Speakers

Bio

Forty years’ experience in all aspects of the power sector in India and South Asia. Power sector Reforms. Energy Transition, Sector efficiency, Renewables, Electric Vehicles, Smart Grid. Demand forecasting, Generation Planning, Grid management. Electricity Act 2003, Tariff Policy, National Electricity Policy, Technical and Tariff Regulations by the Central Electricity Authority and the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, Standard Bidding Documents.
Power sector status in the SAARC and BIMSTEC countries. All aspects of Cross border trade in electricity in the BBINS countries, including harmonization of policies and regulations, transmission interconnections, creation of regional power markets.
Currently Senior Advisor, IRADe, a reputed Think Tank in South Asia in Energy & Power Systems, Sustainable Urban Development, Climate Change & Environment, Poverty Alleviation & Gender, Agriculture & Food Security. Ex Project Director, USAID’s SARI/EI (South Asia Regional Initiative in Energy Integration) program, partnered by IRADe. Ex Chairperson and Member Planning, Central Electricity Authority, Government of India.

Bio

Paresh Kumar Narayan is Professor and Consultant at the Monash Business School of Monash University. He is also the Founder & President of the Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association, Editor-in-Chief of Emerging Markets Finance & Trade, the Managing Editor of Bulletin of Monetary Economics & Banking, a former Editor-in-Chief of Economic Modelling (2015 - 2019), an Adjunct Professor in several universities around the world & a Distinguished Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. His research interests are in Applied Econometrics and Financial Markets. He has published over 400 papers, which have accumulated over 36,000 citations with an h-index of 92. He has the distinguished title of a high cite researcher over 6 consecutive years (2017-2022). He is an advisor to several institutions and Governments in the Asia-Pacific region, is a global speaker, and enjoys working with policymakers.

Bio

Dr Parimita Mohanty works for the UN Environment Programme as their Programme Management Officer, Renewable Energy in the UNEP Office for Asia and the Pacific. She has more than 18 years of experience in sustainable energy, women’s economic empowerment and climate change and has worked on evidence-driven, gender inclusive policies and strategies, technology transfer and climate action plans in more than 15 countries. She has worked extensively in project design, development, on the ground implementation and management, particularly in renewable energy for both urban and rural sectors. She also has experience on formulation of various policies and regulations related to sustainable and renewable energy in south and south east Asia as well as market development and industry collaborations. Prior to joining UNEP, Parimita worked with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India where she led the technology unit of the Lighting a Billion Lives campaign and advanced renewable energy and smart micro grid initiatives for the socio-economic benefit of communities. For this work, she received the National Association of Software and Service Companies social innovation award in 2010 . She has been a visiting researcher at universities in the US and Europe and authored or edited 7 books and more than 25 peer reviewed publications on renewable energy, climate change and sustainable development. She holds a M.Tech degree in Energy Science and Technology and a PhD on Micro-Grids and smart grids from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. Aside from her work on climate change, she is also a national-level cricket player from India.

Bio

Pariphan Uawithya leads The Rockefeller Foundation’s Power initiative in Asia aimed at scaling up renewable energy solutions to drive economic and social development. In India, he works with power companies, investors, donors, and Smart Power India to bring clean and reliable electricity to rural communities through the establishment of distributed renewable energy mini grids and improvement of performance of power distribution companies. He also oversees the Foundation’s Program Related Investment (PRI) work in India, which consists of a growing portfolio of investments in power companies that plan to build over 10,000 mini grids. In Myanmar, he leads Smart Power Myanmar, an entity dedicated to support the acceleration of last-mile electrification for 10 million people.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Mr. Uawithya led advocacy and governance initiatives for Oxfam and Save the Children in Asia. Mr. Uawithya holds a master’s degree from Ball State University, Indiana and a bachelor’s degree from University of Melbourne.

Bio

Pascal BERTOLINI started working as researcher at EDF, Paris in 1982 after finalizing his education as engineer (Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité). Since 1999, he has been working at RTE, the French Transmission System Operator. He now works as director at RTE-International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RTE, which promotes and markets throughout the world, the know-how and expertise of RTE.

