IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) with assistance from the European Commission, ICLEI, IPEEC (International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation) and UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlement Program) organised a one day International Mayors Workshop on Business Models for Renewable Energy Deployment in Cities in Abu Dhabi, on 22 January 2014, alongside the World Future Energy Summit. The workshop, aimed at promoting public private partnerships, identifying key areas of interest, developing regional clusters and potential twining options as well as developing stakeholder confidence by engaging interested Mayors and private sector technology providers in a common forum.

The Mayor of Cochin, Mr. Tony Chammany and the Mayor of Kota, Ms. Ratna Jain were part of the group of key local government decision makers brought together by ICLEI South Asia to discuss with the private sector cost effective business models, with minimum state or public investment, for increased deployment of specific renewable technologies. Due to the lack of public financial resources most of the financial impulses for renewable energy deployment comes from the private sector. The technologies being focused upon in this workshop were waste to energy (biogas and biofuel), solar thermal applications and outdoor lighting. 

The workshop was inaugurated by Frank Wouters, Deputy Director General of IRENA, who welcomed all participants to the workshop; the opening was followed by sessions on business models and round table discussions for the three technologies in focus. The cities were extremely pleased with the ICLEI-IRENA collaboration and were glad to have worked alongside these organisations.

As a next step, it was decided to form a committee comprising of members from the various cities, ICLEI and IRENA, which will work together to find solutions to help cities on various technologies suitable to their individual issues. It was also proposed by Mr. Kalle Hashmi, Head of Capacity building, IRENA, and agreed to by the cities to take up LED street lighting standards with the help of Aura Light and Global Lighting Association.  

A Masdar City tour had also been organised for the participants of the workshop on the following day.