Asean power grid will raise use of renewables, says energy body
Singapore
A TOP official of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has called on Asean to work towards a regionally interconnected grid so that its member states can adopt renewable energy on a larger scale.
Speaking to The Business Times, Adnan Z Amin, the director-general of the nine-year-old inter-governmental body, said: "In the long run, we really believe that a well-regulated market that includes a number of countries can have a massive impact on the large-scale adoption of renewables - especially because a number of Asean countries (such as Myanmar and Laos) have hydropower capability."
Such interconnections within the region will help to balance the power grid, even in the absence of grid-scale storage, he added.
Renewable energy such as solar and wind produce intermittent power, resulting in a need for baseload power plants which can keep the lights on - even when the sun isn't shining, and the wind isn't blowing.
Several countries in Europe have successfully incorporated renewables on a large scale into their energy mix; their interconnected grid enables them to buy or sell electricity from one another, from wherever it is cheaper.
In South-east Asia, the idea of such a grid has been mooted since the 1980s, but it remains a work in progress, stymied by a lack of political will and coordination, say industry insiders.
Physical infrastructure aside, a regional power market will also need a regulatory framework.
For now, only bilateral connections exist between certain countries.
On the issue of grid stability, Mr Amin said it becomes an issue only when intermittent renewable energy takes up more than 35 per cent of the energy system. "Many countries are nowhere near that."
He added that new technologies relating to smart grid and battery storage are being developed. "All of this has to be part of planning the power sector transition for the future for these countries (in South-east Asia).
"So the options are there. It's really for countries to understand what kind of policy and regulatory framework makes sense, to develop a reliable low-carbon energy sector in the future."
Such policies include giving priority to renewable power sources in the grid, and taking into account the cost of negative externalities such as pollution when using fossil fuels, he said.
Global renewable energy generation capacity expanded by 167 gigawatts (GW) last year to push cumulative renewable energy capacity worldwide to 2,179 GW last year, going by data published this month by IRENA, which promotes the use of renewable energy sources.
Of that energy capacity, solar photovoltaic (PV) led the charge, growing by 32 per cent, followed by wind energy at 10 per cent.
The cost of renewables technologies has come down tremendously. The average cost of utility-scale solar PV has plunged by 73 per cent since 2010, and that for wind, by 23 per cent, said IRENA.
It also estimates that the cost of battery-storage technologies will fall by as much as 60 per cent in the coming decade.
Mr Amin said: "The fact is that some of the lowest-cost power generation today is coming from renewables, especially solar and onshore wind."
Some economies that have already invested heavily in fossil fuel-based infrastructure might find it hard to switch, he noted.
"But I think the smart economic choice for the future is to understand very clearly that the low-carbon transition to modern energy systems is happening worldwide, and we need to get beyond the vested infrastructure to look at the opportunities that are emerging now."
Asean has set a target of achieving 23 per cent renewable energy in the region's energy mix by 2025.
Getting there will require mobilising US$27 billion of investments annually, or a total of US$290 billion until 2025, IRENA estimates.
The six major South-east Asian markets - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - attracted some US$27 billion in investments into the renewable power sector between 2006 and 2016.
