The kick-off meeting of the ANSO Collaborative Research project entitled “Promoting the Large-scale Development of Photovoltaic Power Generation in the ‘Belt and Road’ Countries and Regions with Digital Energy Technology and Low-carbon Policy Innovation” was successfully held on 22 April 2022 at Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, CAS (GIEC). This project is jointly carried out by GIEC, HUAWEI, Chiang Mai University, Vietnam University of Science and Technology, the Global Environmental Institute, and the CAS Innovation Cooperation Center Bangkok (CASICCB). Prof. CAO Jinghua, the Executive Director of the ANSO Secretariat, Prof. LV Jiancheng, Director of GIEC, Prof. Nat Vorayos, Vice President of Chiang Mai University, and Mr. LIU Yang, Vice Minister of Strategy and Business Development Department of HUAWEI, attended the meeting and delivered the opening remarks. Prof. BAI Yu, Director of the Science & Technology Department of GIEC, hosted the meeting and more than 60 experts from China, Thailand and Vietnam attended the meeting online.

Prof. CAO Jinghua, Executive Director of the ANSO Secretariat, highly recognized the significance of this project in addressing climate change issues and serving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. He hoped that China, Thailand and Vietnam would make efforts to build a “small and beautiful” photovoltaic demonstration project. He stated that this is a demonstration project involving multiple countries, leveraging advanced tools to explore an actionable and practical model. The model provides strategic plans for enterprises hoping to develop the PV industry and a set of available and applicable solutions that can contribute to the achievement of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. At the same time, it also provides a good development pattern for Chinese PV enterprises to be able to participate in international cooperation and jointly solve the challenges facing humanity. The Principal Investigator, Prof. ZHAO Daiqing, gave a brief report on the project background, task breakdown, project progress, project features and expected outcomes. The five experts from the collaborating institutions reported their work in detail as well.

Prof. LIAO Cuiping and Prof. LUO Zhigang hosted the academic forum. Prof. XIE Pengcheng, the senior engineer of GIEC, introduced the development of the Renewable Energy Planning Toolkit. Prof. LUO explained the role of China as a “joint carbon reduction hub” with developed countries in achieving carbon reduction goals. Mr. CHEN Hui, the Director of National Industrial Policy and Planning in the Asia Pacific Region of HUAWEI and other 15 experts from the collaborating institutions shared their ideas about the two topics in the forum.

As an international scientific organization, ANSO is committed to developing renewable energy and promoting high-quality development of Belt and Road cooperation through the construction of the ANSO “Energy Corridor”, aiming to address major global and regional sustainable development challenges with high standards and sustainability to benefit people’s livelihoods.