Powering the Future: An Overview of Post-Covid Energy Trends and Corporate PPA Strategies

Mike Thomas is a founding partner at The Lantau Group with over 30 years of consulting experience, focussing on the energy sector.  He advises a wide range of energy sector stakeholders on strategic, regulatory, and competition matters; sustainability; market design and development; and commercial transactions.  Prior to co-founding in 2010, he headed the Asia Pacific Energy & Environment practice of a global consulting firm.  Mike has an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School, United States and a BA in Economics from Carleton College, United States.

More specifically, within the Asia Pacific region, he has led many significant engagements involving the robust application of economics and analytics to a wide variety of business, policy, and regulatory challenges affecting the electricity and gas sectors.  He works extensively with multinationals on sustainability strategies, focussing on the best options in different markets, and on the regulatory and policy changes needed to support increasing renewable energy contracting options.  He has testified or advised as an industry economic expert in commercial contract disputes before courts or arbitral panels in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia, and on disputed regulatory matters before regulatory authorities in New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines.  His experience in commercial matters includes market forecasts and revenue simulations for numerous renewable energy and conventional energy projects and market assessments in South Asia, North Asia, ASEAN, and Australia/New Zealand. 

Mr Leon, born and raised in Kuching, Sarawak, received his bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia ("UTM"), and Graduated First Class Honours with Royal Education Award.

He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of Solarvest, a company founded in 2012 and the first pure-play solar company to be listed in Bursa Malaysia with the vision of a world powered by renewable energy. Since then, Solarvest has been advocating for solar energy adoption and have now grown to be one of the leading clean energy companies in Malaysia, and also has now set footprints in Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines and are eyeing geographical expansion to other SEA countries as well as APAC market. 

Prior to joining Solarvest, Mr. Leon has over 10 years of experience in the energy sectors. He started his career with Schlumberger Limited ("Schlumberger")  in oil & gas exploration sector and subsequently Sarawak Energy Berhad ("SEB") in utility sector. Mr Leon brings strong strategy, business advisory expertise and holistic experience from the energy industry, covering power generation, transmission, distribution, retail and policy setting from both private players and regulatory bodies perspective. Leon believes that renewable energy is the key to achieve the global decarbonization goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, the world's most important mission.

Ganesha Pillai is currently serving as the Assistant Director in Strategic Planning Division (Energy Analyst) at Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia. Graduated from Massey University in Post Graduate Certificate in Science and Technology in 2020 and Post Graduate Cert in Renewable Energy Engineering in 2019, he has since been in the sales industry prior to joining the Renewable Energy industry.
Started his developing the business side of SOLS Energy as a Strategy Associate, scouting for a list of energy awards to apply and researching on other energy companies. Helped the Sales team, with the large inflow of clients from PETRONAS. Growing our knowledge base in off-grid systems, pico solar and batteries. He was charge of growing the team of installers and establishing multiple bases outside the Klang Valley.
In SEDA Malaysia, he was involved in developing and presenting the Malaysia Renewable Energy Roadmap (MyRER) as the focal point speaker. He was also in several Technical Working Groups for the development of the National Energy Policy, Hydrogen Economy and Technology Roadmap and the Twelfth Malaysia Plan. Represented Malaysia as the speaker at the 4th Clean Energy Future Initiatives for ASEAN (CEFIA) Forum in Cebu, Philippines. 
He is a subject matter expert in energy transition, new energy resources, climate change mitigation and sustainable development.