The Asia LEDS Partnership (ALP) Secretariat, hosted by ICLEI South Asia in partnership with ICLEI South East Asia and ICLEI East Asia, is convening a Community of Practice on Grid-Scale Renewable Energy (GRE CoP).

The GRE CoP is an interactive network comprised of governments, regulators, system operators and technical institutions addressing real-time policy, financing and technical challenges and solutions related to RE deployment.

Country representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos PDR, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand participated in the GRE CoP session on ‘Integrating Renewable Energy into the Grid: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward’ at the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2018 in Manila, Philippines on the 6th of June, 2018, forum to discuss, share, and learn about integration of large scale renewable energy into the grid. The session was co-organised in partnership with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and USAID.

Participants in the session represented government utilities, power system operators, regulators, and technical institutions and reflected on the existing situation and challenges from a policy making as well as technical perspective for integrating renewable energy into the grid. Recommendations and potential actions to advance grid- scale renewable energy integration in their countries were discussed.

Establishing, regularly updating and enforcing technical grid codes for renewable energy integration; undertaking grid and distribution system studies; putting in place suitable incentives/compensation mechanisms to promote flexibility in grid operation; and competitive renewable energy auctions were key topics of interest that emerged from discussions in the GRE CoP session.

The session saw participants engage in lively discussions and appreciated the opportunity for peer-exchange and sharing, and learning from each other through implementation examples. They also expressed their interest to continue engaging in such activities as part of the GRE CoP going forward to apply knowledge gained for furthering renewable energy deployment in their countries.

Additionally, GRE CoP members also participated in another deep-dive workshop on ‘Renewable Energy Auctions: A New Paradigm for Asia’ organised by USAID at the Forum.