Ladies and Gentlemen good morning. I am Richard Schomberg, a Special envoy of the Internaonal Electrotechnical Commission the Standard Development Organizaon headquartered in Geneva. Thank you for the invitaon to give a presentaon in this event.

To reach Net Zero energy, the COP28 in Dubai last December concluded that by 2030 renewables must expand rapidly to keep the 1.5 °C goal within reach by tripling renewable power and doubling energy efficiency. Very pragmac thinking indeed: generate more and consume less.

This requires a massive scaling up of financing and strong internaonal collaboraon.

Ulies are on the frontlines of global energy sector transformaon. It is litle known that at COP28, major Ulies established the “ Ulies for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA)” with the guidance of IRENA, to spearhead the development of grids that are « renewable energy ready » . The Internaonal Electrotechnical Commission joined UNEZA as a “support partner”, because Internaonal Standards are expected to play a crical role to achieve a Net Zero Electric System.

From a worldwide perspecve according to IRENA, unfortunately energy transion progress is not on track for this tripling of renewables power capacity by 2030, neither the development of electric vehicles, electrolyzer capacies, scale up of investments in power grids and flexibility, neither renewable energy jobs. And a parallel commitment to significantly increase electricity storage is sll required.

But the most ironic, believe it or not, according to IEA many renewables projects are waing to be allowed to connect to the global grid: End of 2023, over 3000GW of renewable genera on capacity were in ‘grid connecon queues’, despite many already in advanced stages of development.

This situaon is a challenge to be taken up by Internaonal Standardisaon. And a first target : Massive deployment of renewables, means massive deployment of their Electronic Inverters to be connected to the grid.

The stability of the electric system cannot count anymore on the balancing inera of rotang machines that has to be replaced by virtual simulated inera. And some “Smart String grid forming mul-energy renewable and storage systems” have already been successfully demonstrated at ulity scale.

Grid Forming Inverters is a relavely recent concept. New Standardizaon efforts are necessary for massive deployments and replacements of synchronous generators by Grid Forming Generaon Strings.

Anyhow, a high proporon of renewable energy is surely going from dream to reality. But a strong debate is frequently opposing “ Distributed local Renewable Generaon”, to large capacity infrastructures of “Centralized generaon with Transmission and Distribuon”.

IEC has developed numerous White Papers from Microgrids , to Grid integraon of large capacity Renewables & Storage, and the Global Energy Interconnecon.

In fact, both approaches have their own complementary merits and on the long term are jointly needed. It appears wise to keep developing strong backbone grids with large-scale interconnecon level, to maximize security of supply, stability and mutual support.

The other less adversed COP28 target for 2030 is the doubling of energy efficiency.

The coupling of the energy sector, industry sector, home & building, is very powerful to increase the overall energy efficiency, to balance generaon from volale sources thanks to storage and flexible response of consumers.

This new paradigm allows to share exisng margins between all the coupled sectors. But this requires to massively develop connecvity and to implement powerful informaon models which are new fields fully invesgated by IEC.

IEC is pioneering since 2008 the system approach in Standardizaon, using architecture modelling to map use cases, but also to map standards to reveal which new standards are needed, and furthermore drive the consensus discussions to develop their content.

The IEC and ISO are partnering to develop SMART standards that will be now machine-readable, interpretable, executable and updatable, capitalizing on synergies and avoiding duplicaon of effort.

The further development of the Digital economy is exposing much more to cyberatacks. A strong cyber defence needs an ongoing effort and recurring investment in risk assessment, cyber security processes, design and implementaon as well as people and asset management.

Referencing Standards is great, but it is of litle use if there is no assessment that they are properly implemented. Many tesng and cerficaon services exist around the world. But IEC has developed unique and broad « Conformity Assessment Systems »: One test performed in one country delivers a cerficate that is recognized and worth in many countries.

Implemenng standards is building very robust foundaons, allowing the Power Systems to sustain, adapt and even grow. Invesng massively in the development of Standards for Net Zero is the way forward pursued relessly by IEC: But please don’t forget that the result will be relying on the needed huge involvement and contribuons of all of you !