Photo credit: National Energy Authority
The recently established National Energy Authority was one of the major participants of the PNG Energy Summit and Exhibition 2022.
NEA’s Acting Managing Director, Mr. Ronald Maketa said the highlight of the NEA is to support the National Governments Energy Policy and its stakeholders to realize the potential of PNG’s Energy industry.
He stated during his speech that “We want to improve access to this (Energy) sector by having the right regulatory reforms for foreign direct investment by engaging with stakeholders to find the right approach for the direction of the Government”
“Investors must have confidence in the government, coordination by the government has been lacking in the energy sector for the last 40 years”. He said.
He added that “Renewable resources such as Geothermal and hydro energy are becoming huge potentials that is why we are aligning our development policies with the Connect PNG Infrastructure program. We want to open up small power systems in provinces and small centers so independent power producers and investors can come in”
The government already has an Energy policy in place, the role of the policy is to set the pace for service delivery in the energy sector. The implementers of this policy will be the Petroleum and Energy ministry and the National Energy Authority, the two are working closely with industry players and stakeholders to see that the policy is effective and is putting out desired outcomes. Explained Maketa.
Apart from this he further stated that there is a global demand for energy so policy has to be allowed to be shifted to consider this changing dimensions.
Reliability and affordability should be prioritized for key areas such as Renewable resources in the energy sector this may include Solar, Hydro, and Wind and Geothermal energy. The country is blessed with a lot of rivers and waterfalls to use for this form of Energy, this has huge potential to create opportunities for investment.
Energy for domestic use must also be considered, Oil and gas can be expensive even though we are producing it. We must teach ourselves to use clean energy in order to improve ourselves.
