World Energy Council chief urges more infrastructure investment amid global energy shift

Angela Wilkinson, Secretary-General and CEO of the World Energy Council, called for urgent investments in energy storage and grid infrastructure on Tuesday, highlighting their critical role in developing new power systems during the global energy transition.

She outlined her vision for the future of the global energy transition on the sidelines of the International Forum on Power System Transformation 2025, held in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday.

Running under the theme "Accelerating Energy Transition with New Power Systems", the event showcased key technologies such as flexible DC grid connections for offshore wind power and advanced grid control systems designed to stabilize grids with high renewable energy penetration.

Wilkinson stressed that the global energy transition must strike a balance between reliability, cost, progress, and sustainability. She noted that while carbon emissions often dominate discussions, an effective energy system must address multiple objectives.

"When we talk about energy transitions, quite often everybody wants to focus immediately only on carbon emissions. But actually an energy system has multiple goals, it has to provide security, affordability and progress sustainabilities. But today, when you talk about those blackouts in Spain and Portugal, we understand that as you put more renewables onto the grid, onto the system, actually you get more intermittency and more variability, and so we have to invest in more storage, and we have to invest in more grids," she explained.

Wilkinson also praised China's efforts in building a new energy system that combines a diverse energy mix with advanced transmission and distribution networks.

"So when, I think, you come to China, you look at what does this new power system look like. And you look not just at all the different generation capacity, there's solar, there's wind, there's nuclear, there's coal, and there's hydro. Right? A diverse mix. And then you look at how that gets connected to where it's needed, so you have these big transmission lines and the big distribution lines. So this is a phenomenal achievement to combine not just the supply revolution, but also the demand and the technology revolution," she said.

World Energy Council chief urges more infrastructure investment amid global energy shift

The United Nations has expressed serious concern over the deadly missile strike on a girls' school in Iran, and warns the serious impact of the escalating regional tension over civilians.

Speaking at a regular briefing at UN headquarters on Monday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said that the UN has seen the reporting on the attack on the girls' school and the horrendous deaths of the students.

As a number of U.S. officials have announced to carry out independent investigation, the UN looks forward to the sharing of related results, he added.

The UN is also increasingly concerned about the escalating conflict across the Middle East, and reiterates that all possible precautions must be taken to protect civilians from the impact of hostilities, he said.

"We continue raising the alarm over the humanitarian impact of escalating violence across parts of the Middle East, which is driving rising civilian casualties, damage to civilian infrastructure, and growing displacement of people," he said. Dujarric added that recent reports of attacks on energy facilities and desalination plants are particularly worrying, as they could pose serious environmental and public health risks.

The UN continues to call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and pursue diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis, he said.

UN voices concern about deadly Iranian school strike, expects independent investigation