Regional power group meeting begins in capital

THE Pacific Power Association (PPA) conference and the Pacific power engineers’ workshop will start in Port Moresby today.
Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare will open the conference which highlights business sessions to address the conference theme of “promoting utility best practices for sustainable development” and technical papers that address utility power/energy issues.
The other two associated week-long events to be held are a trade exhibition with 30 exhibitors and the power engineers workshop with presentations to address the workshop theme of “breaking the barriers to efficient and affordable technologies” and separate workshop for utility board members.
PNG Power will showcase its engineers with several of them presenting papers on how they break barriers to carry out their work in making sure that a reliable electricity service is provided to the people of PNG.
PPA executive director Tony Neil said the secretariat, with the experience gained from hosting of previous conferences, had put in another excellent planning effort to ensure another successful conference and trade exhibition this year.
“This meeting is critical to the future success of our utilities which are undergoing extreme hardship due to the ever-increasing cost of fossil fuel.
“Our forum leaders have the energy sector as one of the five top regional priorities and is receiving much greater focus,” Neil said.
The PPA conference and engineers workshop has attracted participants from North and South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and America.