Well! It all started with a mail stating that “You have been selected for Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF), Manila…’. I almost lost hopes that after applying to ACEF and did not hear from them after 3-4 weeks. But that email gave me huge smile on my face. I started preparing for ACEF and on topic ‘Energy Access for Poor People’. Thanks to Asian Development Bank Institute for sponsoring my whole trip.
Yes! The day arrived when I had leave to Manila from Mumbai. I took Singapore Airlines from Mumbai to Manila via Singapore.
Flight got delayed due to bad weather and reached manila next day at 5 PM. I almost travelled for 12 hours. To get freshened, I just took a walk around Joy Nastalg Hotel and Suites, the hotel where I was staying. The property was up to the mark and in the business centre of Manila. i.e Ortigas City. Asia Development Bank was exactly opposite to the Hotel. I slept early in the night as I wanted to go early next day to the forum for opening plenary session. The forum was for 3 days with focus on ‘Asia Clean Energy Forum – Harnessing Innovation to Power the Future’.
Day 1: 6th June 2018
Being 1st day, I did not want to reach late. I woke up early and went for a breakfast. Being a vegetarian, it becomes very difficult to survive in foreign country. Moreover, Filipinos love their meat (Meat in Breakfast, Meat in Lunch and Meat in Dinner). Bread became best friend of mine in those days. I had to survive on bread with some snacks.
As ADB was just opposite to hotel, I went there. Just for Introduction, The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Centre located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The company also maintains 31 field offices around the world to promote social and economic development in Asia. The ADB defines itself as a social development organization that is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. This is carried out through investments – in the form of loans, grants and information sharing – in infrastructure, health care services, financial and public administration systems, helping nations prepare for the impact of climate change or better manage their natural resources, as well as other areas.
So, ACEF kicked off with Plenary session with remarks from representatives of ADB, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Korea Energy Agency and Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). Discussion started with a history of ACEF, which started in 2006. Discussion was focussed towards ‘Investing $6bn in Clean Energy by 2020, Use of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Capturing the carbon emissions data through Geographical Positioning System(GPS)’. It was not only the discussion, but it provided an insight to do more research and come up with ideas in these areas.
Later on, 3 phenomenal speakers from IEA, Costa Rica Limpia & Grameen Bank stated their thoughts on bringing innovation in Clean Energy. Grameen Bank is funding the Solar Microgrids and Solar Home System in Bangladesh. Though, the financing has been taken smooth route, but there is still a need of tweaking the business models. There is an opportunity to innovate the technology in financing mechanism. One of the best thing about Ms. Monica Araya was about ‘1st Country to go for 100% Renewable Energy’ and the country was ‘Costa Rica’. The next step for Costa Rica is to take transition from Conventional Fuel Technology to Electric Vehicle Technology. The most innovative thing about Costa Rica is the motivation to go for Renewable energy technologies and People’s Support towards them.
The best thing about Day 1 was ‘New Energy Leaders 2018 program’. This program was specifically designed for Young Entrepreneurs. There were 7 Entrepreneurs awarded as ‘New Energy Leaders 2018’. Their businesses range from off-grid power solutions to large-scale wind and solar, energy efficiency, and digital customer solutions using big data and analytics. I was feeling jealous of all those 7 as I did not know about this beforehand. Nevertheless, All the activities that I am doing in Solar Sector itself defines me ‘Solar Energy leader’. At that time, I decided to work hard and being in that place in next year’s Asia Clean Energy Forum.
After opening plenary, there were 4 thematic track discussions on ‘Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Energy Access & Navigating the future ‘. I choose to go for Energy Access as it was more talking about business models, technology and People Mobilization in rural areas. Everyone described about, Solar Micro-Grid is the only solution for poor. But this session gave lots of insights about ‘Clean Cook stoves, Self-Sustainable Energy Model and alliances for rural electrification’. Earlier the rural electrification was more dependent on the funding. While the technology takes paradigm shift, it has moved to self-funded model.
