Global Energy Network Institute (GENI)
Global Energy Network Institute was founded in 1986 by Peter Meisen to investigate the idea of Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller, proposing a global electric energy grid as the number one priority to solve many of the world`s most pressing problems. In 1991, GENI was incorporated in San Diego, California, USA as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. GENI`s mission is to conduct research and to educate world leaders and the public about the critical viability of the interconnection of electric power networks between nations and continents, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources, what we call `the GENI Initiative.` Our research shows that linking renewables between all nations will mollify conflicts, grow economies and increase the quality of life and health for all. This is a strategy rooted in the highest priority of the World Game simulation developed by Dr. Buckminster Fuller three decade ago. GENI Affiliates around the world.
Company details
Find locations served, office locations
- Business Type:
- Nonprofit organization (NPO)
- Industry Type:
- Renewable Energy
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
- Year Founded:
- 1986
- Employees:
- 11-100
About Us
GENI — Linking Renewable Energy Resources Around the World
The GENI Initiative focuses on linking renewable energy resources around the world using international electricity transmission. Decades ago, visionary engineer Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller developed the World Game simulation, posing the question:
How do we make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?
Research shows that the premier global strategy is the interconnection of electric power networks between regions and continents into a global energy grid, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources — a world wide web of electricity.
GENI Benefits
The benefits of this sustainable development world electric power solution are proven:
- Decreased pollution from fossil and nuclear fuels
- Reduced hunger and poverty in developing nations
- Increased trade, cooperation and world peace
- Enables health care, communications and access to clean water
- Stabilized population growth
- Us - Executive Personnel, Board of Directors, Volunteers and Interns
- The Global Energy Network Institute is blessed with a high-quality team of international officers and directors, personnel, volunteers, and student interns.
- Through their efforts over the years, this team has made contact with every nation's President, Prime Minister, Energy Minister, United Nations Ambassador, as well as key national media and the energy industry on all continents.
- Affiliates - GENI Affiliates around the world
Vision and Mission
Our Vision
Our vision is of a world in which all people have access to ecologically sustainable energy.
Mission
GENI's mission is to conduct research and to educate world leaders and the public about the critical viability of the interconnection of electric power networks between nations and continents, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources, what we call 'the GENI Initiative.' Our research shows that linking renewables between all nations will mollify conflicts, grow economies and increase the quality of life and health for all. This is a strategy rooted in the highest priority of the World Game simulation developed by Dr. Buckminster Fuller three decades ago.
Strategic Position
Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) is a tax exempt, IRS Sec 501(c)(3), organization in the United States of America. We conduct research and educational activities related to the international and inter-regional transmission of electricity, with a specific emphasis on tapping abundant local and remote renewable energy resources. With the increased awareness of climate change, growing energy demand, renewable resource solutions and smart technology over the past 3 years, GENI's Strategic Position and Activities have expanded as well.
Integrated resource usage is currently limited without interconnections and high voltage transmission. Our research to date finds that, using today's technology, the interconnection of large scale renewable resource energy is an economic and environmentally sustainable solution.
In considering the decision making processes of the global electricity industry, our position for the past 20 years has been that there exist three areas of activity that would accelerate the attainment of optimal sustainable energy solutions:
First, we have said that the industry needs to be convinced that interconnection of renewable energy sources via high voltage transmission networks is a financially compelling, reliable, secure, and highly desirable forward energy option. In the United States and in many other regions of the world, this awareness is now established and numerous projects are being financed and developed. We continue to work in this area.
Second, we have said that the general public and their representative organizations need to be aware of sustainable global energy options. A major shift has occurred over the last 3 years (since 2006) as witnessed by the surge in websites, public campaigns advocating renewable energy use and smart technology, and important policy changes favoring the use of renewables. We continue our endeavors in this area.
Third, we have said that our policy makers need to be aware of global, sustainable energy options when determining their regional policy direction and legislation. This awareness is growing, especially with the public's support, and we will continue to encourage clean energy and energy efficiency policies until such policies are commensurate with the need.
In addition to these long standing areas of focus, we now have three new strategic areas that we think will also accelerate the attainment of optimal energy solutions:
First, given the interconnected nature of our highly complex global issues, what is needed is a place for face-to-face decision-making where global leaders from business, governments, education and NGOs can meet in cooperation and collaboration (outside their specialized silos) to make informed and sustainable choices for humanity as a whole in the shortest possible time. A state-of-the-art facility is needed that can access the inventory of world resources where guests could visualize and analyze historical and projected trends, study best practices and identify solutions to current and anticipated problems.
