Sarawak Energy at the 26th World Energy Congress

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
29 APRIL 2024

Sarawak Energy debuted as a Patron of the World Energy Council at the 26^th World Energy Congress, a global energy event attended by international energy stakeholders.

Themed 'Redesigning Energy for People and Planet' the four-day event was co-hosted by the World Energy Council and the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. It convened around 200 C-suite speakers and 70 ministers, alongside 7,000 international energy stakeholders from the Council's global network of over 3,000 member organisations in more than 100 countries.

Datuk Haji Sharbini Suhaili, Sarawak Energy Group Chief Executive Officer, spoke in a plenary session entitled 'Building Resilience Together in Asia Pacific: A New Outlook on Energy-Climate Cooperations,' where he emphasised the criticality of interconnections in ASEAN's energy transition, so resource rich countries could harness renewables such as hydropower and share their surplus capacity with neighbours with high energy demand.

"Interconnections and cross-border collaborations are key to getting the ASEAN region member states to adapt and transition in a just manner together. Each member state must capitalise on their resources and share with neighbours, and only then we can materialise the trans-ASEAN power grid.

Emphasising interconnections as key towards securing transition pathways in ASEAN, Sharbini said that with cross border interconnections undertaken under business-to-business arrangements, government-to-government engagements were still necessary and suggested that policy makers could help to simplify the process.

"We need a spirit of collaboration to address the energy trilemma for the ASEAN region through interconnections. There can be no transition without transmission."

Sharbini was speaking alongside panellists Ramesh Subramaniam, Director General & Group Chief, Sectors Group, Asian Development Bank (ADB); Srikant Nagulapalli, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Power, Government of India; Riki Kojima, Member of the Board, Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, TEPCO and Tina Schirr, Executive Director, BusinessNZ Energy Council. The session was moderated by John Defterios, the former Emerging Markets Editor of CNN and Professor of Business, NYU Abu Dhabi.

Sharbini also had a seat at the World Energy Leaders' Dialogue: Ministerial Roundtable and the CEO Roundtable, which were close-door dialogues involving Ministries and top leadership in the energy sector. These dialogues address opportunity spaces for unlocking global energy transitions, new ways of aligning diverse needs and interests for impact at speed and scale, and requirements for (re)designing change maker ecosystems around tipping points.

The 26th World Energy Congress also served as an ideal platform for Sarawak Energy to meet with several high-level stakeholders, along with sustainability partner International Hydropower Association, to create the foundation for potential partnerships and collaboration and keep informed of global developments and impending challenges in the energy sector.

Sarawak Energy engaged with key figures at the sidelines of the congress from the World Energy Council, Asian Development Bank, Voith Hydro, Hydro Quebec, Huawei, Malaysia's Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation, the Malaysian Energy Commission, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and MyPower Corp, among others.

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