The World Bank held its annual Energy Week in Washington in April. This is a major event when Bank staff, concerned with energy, meet representatives from client countries and invited experts.

The theme was Extending the Frontiers of the World Banks 'Energy Business, with the objectives being to broaden the understanding of participants on the range of energy projects being undertaken outside the Bank Group and especially in the private sector. The event is an ideal networking opportunity, which helps promote understanding between the Bank and its strategic contacts, and offers an opportunity to focus on developing new products in energy and environment. The Bank disburses around USD 3 billion per year for energy projects, this will increase to USD 4 to 4,5 billion this year with USD 5 to 5,5 billion of projects in the pipeline.

Invited speakers included big private, conventional energy players like Electricité de France, Enron, and Siemens. In the sessions on renewables there was considerable interest in the expansion of PV and biomass to become a core business of Shell.

The IEA  PVPS DC Team was invited to present a seminar on PV for rural electrification as part of Energy Week. This provided a very useful forum for interaction with the World Bank where PV projects are expanding. The Bank expressed its appreciation of the help being provided by PVPS, which should expand under the new Task currently being developed.

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