Second, we recognize that we live in a world driven by money, the marketplace and by investment. Moving renewable energy to the market place requires a massive shift of investment from fossil fuel to the renewable, cleantech sectors.
Third, current realities make it clear that in the next decades 'the grid' will not reach rural areas where most of the 1.6 billion people of the world (25% of humanity) live without electricity. These people live on less than $1 per day, most of them just surviving. There is a clear and documented relationship between a livable standard of living and access to electricity - whether delivered via an electric power grid or a stand alone device.
Our Activities
The activities of GENI historically have focused on researching the development of transmission and distribution networks as a viable option to meet our global energy requirements. Clear evidence indicates that large scale remote renewable energy resources can be made available via high-voltage transmission or on a smaller scale using decentralized, stand-alone technologies. Extensive progress has been accomplished. GENI continues to work with the electricity industry to explore the implications of interconnections around the world.
GENI has begun to develop a visualization of the GENI Initiative in cooperation with the San Diego State University's Visualization Center. Further development of this visualization will enable policy-makers and business leaders to 'see' trends, options and consequences in order to identify optimal, sustainable solutions.
In addition, GENI is in development on the World Resources Simulation Center (WRSC). The WRSC will be an immersive visualization facility where decision-makers can literally 'see' the critical trends of global and regional issues, the relationships between issues and the consequences of different strategies. It will provide global leaders from business, governments, education and NGOs a resource for cooperation and collaboration to make informed and sustainable choices for humanity as a whole, from national to regional issues, in the shortest possible time. In our world of multiple crises, this kind of visualization tool is critical for thoughtful, integrative decision-making.
One target outcome for the WRSC will be a visualization that will lead to a Computer Simulation Model designed to demonstrate the cost/benefit analysis of such a scenario, which includes a comparison with other energy scenarios, for example, those of the World Energy Council, to help utilities and energy ministries make fully informed choices and investment decisions.
To leverage our communications with the general public and policy-makers, we continue to expand the GENI website with current renewable energy and high-voltage transmission resources. We also take this work to the world via exhibitions at United Nations conferences, the World Energy Congress, ACORE and Rotary International. Many GENI videos are now available on YouTube. GENI also distributes a free monthly update to subscribers and offers an RSS feed on daily news items.
To help drive investment to clean energy solutions, in 2005, GENI approached KLD Research and Analytics, a financial indexing company in Boston, to create an Index that would allow investors to put their money into green/cleantech companies. The MSCI Global Climate Index, the result of that collaboration and partnership, tracks the leading global public companies that seek climate change solutions in three areas: renewable energy, clean tech and energy efficiency and future fuels. The Index seeks to attract the largest institutional investors to invest in energy firms that lead in global de-carbonization.
In 2008, as part of a marketing campaign to acquaint brokers with the GC100 Index, one of our volunteers discovered a niche, a need to educate investors and brokers about the expanding universe of companies, funds and indexes offering green investment instruments. The Eco Investor Guide was developed out of this need and is another of GENI's partnerships in the Investment arena.
Recognizing the need in developing countries to accelerate access to clean energy solutions, The Village Projects Website is being designed and implemented to be a 'clearinghouse' for information on current projects from the poorest countries in the world engaged in rural electrification, poverty alleviation and social entrepreneurism with a particular emphasizes on energy efficiency and clean electricity. This website will shine a light on the successes and assist other villages adopt what is being modeled and is working elsewhere.
History
Global Energy Network Institute was founded in 1986 by Peter Meisen to investigate the idea of Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller, proposing a global electric energy grid as the number one priority to solve many of the world’s most pressing problems. In 1991, GENI was incorporated in San Diego, California, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation to conduct research and education related to a compelling and technologically feasible global energy strategy that addresses fundamental issues of quality of life, energy efficiency and sustainable development. That strategy is to interconnect electrical power grids between countries and continents, thereby creating an interconnected global energy grid, with an emphasis on linking local and remote renewable energy resources (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal and biomass). The focus is on electricity and its sources because of their relationship to all the major measures of a sustainable society and environment.
GENI's mission is to accelerate the attainment of optimal, sustainable energy solutions in the shortest possible time for the peace, health and prosperity of all.
