A technician checks on solar panels installed at the 73-megawatt Lopburi Solar Farm, a photovoltaic power station in Lopburi Province, Thailand. It is estimated that employment in solar energy in Southeast Asia could increase six-fold and reach 333,400 jobs by 2030. Image: Asian Development Bank , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr Before his father entered the operating theatre for emergency heart surgery in 2008, Robin Pho promised he would join the family’s business, an Indonesian supplier of manpower for the oil and gas industry, which had been struggling to stay afloat in the wake of that year’s financial crisis. When oil prices collapsed in 2014, many clients ceased drilling. With its mechanics, welders and electricians no longer needed, the small family business, unwilling to abandon its people, sought a new way forward, and decided the future lay in clean energy, shared Pho. Right People Renewable Energy , a Singapore-based renewable energy firm that Pho now runs as chief executive officer, was born. Venturing into renewables was no easy task, he told Eco-Business, but with some capacity development, many of his employees formerly working in oil and gas now distribute, construct and maintain solar panels across Indonesia. As Southeast Asia […]
2.2m jobs by 2030: Clean energy’s employment promise for Asean
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