Energy chief to keynote business forum

(The Philippine Star) Updated August 23, 2011 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - Representatives from government and business will gather for PowerTrends 2011 to explore business opportunities in a Philippine economy challenged by rapid growth in demand for energy, tight energy supply, tough competition for foreign investment, and critical power development issues.

At the business forum segment of PowerTrends, the government and private sectors will interact on policy, regulatory issues, privatization concerns and incentives for energy projects.

Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras will lead the interaction as keynote speaker of the business forum. He will also officially open the exhibition of energy solutions of products and services to be held from Sept. 28 to 30 at the SMX Convention Center.

PowerTrends is the regular biennial gathering of energy players and practitioners supported by the Department of Energy, National Power Corp. and energy-related agencies.

Interested parties may contact the secretariat at leverage@leverageinternational.com or tel. 818-6828, 810-1389 or fax 810-1594. The event website is powertrends.leverage international.com.

The business forum engages senior government and private executives in discussions during five sessions. In the first session, government speakers will diagnose and present an outlook of the country’s energy situation. They will also discuss the government’s package of energy policy, regulatory issues, incentives and privatization under its energy development plans.

Discussions on the succeeding four sessions are dominated by resource persons from a mix of private companies that are already operating in the country and from new players. They will discuss business opportunities from the perspective of the private investor, share best practices learned from actual experience and discuss financing of energy and energy-related projects. The last session will introduce select new technologies and tools for managing energy projects.

A technology to be introduced during the last session is the Thinfab, an economically viable solar power with thin film silicon. This is a product of a partnership of Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Oerlikon Solar, the world’s leading manufacturer of proven end to end thin film PV solutions.