Green Synergy Solutions in APEC Region APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation March 2021 APEC Project: PPSTI 06 2019A Produced by APEC Research Center for Advanced Biohydrogen Technology (ACABT) [email protected] For Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat 35 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119616 Tel: (65) 68919 600 Fax: (65) 68919 690 Email: [email protected] Website: www.apec.org © 2021 APEC Secretariat APEC#221-PP-01.1 TABLE OF CONTENT 1. OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................ 5 2. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 6 3. DELEGATES ............................................................................................................. 9 4. PROJECT OUTPUTS............................................................................................... 10 4.1 POLICY FRAMEWORK REVIEW ............................................................... 11 4.2 GREEN SYNERGY SOLUTIONS EVENT .................................................. 12 4.2-1 POLICY DIALOGUE .......................................................................... 12 4.2-2 WORKSHOP ..................................................................................... 21 4.2-3 OFFLINE PROJECT-BASED TRAINING PROGRAM ....................... 25 4.2-4 TECHNICAL ON-SITE PRACTICE (SELF-FUND) ............................ 36 5. OVERALL PROJECT IMPACTS AND CONCLUSIONS .......................................... 38 6. OVERALL SUGGESTIONS ..................................................................................... 39 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................ 39 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 40 ANNEX 1 EVENT AGENDA ......................................................................................... 41 ANNEX 2 APEC PROJECT EVALUATION SURVEY .................................................. 46 ANNEX 3 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................ 62 ANNEX 4 POLICY FRAMEWORK REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS.................. 68 3 ACRONYMS & GLOSSARY Acronyms used in this report: APEC-ACABT Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation- APEC Research Center for Advanced Biohydrogen Technology ABAC APEC Business Advisory Council EGNRET Expert Group on New and Renewable Energy Technologies EWG Energy Working Group PPSTI Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation Glossary used in this report: Capacity Building As activities - for example workshops, training courses and seminars - that enable people, businesses and government departments to improve their skills and knowledge to better engage in trade and investment. (Sources: APEC website) Green Synergy A green symbiotic system for integrating all green growth technologies that will complimentary, cooperative, and harmonic to factor X of productivity and resources saving. For example, integrate renewable energy with heat and hydrogen storage without battery system, and then apply to the smart grid with low costs. 4 1. OVERVIEW Facing the ongoing environmental issues brought by global warming and climate change, developing sustainable, stable and environmentally-friendly green powers has been one of significant goals for governments and private sectors within APEC member economies. Green Synergy Solutions that integrate renewable energy with heat and hydrogen storages without battery system and then apply to the smart grid with low costs could become a possible solution. Moreover, Green Synergy Solutions concern about utilizing biomass resources from agro-waste to bioenergy and bio-economy, especially applying bio-waste via bio-refinery process to produce biohydrogen and related products, to increase economic development and application, to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2), and eventually to produce green energy and biomaterials for environmental protection and energy security to empower the local community in a sustainable way. This project aimed to promote sustainable growth by integrating the heat and hydrogen storage from renewable energies for energy conversion into electricity, and applying to the smart grid system for solving the significant uncertainty of solar and wind power issues in APEC Region. In order to enhance the capacity building and to promote the green technologies and low carbon strategy, this project has generated several outputs such as the draft of policy framework review, project-based training program for young entrepreneurs and the conduction of the Green Synergy Solutions event with theme “Green Synergy Solutions in APEC Region,” including Policy Dialogue, Workshop, Offline Project-based Training Program and Technical On-site Practice (Self-Fund). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held in hybrid format: Physical Meeting at Chinese Taipei and Virtual Meeting on Cisco Webex Platform. The oversea participants who were not able to travel to Chinese Taipei all attended the virtual meeting. During 18-21 December 2020, 70 participants attended the physical event at Chinese Taipei and 59 participants attended the virtual event on Cisco Webex meeting platform. As mentioned earlier, the project aimed to eliminate gender barriers. This time, approximate 46% of total participation, 59 out of 129 participants were female; 54% of total participation, 70 out of 129 participants were male, which had reached the gender-friendly issue. In total, 129 participants (59 women) from 13 APEC member economies (Canada; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; The Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand and Viet Nam) represented different viewpoints from APEC PPSTI/EWG delegations, research institutes, universities, private sectors and governments. The Green Synergy Solutions event, at first, has created opportunities for all participants to better understand the current energy demands and bioenergy application in different APEC member economies. As challenges and domestic plans within each economy were different, participants could exchange opinions, discuss the potential development and solutions to the current issues, and generate new measures of capacity building based upon research expertise and implementation experiences. As a result of expanding mutual understanding among stakeholders, specialists and young entrepreneurs in APEC region, this initiative of opinion and experience exchange could also become a foundation to further generate policy recommendations, research plans and teaching methods. The policy recommendations and research plans will boost the intended integration; support the innovative ideas of Green Synergy application in APEC member economies 5 with better-enhanced technologies to tackle possible situations. To consolidate and further accelerate the improvement, the outcomes of this event, the received comments and suggestions, and the identical factors related to this field have to be carefully examined. 2. METHODOLOGY This project aimed to promote sustainable growth by applying Green Synergy Solutions to integrate the heat and hydrogen storages from renewable energies, and then convert to electricity and to smart grid system for solving the significant uncertainty of solar and wind power issues. As the ongoing climate change issues and COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread, the collaboration, opened discussions and new actions were required for people living in APEC region. The project also targeted to meet the 2019 APEC priorities, monitored global change of the focus of PPSTI and reduced energy intensity for low carbon development of the major goals of EWG. Supported by this project, the event “Green Synergy Solutions in APEC Region” containing Policy Dialogue, Workshop, Offline Project-based Training Program and Technical On-site Practice (Self-Fund) was conducted with physical meeting at Taichung, Chinese Taipei and virtual meeting on Cisco Webex meeting platform on 18-21 December 2020. In order to engage the policy makers, delegations, experts and young entrepreneurs for the knowledge and skill exchange in relation to the growth of economic benefits, social solutions, policies and life changes, the development of policy recommendations, the sharing of latest research outcomes, the training in capacity building, the expansion of a far-reaching network were executed in this first hybrid event “Green Synergy Solutions in APEC Region.” To start the work of the project and to prepare for the event, APEC- ACABT has formulated the following work schedule as Table 1 and taken various methods to overcome challenges brought by hybrid meeting. Table 1: Work Schedule of the Project Dates Key activities Deliverables Set up website, 1 June – modules and case • Website and online training program study materials via platform completed 31 July 2020 training program platform Preparation for the • Agenda created (For the detailed events, invitation to the agenda of the event, please refer to 1 August – participants from the ANNEX I.) 15 December member economies, • Participants invited 2020 the draft of the Policy • Policy Framework Review drafted Framework Review by • 10 Young Entrepreneurs teams leading researchers selected 18-21 Implementation of the Events implemented as follows December Green Synergy Hybrid event 2020 Solutions events