In considering the decision-making processes of the global electricity industry, four areas of activity were identified to accomplish GENI’s mission:
- The industry needs compelling evidence that interconnection of renewable energy sources via high voltage transmission networks is both a financially viable and a highly desirable global energy option;
- The general public and their representative organizations need to be aware of sustainable global energy options;
- Our policy makers must be aware of global sustainable energy options when determining their regional policy direction and legislation.
ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY
In the initial phase, GENI established the technical feasibility and validity of this Global Grid Initiative. In 1991, in cooperation with the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre, GENI hosted the International Workshop On The Limits of Long Distance High-Voltage Power Transmission And The Corresponding Economic, Environmental and Socio-Political Implications. This conference took place in Winnipeg, Canada, for 36 multi-disciplined experts from around the world. They concurred on the potential benefits of expanding power networks between nations and continents.
Six months later, in January of 1992, Russians and Americans meet in Anchorage, Alaska to discuss The Potential Of An Electrical Interconnection Between Russia And North America. Hosted by GENI and the Alaska Energy Authority, power engineers from both countries began to study an underwater linkage between the two continents, making available the enormous renewable resource potential of the northern latitude regions.
Also that same January, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Power Engineering Society (IEEE/PES) hosted a panel session in New York on Remote Renewable Energy Sources made Possible by High Voltage Interconnections. Panelists stated that massive untapped renewable energy exists and is available with current technology.
Convinced of the validity of this initiative, a long and productive affiliation with the IEEE/PES began, defining a new phase for GENI of creating awareness and technological corroboration around what is now referred to as
The GENI Initiative
With GENI’s collaboration in organizing topics and speakers, numerous panels between 1992 and 1998 focused regionally on the long distance interconnection of electrical grids linking remote renewable resources. Following is a list of articles resulting from those panels and published in the IEEE/PES Power Engineering Review over a period of several years. Over 23,000 engineers involved in research, manufacturing and utility planning receive this publication.
- 'Tapping Remote Renewables,' June, 1992.
- 'International Electric Networks: An Historical and Future Perspective of the World Bank and United Nations,' July, 1993
- 'International Interconnections to Renewable Resources,' written by GENI and co-authored by Joe Falcon, President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Tom Hammons, Chairman of the International Practices Committee of IEEE/PES, July 1993, published in the annual Power Generation book, which is distributed to 8,500 industry officials around the world.
- 'Latin American Power Policy Reforms,' June, 1994. Presenters include energy ministers, World Bank infrastructure experts, and utility presidents.
- 'Middle East Power Policy,' December, 1994.
- 'East/West Europe Electricity Infrastructure, Interconnections and Electrical Exchanges,' December, 1995.
- 'Asian Power Policy,' January, 1996.
- 'Interconnecting Renewables for Developing Nations, A Compelling Global Strategy,' July, 1996.
- 'International High-Voltage Grids and Environmental Implications,' August, 1998.
GENI has focused on researching the development of transmission and distribution networks as a viable option to meet our global energy requirements. These panel sessions and subsequent articles provided a body of technical evidence for the feasibility, efficacy and desirability of The GENI Initiative. Clear evidence indicates that large scale, remote renewable energy resources could be made available via high-voltage transmission. GENI continues to work with the electricity industry to explore the implications of interconnections around the world.
In early 1993, evidence began to surface that GENI’s message was being recognized.
Three articles on GENI appeared in global magazines:
'Unbottling the GENI' in Tomorrow: Global Environment Business,
'Worldwide Interconnections May An Idea Whose Time Has Come' in Transmission & Distribution International; and
'Linking Electricity for Peace: a Compelling Global Strategy' a featured paper in The Bulletin of SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY, Vol. 17, Number 4, 1997.
One week after Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shook hands for peace on the White House lawn in September of 1993, Newsweek reported a story on rebuilding the Palestinians' homeland. Under the heading of 'Dreaming up Peace Projects,' the lead item was 'Power Grids: Interlocking electricity grids could save Israelis and Arabs millions of dollars.'
Months later, in January, Mechanical Engineering, trade magazine of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ran a feature story: 'Connecting the world's electrical grids. Transmission systems that send bulk power over long distances are proving that global energy networks are technically feasible if economic and political incentives surge.'
By mid 1995, interconnecting electrical grids was no longer a strategy needing proof, but was now a phenomenon to be reported. The New Scientist, a major scientific publication of the commonwealth countries, featured Global Power, The Electric Hypergrid with a focus on GENI as the organization driving the idea. Picking up on the article just days after its release, the BBC interviewed GENI's founder, Peter Meisen and the article's author, Fred Pearce.