United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)

Cross-border power system integration has long been used as a strategy to lower costs and to increase security. It is also recognized as a key strategy for supporting increased power system sustainability, in particular by helping countries meet Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7). Cross-border power system integration can enable access to low-carbon resources, support the integration of larger shares of variable renewable generation, and also help provide access to electricity to underserved areas.

UN ESCAP has published a draft roadmap for electricity integration in Asia and the Pacific that details nine strategies which, if implemented, can support sustainable power system integration in the region.1 Now it seeks to turn these strategies into actions. Two questions are at the heart of this effort. First, how can connectivity be linked more explicitly to meeting SDG7 in Asia and the Pacific? Second, how can we ensure that increased connectivity results in increased power system resilience? This is in particular a critical question given the rapid changes in the power system on both the supply and demand side, including in the context of COVID-19.

The goal of this roundtable is to identify opportunities to increase power system integration in such a way as to support increased power system resilience and meeting SDG7. It will do so by focusing on three critical aspects of connectivity: collaboration and planning; financing and development of cross-border infrastructure; and, power trading and system operations. Particular emphasis will be placed on learning from ongoing integration efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, most notably the ongoing effort to integrate power systems in the ASEAN region, the ASEAN Power Grid.