With ADB, he manages consultant teams lead by RTE International working in technical assistances to increase regional cooperation and cross-border energy trading within Central and South Asia countries, in a context of large-scale renewable energy integration. He also managed the consultant team in charge of drafting the Afghan grid code.

He has an extensive experience in the field of power system planning, access to the grid, ancillary services, grid codes and contractual agreements with grid users. At the department of RTE in charge of the access to the grid in France and abroad with RTE-International, he manages many projects for developing the transmission system, adapting grid codes and regulation on ancillary services, for facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources.

Bio

Patricia Zurita is the Chief Executive Officer of BirdLife International, the world’s largest nature conservation partnership, bringing together over 115 organizations worldwide to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources. Patricia is also the first woman from a developing country (Ecuador) to become CEO of an international conservation organization. Prior to BirdLife, Patricia was the Executive Director of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), a global multi-donor fund enabling civil society to participate in and benefit from conserving some of the world’s most critical ecosystems. Patricia also led the Conservation Stewards Program in Conservation International (CI), implementing conservation agreements that provided economic incentives to local and indigenous communities in developing countries in exchange for their commitment to protect biodiversity.

Bio

Patrick T. Aquino is currently the Director of the Energy Utilization Management Bureau (EUMB) under the Philippine Department of Energy (DOE). A Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) Rank III, he rose from the ranks and has served in various capacities in the DOE from the Office of the Secretary (OSEC), Information Technology Management Services (ITMS) and Energy Policy and Planning Bureau (EPPB). Recognizing the need for sustainable energy consumption, Director Aquino with the support of the DOE is aggressively implementing the Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EEC) Act and the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act (EVIDA).

Bio

Patrick is a strategic and systems thinker who is focused on decarbonising energy systems while achieving economically positive outcomes. He has extensive experience advising on financing, strategy, policy, and delivery of public and private infrastructure in global energy markets. As Arup's Global Hydrogen Lead, Patrick is responsible for the strategic delivery of Arup’s hydrogen vision. He has played a pivotal role in reshaping perceptions of hydrogen's use in future energy systems, advising governments globally on decarbonisation strategies and infrastructure requirements for achieving net-zero goals.

Bio

Paul Birkelo has extensive experience as an operations and project manager for impact-focused startups in emerging markets. Prior to joining the Powertrust team, he spent six years building an incubator for hardware and manufacturing companies in Nairobi, Kenya, that supported local entrepreneurs building solutions to local problems in sectors spanning health, water, sanitation, food and agriculture, connectivity, and energy access. He has worked as a monitoring and evaluations consultant on rural entrepreneurship programs in Ethiopia, and founded a US-based nonprofit that explored blended finance models to build capital-intensive social infrastructure projects across the Global South.

Bio

Paul has more than 32 years of professional experiences and has been involved in various sectors, such as transportation and energy-related air pollution, municipality solid waste, renewable energy and climate change. He has been involved in policy development, advocacy, advisory, and investment on carbon pricing and carbon market, renewable energy and energy efficiency, industrial decarbonization. He has provided inputs to government institutions (among others Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Bappenas, etc), MDBs and international organizations (ADB, World Bank, UNDP, etc), and private sector. Currently he has been assigned as interim Head of Secretariat of JETP Indonesia. His key expertise is centred around climate change, carbon market and carbon pricing, renewable energy and low carbon investment/financing

Bio

Paula is a senior associate in the Global South Program, and serves as the Philippine country representative. She led the USTDA Offshore Wind Market Development Research in the Philippines, among others.

Bio

Dr. Paula Vivili is the Deputy Director-General Science and Capability at the Pacific Community (SPC) – an inter-government organisation with 27 members: 22 Pacific Island Countries and Territories and five metropolitan members – Australia, France, New Zealand, UK, and USA. He oversees SPC’s technical programmes including its Geoscience, Energy and Maritime Division. Prior to becoming DDG, he was the Director of SPC’s Public Health Division for six years. Dr. Vivili has an intimate knowledge of SPC, its people, and partners. He is from Tonga where he worked for 15 years before joining SPC.