7th Meeting of the Sino-German Working Group on Energy

The Sino-German Working Group on Energy is an important cooperation mechanism between Germany and China in the energy sector. The working group meets once a year to review previous achievements and progresses and to identify areas and activities for future cooperation between BMWi and NEA. During this year’s meeting, the German and Chinese delegations decided to extend cooperation in the following areas: electricity spot markets, renewable energy subsidy tendering schemes, flexibilization of the electricity sector, sustainable heating and energy storage. By signing a renewed version of the working group’s guidelines, both sides expressed their commitment to further deepen the bilateral cooperation on energy.

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Thorsten Herdan, Director General (DG) of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) thanked NEA for their hospitality and fruitful discussions and announced the “Sino-German Energy Day” which is planned in China for 2019. Subsequently, Mr. An Fengquan, Deputy Director General (DDG) of the National Energy Administration of the P.R. China (NEA) closed the meeting by thanking all participants for the fruitful discussions and expressing his wish to further extend both sides’ successful cooperation and to quickly succeed with implementing the agreed activities.

The 7^th Meeting of the Sino-German Working Group on Energy was held in parallel to the International Forum on Energy Transitions (IFET) in Suzhou on October 19^th 2018. Chaired by Mr. Thorsten Herdan, Director General (DG) of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and Mr. An Fengquan, Deputy Director General (DDG) of the National Energy Administration of the P.R. China (NEA), more than 30 representatives from both sides’ government agencies, think tanks and research institutions participated in the meeting. The German side was represented by members of BMWi, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Think Tank Agora Energiewende, Deutsche Energie Agentur GmbH (DENA) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. The Chinese side was represented by NEA (multiple departments), the Electric Power Planning & Engineering Institute (EPPEI), NDRC’s Energy Research Institute (ERI), the China National Renewable Energy Centre and Huaneng Group.

The next energy working group meeting between BMWi and NEA is scheduled for 2019 in Germany.