Inno­va­tion in rur­al area-green ener­gy devel­op­ment and boost­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Unit­ed States and Chi­na in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy are being empha­sized at a “smart vil­lage” forum.

More than 50 experts, pro­fes­sors, local entre­pre­neurs, envi­ron­men­tal and social orga­ni­za­tions from many coun­tries are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Insti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics Engi­neers Smart Vil­lage Forum (ISV) in Shanxi province on Sun­day and Monday.

Par­tic­i­pants in the forum, titled “Green Low-Car­bon and Smart Vil­lage”, dis­cussed envi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance top­ics such as achiev­ing ener­gy tran­si­tion, using advanced tech­nol­o­gy to assist pover­ty-strick­en regions glob­al­ly in access­ing afford­able and clean ener­gy, improv­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy, and pro­mot­ing green and sus­tain­able development.

A new demon­stra­tion project in Changzhi, a city in south­east Shanxi province, was fea­tured at the forum, show­cas­ing the cur­rent progress and prac­ti­cal results achieved by ISV. The project has effec­tive­ly incor­po­rat­ed solar pho­to­volta­ic pow­er and clean-heat­ing tech­nolo­gies and prod­ucts for residents.

The ISV work­ing group has part­nered with lead­ing Chi­nese and inter­na­tion­al high­er-edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions to cre­ate ener­gy mod­els and projects suit­ed to spe­cif­ic local con­di­tions in oth­er cities such as Chongqing, Gan­su and Heilongjiang.

Daniel Kam­men, a Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ate and ener­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, and his lab­o­ra­to­ry, have worked close­ly with schol­ars and stu­dents from Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty, Chongqing Uni­ver­si­ty and North Chi­na Elec­tric Pow­er Uni­ver­si­ty to research renew­able ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and intel­li­gent mod­els from an aca­d­e­m­ic perspective.

“We devel­op math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els of the grid. There’s lots of inter­est­ing physics. There’s lots of inter­est­ing sci­ence. My part­ner­ships in Chi­na have been very pro­duc­tive,” Kam­men told Chi­na Dai­ly. “Low-cost solar, bet­ter bat­ter­ies and smart sen­sors. We build mod­els that become real. My lab­o­ra­to­ry is very much based around not just basic sci­ence, but also the mis­sion of decar­boniz­ing the pow­er grid and mak­ing our econ­o­my green.

“Just like the ten­sions that exist­ed between the Sovi­et Union and the US over pol­i­tics and geopol­i­tics in the ’70s and ’80s, one les­son that I think sci­en­tists learned on both sides, both in the Sovi­et Union and in the US, is that we need to keep the sci­en­tif­ic chan­nels open,” he said.

Kam­men said that sci­ence coop­er­a­tion and exchange are impor­tant at this moment. “The US and Chi­na are the G2. I like to say we are the G2 of ener­gy, the two biggest con­sumers of ener­gy and the two biggest pol­luters in terms of green­house gas­es,” he said. “There is no cli­mate solu­tion unless the US and Chi­na find ways to work through their differences.”

“This is a tech­nol­o­gy exchange and a glob­al need. We are work­ing on clean ener­gy under cli­mate change and ful­fill­ing the need for decar­boniza­tion,” said Xiaofeng Zhang, the vice-pres­i­dent of ISV and pres­i­dent of Glob­al Green Devel­op­ment Alliance.

The ISV has extend­ed its efforts not only with­in Chi­na but also across diverse regions, includ­ing Africa, Latin Amer­i­ca, South Asia and North Amer­i­ca, with the pri­ma­ry focus on deliv­er­ing eco-friend­ly and cost-effec­tive ener­gy solu­tions to under­priv­i­leged com­mu­ni­ties who have lim­it­ed access to envi­ron­men­tal resources.

“We are doing more than only ener­gy trans­fer­ring, but also inter­net, elec­tri­cal machin­ery, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and telemed­i­cine. We intro­duce all of these based on the com­mu­ni­ty’s needs,” said Rajan Kapur, the pres­i­dent of ISV. “We ask the com­mu­ni­ty what they want to do, and based on that, we tell them what tech­nol­o­gy might be appro­pri­ate, what tech­nol­o­gy can be local­ly sourced.”

ISV is also col­lab­o­rat­ing with Chi­nese local com­pa­nies and organizations.

“It is also a busi­ness-devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion, because when you take tech­nol­o­gy and intro­duce it into soci­ety, you can­not just drop it over there,” he said. “The capac­i­ty does not exist to use the tech­nol­o­gy; the infra­struc­ture does not exist. So we also help with the busi­ness mod­el­ing, the gov­er­nance of the enter­pris­es that get set up,” he said.

Kapur said that what they are try­ing to do is to have a long-term impact, and ISV has not only cre­at­ed sci­en­tif­ic and busi­ness mod­els in those regions but also has deployed sup­port­ive equip­ment for more than 20 or 30 years.

He empha­sized that ISV’s ulti­mate objec­tive is to ensure afford­able and clean ener­gy access for 1 bil­lion peo­ple world­wide through tech­nol­o­gy and coop­er­a­tion between the US and China.

Addi­tion­al­ly, ISV expects to lever­age its resources to assist local com­mu­ni­ties and busi­ness­es in achiev­ing sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and region­wide improvements.

“What we should remem­ber is that it is advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy for all of human­i­ty,” Kapur said.