Workshop Summary Report - APEC Workshop on Promoting Digital Transformation for Energy Efficiency

It is estimated that more than 1 billion households and 11 billion smart appliances could participate in interconnected electricity systems by 2040, which would contribute to reducing energy use by 10% by using real-time data to improve operational efficiency, avoiding USD 270 billion of investment in new electricity infrastructure (IEA). In supply, digital transformation significantly affect how energy is produced – “from smart oil fields to interconnected grids, and increasingly, renewable power. Digital technologies could help integrate higher shares of variable renewables into the grid by better matching energy demand to solar and wind supplies. On the other hand, digital transformation also triggers challenges such as new security and privacy risks, disrupting markets, businesses and employment[1]. Besides, there remain difficulties in implementing digital transformation in the interest of energy efficiency since it might bear associated costs, of aggregating all of the potential energy savings from across the economy, which would make investment in energy in general, energy efficiency challenging. The project aims to provide capacity building to APEC member economies’ governments, especially developing ones through sharing information, experiences in addressing challenges, implementing digital transformation in energy sector, in the interest of energy efficiency.