On September 19-23, 2016, GGGI participated in the 15th World Renewable Energy Congress (WREC), a biennial event dedicated to promoting renewable energy global development organized by the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN) held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

This event was in conjunction with the Indonesia Renewable Energy & Conservation Energy Summit (5th IRES), an annual conference and exhibition of New Renewable Energy and Conservation of Energy (EBTKE) in Indonesia. The event was opened by Indonesian Interim Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. In his opening speech, he mentioned that the event will be a platform for ideas and sector improvement exchanges, particularly for Indonesia.

This topic for this year’s event was Sustainable Energy for All and All for Sustainable Energy, with talks brought by Indonesian and International speakers discussing the implementation, impacts, investments, technological advancements, institutional influences and different forms of renewable energy. Among them was GGGI’s own Principal Green Finance Specialist Suki Atwal, who gave a presentation on Catalyzing Investment in Renewable Energy that shared insights in renewable sector trends, challenges and activities that GGGI had conducted in Indonesia through the GoI-GGGI Green Growth Program that recently launched its second phase on August 31, 2016. Atwal mentioned that, “GGGI is working to enhance private sector participation in renewables by developing bankable projects.”

GGGI Country Representative in Indonesia, Anna van Paddenburg, mentioned that renewable energy and energy efficiency are among the three focus areas of GGGI in Indonesia. She commended Indonesia as being a testament to the feasibility of implementing green developmental models under the Green Growth Program (GGP). “When countries like Indonesia readily demonstrate their commitment to sustainability through their strong actions of placing green growth at the heart of the national, provincial and district level agenda, and promoting laws and regulations to advance the development of green industries, we can clearly see their pledge to build a people-centered economy to enable sustained prosperity to all their citizens,” said van Paddenburg.

Mr. Marlon Ivanhoe Aipassa, the Advisor of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment to the Governor of East Kalimantan, has also shared the progress of the GGP in East Kalimantan. He mentioned that, “Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) is a potential for bioenergy as East Kalimantan seeks to accelerate investments in POME for electricity.”

In the final day of the WREC, Principal Program Manager of the GGGI Indonesia program, Dagmar Zwebe shared how to shape bankable projects and GGGI’s services in the energy sector. “GGGI is bringing multiple stakeholders together from the public and private sectors, the different government agencies and also financial institutions to accelerate green growth in Indonesia,” said Zwebe.