Contributors

Peter Hopper

Peter Hopper, a partner, is managing director of SDG's Technology and Manufacturing practices in Asia-Pacific. He leads SDG's Hong Kong office. Peter has 30 years of operating experience in a wide range of technology-based industries and spent 20 of those years with Philips Electronics. He has an MBA from Manchester Business School and an undergraduate degree with honors in business studies from Northumbria University, UK.

Peter Hopper & Alice Yung

Peter Hopper is managing director of SDG's Technology and Manufacturing practices in Asia-Pacific. He leads SDG's Hong Kong office and has 30 years of operating experience in a wide range of technology-based industries. Alice Yung is a consultant at SDG's Hong Kong office with experience in the power, manufacturing, and financial services industry in China, Singapore, and Japan. She has an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Science degree in Quantitative Finance.

Peter J. Rae

Peter J. Rae is the principal of Peter Rae Hydro Consulting Ltd.  He has extensive experience with planning and development of energy projects, particularly water power. He provides expert consulting, planning, project management, and development services. 

Phil Scanlon

Phil Scanlon joined Solace in 2016 and today leads the global Solution Engineering team, responsible for delivering technical excellence across solutions architecture, presales, and field engineering. He is responsible for a global organisation that partners with customers to design and implement real-time, event-driven infrastructures that drive digital transformation and prepare for AI adoption across the enterprise. 

With more than 25 years in enterprise software, Phil’s career spans leadership roles across the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia-Pacific. At Solace, Phil is a recognised architect and evangelist of Event-Driven Architecture (EDA), empowering global customers—from financial services to manufacturing—to deploy scalable, enterprise-grade event meshes. He’s also a prominent voice on the global stage, presenting at industry conferences, executive forums, and CIO summits to spotlight strategic trends in real-time systems, integration and AI.

Philippe Du Four

Philippe Du Four is the Chairman Global Power Practice of Marsh Inc.

Phillip Vaughan

Phillip Vaughan is Director for the Utilities Industry at SAP Asia Pacific-Japan. He drives the regional business development strategy and activities for the electricity, gas, water, waste and recycling sectors.

Pramod Jain & Arun Ramamurthy

Pramod Jain is a leading expert in Wind Power, Energy Storage and Internet of Things. He is a consultant to private developers, the Asian Development Bank, USAID, US Department of Energy, United Nations Development Program, Inter-American Development Bank and others. One of his areas of focus is improving the operations of wind and other power plants through solutions that include sensors, cloud computing and smart analytics. Pramod has provided consulting in the USA, Bangladesh, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Mongolia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Philippines, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts, Suriname and Vietnam. He is the author of a book Wind Energy Engineering, McGraw-Hill, NY, published in April 2016. He holds a B. Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.

LinkedIn

Website

Arun Ramamurthy is a Senior Public Management Specialist (ICT & e-Governance) at ADB. Arun is an expert in designing and implementing digital technology solutions and innovations in development economics activities of ADB. His recent work includes piloting new connectivity and communications technologies in Bhutan and Myanmar. He is presently involved in conceptualizing Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence solutions through ADB interventions in India, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and the People’s Republic of China. He was with Tata Consultancy Services, India and worked in the US, UK, and Singapore before joining the ADB.

LinkedIn

Website

Praveen Kakulte

Praveen Kakulte is the Founder and CEO of Powercon Ventures, and a first-generation entrepreneur with over three decades of experience in renewable energy. He has built a fully bootstrapped, end-to-end renewable energy ecosystem under the Powercon Group. 

His expertise spans project development, construction, operations, and asset management across wind and solar domains. He is also known for pioneering Asia’s first Energy Studio in Pune and founding CORE, a training academy that has trained over 3,000 professionals globally.

Prihastya Wiratama, Lulu Safira, and Benny Zulchairi Bursyah

Prihastya Wiratama is the Project Manager of ASEAN Power Interconnection at the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), where he has served since 2023. He leads efforts to strengthen regional energy cooperation through the ASEAN Power Grid initiative, focusing on cross-border electricity interconnection and policy coordination to support the region’s energy transition and enhance energy security. 

Before joining ACE, Prihastya spent over 12 years at a leading Indonesian consulting firm, where he played a key role in advising and supporting Independent Power Producer projects. His portfolio included feasibility studies, grid impact assessments, financial and technical advisory, and stakeholder engagement, successfully helping many clients win tenders in Indonesia’s competitive power sector. 

In his current role, Prihastya has made significant contributions to advancing interconnection projects, including securing funding support from international agencies to conduct feasibility studies for cross-border projects such as the Indonesia-Malaysia interconnection. 
________________________________

Lulu Safira is the Project Officer on Power at the ASEAN Centre for Energy. She is currently active in cross-border electricity interconnection projects and regional cooperations under the ASEAN Power Grid initiative. 

Lulu holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Universitas Indonesia where she first discovered her interest in the energy industry. After graduating, she continued her passion; handling upstream oil and gas projects in Indonesia as a field engineer with Halliburton. 

She moved on to renewable energy and obtained MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures from Imperial College London before finally joining ACE.

________________________________

Benny Zulchairi Bursyah is a seasoned power system planner with over 14 years of experience in the electricity sector. He currently serves as the Manager of Power System Planning for Sumatra and Kalimantan at PLN (Persero), a role he has held since 2021. 

In this position, he is responsible for formulating PLN’s Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), particularly focusing on the expansion of generation capacity across Sumatra and Kalimantan. Throughout his career, he has been involved in numerous system studies, both locally and through international utility collaborations. 

Prima Madan & Vivek Dhariwal

Prima Madan is a senior economist and policy analyst at Emergent Ventures with expertise in energy and climate change. She is closely working with Ministry of Power, India on energy efficiency financing and demand side management programs. 

Vivek Dhariwal is a senior energy and transport analyst at Emergent Ventures with expertise in developing low carbon strategies for corporate, transport and energy sector. He has advised various fortune 500 companies, government and multilateral agencies to achieve the low carbon strategy development.