1. Our Team

In 2020, when the world was scrambling with the covid-19 pandemic, 10 countries in Southeast Asia region added cumulatively ~22 GW new installed power capacity, about 82% of this new capacity in 2020 was renewable – a notable new trend. While the installed fossil fuel capacity and renewables capacity were comparable in the last five years, the countries in this region are now turning more towards renewable.

Natural gas will continue to play a key role in meeting the future energy requirements of power and industrial sectors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, with Liquefied natural gas (LNG) serving as a bridge fuel to promote higher penetrations of renewable energy and mitigate the risk of over-reliance on coal.1 However, some obstacles to effective use of gas remain: Over-subsidization.

The world’s fourth-most populous country is rapidly reaching universal electrification, with almost 99% of its more than 270 million people considered electrified. However, the sector is not without its problems. A major outage hit the greater Jakarta area in mid-2019, affecting over 30 million people and paralyzing the economy, while shorter blackouts are a common occurrence.

ASEAN countries are a diverse group of countries at different stages of economic development and with different energy challenges. Some members, like Singapore and Brunei are high electricity consumption markets, while Myanmar and Cambodia are very low consumers and still working to deliver universal access. Fast economic growth and aggressive electrification efforts will drive higher demand, which is expected to more than double electricity consumption by 2040.1 The region’s current electricity production is over 80% fossil fuels, a trend poised to make ASEAN one of the largest contributors to global warming.2 At the same time, ASEAN is also at great risk of the impacts of climate change, with some members poorly equipped to cope with its effects without solving its electrification constraints.