Electricity Security Advisory Board – High-Level Meeting and 10th Annual IEA/EPRI Workshop

The International Energy Agency (IEA) convened the Electricity Security Advisory Board in Paris on 19 September 2023, welcoming over 50 regulators, policy makers, system operators, market participants, consultants, and academics to discuss pressing issues in electricity security.

The meeting was held under Chatham House rules; therefore, this summary is provided without attribution to any participant.

After opening remarks provided by the IEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol, the following speakers gave interventions:

• Allison Clements, Commissioner, US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission  
• Tatsuya Shinkawa, Secretary General, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Electricity and Gas Market Surveillance Commission, Japan 
• Mechthild Worsdorfer, Deputy Director General for Energy, European Commission  
• Arshad Mansoor, Chief Executive Officer, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)  
• Christian Zinglersen, Director, European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER)  
• Anna Collyer, Chair, Australia Energy Market Commission (AEMC) 
• Craig Glazer, Vice President-Federal Government Policy, PJM Interconnection 

A roundtable discussion amongst all participants followed. The participants noted that security of electricity supply is key to the modern economy, noting the increasing cost of disruptions from extreme weather events, strain on electricity grids and geopolitical events, including Russia’s withholding of gas supplies since the run-up to its invasion of Ukraine.  They also noted that electrification of residential, transportation and industrial sectors, evidenced by the recent uptick in the deployment of electric heat pumps and electric vehicles, and the higher penetration of distributed energy resources will put electricity increasingly at the center of the energy security agenda.

The participants encouraged the IEA Secretariat to continue and extend its work in the following areas:

• Electricity market design, as policymakers consider measures to limit the impact of geopolitical disruptions on  security and affordability through new sources of supply and demand reductions, while also protecting consumers from price volatility.
• Electricity grids, including the challenges of prioritising the increasing number of requests for facilities to interconnect, and the approaches that can be used to ensure timely interconnection while fairly allocating costs.
• Renewables integration, including policies and market reforms needed to retain and develop flexible resources that are needed to ensure reliable and secure power system operation across all timescales.
• Electricity data collection, to have access to robust, standardised, and accurate data about the performance of electricity systems around the world.

The IEA will continue to provide clear, evidence-based analysis on these topics to aid policymakers in examining the trade-offs between different options to ensure that electricity security of supply is achieved. The IEA looks forward to working with these stakeholders over the coming months and years to this aim. 

Many countries have been required to re-think their energy security policies in light of current events, particularly those impacting the electricity sector. Fuel security, extreme weather events, lack of grid investment, power system flexibility and recovery from the covid-19 pandemic have emerged as key issues for policymakers around the globe.

There are many tools available to address these challenges – changes to power market design, new taxes, subsidies and regulations to name just a few. The Electricity Security Advisory Board will be a forum to aid the formulation of new electricity policies in both IEA member and non-member countries, bringing together global public and private stakeholders at regular intervals to discuss current pressing issues in electricity security and share approaches to managing these risks.

The event will start with a closed-door high-level meeting, featuring remarks from senior officials representing governments, regulators, system operators, industry and academia. This will be followed by the annual IEA-EPRI Challenges in Decarbonisation workshop, which will deepen and broaden the discussion of these key electricity security topics. This meeting will provide essential input to IEA activities on electricity security and market design.

The meeting will be informal in nature and held under the Chatham House Rule. Each session will be introduced by invited members of the Advisory Board and followed by a roundtable discussion. Attendance is by invitation only. 

• Allison Clements, Commissioner, US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Tatsuya Shinkawa, Secretary General, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Electricity and Gas Market Surveillance Commission, Japan
• Mechthild Worsdorfer, Deputy Director General for Energy, European Commission
• Arshad Mansoor, Chief Executive Officer, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
• Christian Zinglersen, Director, European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER)
• Anna Collyer, Chair, Australia Energy Market Commission (AEMC)
• Craig Glazer, Vice President – Federal Regulatory Affairs, PJM Interconnection
• Fabien Roques, Executive Vice-President, Compass Lexecon
• Leonard Meeus, Director, Florence School of Regulation
• Dominique Jamme, Director General, Commission de Regulation de L’Energie, France
• Aurore Lantrain, Senior Strategy Officer, EPEX SPOT
• Stephen Woodhouse, Director, AFRY
• Claire Dytka, Head of Markets, National Grid ESO
• Edwin Haesen, Head of System Development, entso-e
• Simon Benmarraze, Team Lead - Technology and Infrastructure, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
• Alejandro Hernandez, India and Global Opportunities Program Director, Regulatory Assistance Project
• Claire Nicolas, Senior Energy Economist, World Bank
• Tom Howes, Advisor, Green Transition and Market Regulation, European Commission
• Arnie Quinn, Chief Economist, Vistra Corp
• Daniel Cohan, Associate Professor – Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University
• Graham Weale, Professor of Energy Economics, Ruhr Universitat Bochum
• Jan-Horst Keppler, Senior Economic Advisor, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
• Ainhoa Anda, Senior Lead, Energy Strategy – Google