Development of Offshore Wind Energy in Vietnam 2022–2030’. In February 2019, he published the book “Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals – Global and Regional 100% Renewable Energy Scenarios with Non-energy GHG Pathways for +1.5°C and +2°C” as a lead author at Springer. Furthermore, Dr Teske published over 50 special reports about renewable energies including 100% Renewable Energy for Switzerland (2021), Czech Republic (2021), Italy (2020), Bangladesh (2019), Costa Rica (2019), Tanzania” (2017), the REN21 ‘Global Futures Report’ (2017) and the ‘Global Wind Energy Outlook’ (2016). Dr. Sven Teske was a lead author for the IPCC Special Report Renewables (Chapter 10: Scenario analysis), published in 2011. He was a member of the expert review committee for the IEA World Energy Outlook in 2010 and 2011 and is a member of the advisory panel of the Japanese Renewable Energy Foundation. Among his areas of expertise are decentralized energy and renewable energy system analysis, modelling, electrification concepts for least developed countries, and 100% renewable energy pathways for CVF countries. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Flensburg in Germany.
Dr Muyi Yang is Senior Electricity Policy Analyst at Ember, an energy think tank. He is also a researcher at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney. Previously, he worked at the New South Wales Department of Industry briefly (2014-2015) and was a visiting research scientist at Data 61 in CSIRO (2019-2020). He has actively engaged in teaching, research, and consulting on energy policy themes – in national and global settings. Such themes include energy market reform; energy decarbonisation and sustainability; transport electrification; and governance and political economy.
