GEDCO (Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization) held a launching event of their latest book bearing the title “Digital-Intelligent Resilient Power Grids”. The event was held on 10 April 2025 in Beijing and co-hosted by China Energy News. The organizers invited among others Professor Steivan Defilla, President Assistant of APEC Sustainable Energy Center (APSEC), to participate in the high-level discussion and comment on the themes presented in the book. 

Professor Defilla referred to digitalization, electrification and carbon neutrality and called them “Siamese Triplets”, thereby underlining the impossibility to separate one or two out of these three without the danger of killing all three of them. He showed how these three elements will impact future energy security. Two out of four challenges were already being addressed successfully: the installed renewable power capacity was on the trajectory to meet the tripling target set by world leaders in 2023 and echoed by APEC Leaders in2024. The number of globally sold electric vehicles might reach 20% this year. But two challenges have yet to be met: the coming decades should see a revolution of district heating and cooling based on reversible heat pumps with storage. Furthermore, the collection of digital data to describe sustainable communities and cities should still be pushed further, giving the managers of cities the possibility to monitor all Sustainable Development Indicators of their cities on interactive tables showing all the indicators in the format of digital GIS or geographic information systems maps.