São Paulo – Representatives of Masdar group, a state-owned clean energy company in Abu Dhabi, showed interest in the Brazilian biofuels experience during the country’s participation in the World Future Energy Summit, which took place in the emirate this week. "All the Masdar representatives with whom I spoke showed great interest," stated the executive director at consultancy company Interaction Times, Marcus Peçanha. The foreign relations company helped promote the event in Brazil.
Organized by Masdar, which is investing around US$ 15 billion in the construction of a totally sustainable city, this was the second edition of the forum, whose objective it is to discuss and present solutions in renewable energy. "It was very positive. Brazil had a delegation of around 30 people. There were few players, but they were very important," stated Peçanha, who now wants to work to manage to bring Masdar to invest in Brazil.
According to him, Brazil still needs to find much space in the Arab market. "The Europeans already sell much here," he added, referring to wind and solar energy. The work of promoting Brazilian technology in renewable energies in the Arab world, developed by Interaction Times, started last year. "We are going to work to have much stronger presence in the 2010 forum," said the director.
Despite the small delegation, the country won space in the panel about biofuels in Abu Dhabi, which had two Brazilian speakers: the president of Brazil Ecodiesel, José Carlos Aguilera, and the executive director of the São Paulo Sugarcane Agroindustry Union (Unica), Eduardo Leão, who spoke about the reduction of carbon emissions due to the greater use of ethanol in the Brazilian fleet.
Leão also spoke about the Brazilian mills that produce sugar, alcohol and electricity and about the country capacity to increase the production of sugarcane to produce ethanol and generate electricity, without affecting the production of foods. The Brazilian delegation included the Energy director at the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp), Carlos Cavalcanti, who granted an interview to Gazeta Mercantil newspaper in Abu Dhabi, and said that Brazil proceeds peacefully with over 60% of its energy matrix coming from renewable sources, whereas other countries are discussing the future of their energy matrixes.
In the same article, the newspaper informs that the Emirates have as their target reaching 7% of their energy matrix from renewable sources by 2020. As informed by ANBA, the Masdar strategy is to participate in all the renewable energy markets. Last year, the company purchased a US$ 175 million participation in Finish turbine manufacturer WinWinD. In May 2008, the company also announced investment of US$ 2 billion in the construction of two solar panel factories in Germany, to start operating this year, and another in Abu Dhabi, scheduled to start operating in 2010.
The World Future Energy Summit, which took place between January 19th and 21st, included the participation of several personalities, like the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, the minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of France, Jean-Louis Borloo, the minister of Energy of Denmark, Connie Hedegaard, and the minister of Energy, Environment and Public Transportation of Switzerland, among others.
*Translated by Mark Ament