One of the special attraction of ACEF was ‘ADB on the Ground’, where 22 different field projects were showcased. In different projects, there were couple of projects which attracted my attention:
- CAREC program: Program for supporting innovation in Clean Energy Sector
- New Energy leaders program: Program for supporting young energy entrepreneurs
- Rural Electrification awareness: This was the field project showcased by Shruti and Tomas about ‘Rural Electrification Awareness in Philippines Islands’
After the ‘ADB on the ground program’, there was a gala dinner for ACEF participants. The good thing about the gala dinner, it was extremely good for networking amongst people. But it was not good for me, as there were limited vegetarian options. I left quite early from Gala dinner. After reaching hotel, I decided to go out for outing. Ortigas city was really a good place, as there were malls placed within 500m of distance. There was one of the biggest mall, I visited that night, which was ‘SM Mega Mall’. Though, I did not able to cover entire mall. But I was satisfied with the complete experience of the mall. With the vegetarian dinner, I came at hotel and went for a sleep.
Day 2: 7th June 2018
Day 2 started with a session on ‘Energy Access for the poor’. It briefed us about different business models, which were implemented for the betterment of rural people. Later on, I attended the ‘electric vehicles talk’, where the speakers explained about feasibility of electric vehicles in different countries. Throughout the session, it was evident that, in order to reduce the carbon emission, Electric Vehicle is necessary for green growth.
There was an interesting ipad raffle, where people needs to fill the evaluation form. I filled the evaluation form and waiting for the winners. As Winners were to receive 7 nos. of ipads.
During the closing plenary session, I was impressed with one of the speaker whose age hardly 24 years. He was the CEO of Solar Philippines named ‘Leandro Leviste’. He formed a company in 3 years, which is into solar projects implementation. Within 3 years of tenure, he installed 800 MW of solar energy projects with lowest ever tariff in Philippines. He expanded his company by entering into solar panel manufacturing. I took him as my inspiration to do something in ‘Clean Energy Sector’.
Being one of the Energy leader selected in ‘Asia Clean Energy Forum’, ADB Youth for Asia promoted me as ‘New Energy leader’ across social platforms.
Day 3: 8th June 2018
Day 3 started with Deep Dive Workshops with detailed focus on different topics related to Clean Energy. While, I attended one of the workshop on ‘Business Models for Distributed Generation’. After the workshop, I decided to see some of the beautiful destinations in manila. I also wanted to meet one of my friend ‘Gilbert’, whom I met in 25th International Youth Forum, Seoul, South Korea.
So, some of the destinations I visited:
- Manila Ocean Park: Its my visit to see the aquatic animals in the ocean park. It was an amazing experience. I believe, it is one of the biggest ocean park
- Rizal Park: this is the place where superhero of Philippines Mr. Rizal was buried. People in Manila expresses their gratitude in this park
- Fort Santiago: it is one of the famous fort in Manila, as it represents the history of Mr. Rizal and Spanish army.
- China Town: One of the famous place to eat in Manila is ‘China Town’. While Filipino loves their meat, but my friend gilbert found very good vegetarian hotel, where I experienced traditional vegetarian food. I also experienced the famous desert in manila which was ‘Halo Halo’, It was mixture of all kinds of fruits along with ice cream and ice. I loved the way ‘Halo Halo’ was made
Day 4: 9th June 2018
So the day arrived to get back to airport and catch a flight to Singapore. As it becomes regular thing for me, as my flight to Singapore got delayed. Hence, My connecting flight to Mumbai from Singapore was also gone by that time. I was disappointed with my delayed flight. But it also gave me joy, as Singapore airlines provided me 1-day visa and hotel accommodation at 5 star property. One of the best thing about hotel property was, they provided me a handy iphone, which I can take out in Singapore for any assistance. It has got unlimited local and international call facility, Cab application and also storage facility. I went for night out in Singapore and visited couple of places
- Marina Bay Sands
- Rain Dance Show
- Merlion
I hope, you liked my experience in briefing my Manila and Singapore trip. Shoot your questions on kalpeshvjti.gawali@gmail.com
In my next blog, I will be sharing my experience in ‘Bangkok and Pattaya’.
Kalpesh Gawali 