Asian Power Renewable Energy Digital Conference 2021

Mike Thomas is a founding partner and the managing director at The Lantau Group, an economic consultancy focusing on the energy sector in the Asia Pacific region. For the past three decades, Mike’s consulting work has centred around the intersection of regulation and competition in the energy sector. He works with stakeholders throughout the region on matters involving commercial transactions, regulation and market design, strategy, and economic evidence in commercial, competition, and regulatory disputes.

Prior to co-founding The Lantau Group, Mike headed the Asia Pacific Energy & Environment practice of a global consulting firm and was based in Wellington, New Zealand for ten years He transferred to Hong Kong in 2007. He had begun his consulting career began in the United States, working for 10 years with a firm that, among other things, specialised in energy sector transformation and the introduction of competition in energy markets. Mike has an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School (PAE Prize) and a BA in Economics from Carleton College.

Tony is the Managing Director of OWL Energy. He has worked across most power generation technologies throughout the project cycle. He started working in the solar sector in 2006 and has worked on solar projects from hundreds of kW to hundreds of MW including ground based, rooftop and floating. His experience includes development, construction and operations of solar projects throughout East Asia. He is Lenders' Engineer for rooftop projects in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia.

Franck has over 20 years of experience in developing, financing and managing private power businesses with a focus on utility-scale conventional and solar power generation plants. Franck is Founder and President of Constant Energy, a global renewable power investment platform. In 2009, Franck founded and served as Chairman and President of Sonnedix, which he developed from scratch into top 10 Solar IPP position in 4 markets in Europe, Asia and Africa until 2016, before its sale to a fund managed by JP Morgan Asset Management. This included setting up and managing effective local teams, and developing effective local partnerships, contractors and lenders. Prior to that, Franck founded Asia Energy Resources (AER) in 2002, an energy market advisory firm focused on Asia, which merged in 2006 with AWR Lloyd. In this capacity, Franck provided strategic advice to AES in its solar IPP business between 2007 and 2009 as well as various oil and gas and utility companies. Before becoming independent in 2002, from 1996 Franck worked for Sithe Energies and Southern Electric in Asia, developing and participating in the acquisition of multiple conventional IPP projects in SE Asia (over 1500MW) and Korea (over 2000MW). Through this period, Franck developed a unique track record in negotiating and concluding in excess of 15 long term energy supply agreement with Fortune 1000 industrial customers such as Hynix, Air Liquide, Michelin, Hyundai Petrochemicals.

Sharad is the Asia Pacific head of Infrastructure for KPMG. With over 20 years of experience in power and utilities sector covering the entire lifecycle of projects from conceptualization to operations, Sharda brings in-depth experience of working with different stakeholders including governments, regulatory agencies, developers, financial institutions and technology providers. He has been focused on leveraging technology for better infrastructure delivery as well structuring innovative financing for infrastructure sector. Energy transition and climate change are key parts of his focus as clients navigate the environment and sustainability challenges.

Sharad has advised various government and private sector clients in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region. Sharad’s main thrust has been on privatization / PPP advisory, fund raising and project implementation and operational optimization for power, renewable energy, water, waste management, and technology projects in the region.

Some of the key projects he has successfully advised on include 2GW of aggregate solar IPPs in Dubai; Waste to energy projects in Singapore; Desalination and water recycling PPPs in Singapore; Airports structuring and financing in Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand; and electricity utility restructuring / regulatory advisory in Brunei, India, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Sharad is electronics engineer with an MBA in Finance.     

Anish has over 25 years of all-encompassing experience in power sector consulting, specializing in energy market design, regulation, pricing, energy trading, renewable energy, fuels and utility regulation and transactions. He has worked both in conventional and renewable energy sectors at the national as well as international level. He has extensive experience of undertaking large programs, and successfully managed/executed and delivered similar assignments in the past. Internationally, he has worked across countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Southern African Power Pool, and Turkey.

Fabian Baretzky is the Senior Business development and sales Manager for DHYBRID Power Systems. DHYBRID is a company based in Munich, Germany that offers a manufacturer-independent hybrid control platform (Energy Management System) that allows their customers to gradually implement and extend their renewable energy share independent from technologies. DHYBRID pioneered the market for diesel-integrated renewable systems and has implemented their solutions in over 35 countries worldwide. Today many of DHYBRID’s projects are based on solar and battery applications. Fabian holds a master’s degree in industrial engineering with focus on renewable energies from the Technical University of Munich.