US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz urged action on climate change at the USEA Public Policy Forum Llewellyn King (above right, centre of photo) of the news program White House Chronicle received the 2014 United States Energy Award from USEA Chairman Vicky Bailey and Executive Director Barry Worthington in recognition of his contributions to the understanding of energy issues

WEC Inside

1–15 May 2014

Welcome to WEC Inside, your exclusive briefing from your WEC network

News

The United States Energy Association (USEA), the WEC US committee, hosted its Public Policy Fo-rum with its annual membership meeting last month (23 April) in Washington, DC.

Influential leaders from across the North Ameri-can energy sector updated delegates on the latest policies and trends affecting the energy industry.

US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz ad-dressed the need for energy efficiency standards and the urgency for climate change action. Failure to tackle climate change now will make the task “a lot more expensive, a lot more difficult later on,” he told delegates. His comments were seen as part of a renewed effort by President Obama to escalate the Administration’s action on climate change.

The reliability of the US electricity grid is an issue of uncertainty, according to Philip Moeller, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), speaking in reference to both cybersecurity threats and physical security con-cerns since an attack on a substation near San Jose, California in February this year.

US Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Allison Macfarlane highlighted the importance of regulato-ry independence. She said: “The bottom line is that we owe it to the public, and to the industry we regulate to ensure that our decisions are sound,

USEA forum explores trends and threats for energy sector

well informed, and best position us to continue pro-tecting public health and safety.”

Chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Com-mission & President of NARUC, Colette Honorable, discussed upcoming energy initiatives for ensuring safe, reliable, and affordable utility services. She cited a collaboration between the FERC and NAR-UC bringing together federal and state regulators.

1–15 May 2014 WEC Inside 1

What themes tie the events together?

There are three common themes. First, we need to reduce the political risk to energy infrastructure investment. We are in a time of big change for the energy sector, and this generates uncertainty and slows down investment. Governments in all coun-tries are asking what we need to do differently to attract investment. This is an issue we will focus on at the Clean Energy Ministerial, the Asian Clean Energy Forum with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the UN Sustainable Energy for All Forum. There we will continue to provide our tri-lemma work as a tool towards reducing political risk and uncertainty.

The second theme is how we can adapt to emerging risks. As we see in our Scenarios and Issues Monitor and from our Congress last year, investors and infrastructure decision-makers are looking ever more at how issues such as the ener-gy-water-food nexus, extreme weather events, cyber security, and social activism could impact their investments. These risks are already affecting

Interview

design and bankability of future infrastructure, and we’ll be looking at what they mean to the sector at our World Energy Leaders’ Summit (WELS) in Astana, the Clean Energy Ministerial, and at the UN event.

The third theme is energy efficiency. At the CEM we’ll remind leaders that we will need ener-gy efficiency to mitigate risks such as the water footprint of energy generation, irrespective of energy price volatility. We’ll also be asking at our joint event with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and at the UN how we can refocus efforts on energy efficiency to accelerate progress.

At the North American events in June, what should we be interested in?

The unconventionals situation continues to be very dynamic in North America. The key question is the unfolding export agenda. We’ll focus on this topic at the International Economic Forum of the Americas and the WEC North America Re-

gional Forum, organised this year by our Canadi-an member committee, the Energy Council of Canada.

Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS regions have undergone massive changes in the last two decades. With energy being so important there, what’s a key opportunity?

This region has much to go but also have the biggest gains to make in improving energy effi-ciency, as we’ve seen in our recent energy effi-ciency report. The region also has a lot of opportu-nities in hydropower and unconventionals. The recent political developments are of concern to the region, and many will come to our WELS and our FOREN will have in the back of their minds the question of what the recent developments will mean for the sector in the region.

WEC Inside will be reporting on the outcomes of our engagements at the events mentioned.

May and June will be two busy months for the WEC as it engages government and business leaders at global gatherings across four continents. Secretary General Christoph Frei talks about the cross-cutting themes for these events.

Eric Postel, USAID Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, & Environment, said that leveraging energy partner-ships could help achieve development goals. One example is a recent trip where representatives from Haiti travelled to Colombia to observe power sector management there, in an initiative organised by the WEC Colombian member committee.

Christoph Frei is Secretary General of the World Energy Council.