Laina Greene, chief executive officer of Green Energy Technology and Infocommunication Technology. Picture: BT/Rudolf Portillo
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
BRUNEI should revise its policies on electricity subsidies before it can become a “green” country, a foreign expert said.
“I understand that in Brunei, one of the difficulties is that electricity is very cheap. So the government will have to step in, in terms of giving rebates,” said Laina Raveendran Greene, chief executive officer and principal consultant at Green Energy Technology and Infocommunication Technology in the United States.
She said that instead of subsidising electricity which is currently being undertaken, the government can subsidise renewable energy.
During the Second International Conference of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IETBIC 2010) yesterday, she said that Brunei can also become a centre for clean technology in the Asia-Pacific by using its land area to create centres for learning in adopting solar energy.
“By creating a centre in learning green technology, Brunei can also attract talent from other countries to take part in competitions where you can award those who innovate,” she said.
The reason for bringing in people from other countries to bring and apply innovative ideas to Brunei is to collaborate with Bruneians.
She explained that the clean tech concept is clean energy, which does not use fossil fuels to generate energy.
Laina compared Brunei to Singapore in becoming a clean tech hub, saying that Brunei is at an advantage because it could be seen as a “partner and a collaborator for countries such as Malaysia, Bangladesh and India”, as opposed to Singapore which tends to be seen as playing with bigger countries.
She said as there were 1.6 billion people in the world who did not have electricity, Brunei could help mitigate the problem by working with empowerment or regional groups.
“It is not very simple to bring clean tech into that market. (Although) Brunei may not necessarily have all the solutions, it has money and technology players, who can partner with NGOs in the region to become a collaborator,” she said.
Laina added that Brunei would not only help the people deploy clean tech, but also help “alleviate poverty”.
The Brunei Times
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