Search results

Southeast Asia faces one of the fastest growths in electricity demand in the world, driven by increasing incomes, urbanization and industrialization. Development and deployment of green energy technologies offer a natural conduit to meet the growing electricity needs of the Association of Southeast Asian Economies (ASEAN) region while also serving as a viable strategy to adapt to climate change. The aim of this study is to formulate the policy lessons for the ASEAN economies and governments in facilitating the development and deployment of green technologies and alternatives energy options based on a specific case review of the ASEAN. The ASEAN economic region is prioritizing sustainable economic growth while minimizing the regional impacts of climate change through decarbonization. The study undertakes a case-specific analysis in reviewing green energy deployment in the context of green growth and energy transition using secondary data sources and discusses the current status and future options of renewable energy development in the ASEAN. We find that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies will allow the ASEAN to continue to use fossil fuels while achieving sustainable economic growth as coal demand increases in the region. The deployment of CCS technologies will also act as an enabler of hydrogen energy as a green energy solution in the region in the longer term. Boosting public acceptance to nuclear energy, implementing energy efficiency improvement policies and eliminating fossil fuels consumption subsidies are feasible short-term and medium-term policies. Increasing both the public and private sector energy investments and development of CCS technologies in the longer term are necessary complementary policies to maximize the benefits of greater deployment of renewable energy sources in the region and combat climate change.

Governments have faced increasing pressure for energy policy to converge around efficiency, sustainability, affordability, and access in recent years. However, separate "silos" rather than an integrated policy framework have addressed these objectives, widening the policy trade-offs. The emergence of market-based reforms and renewable energy technologies has created potential synergies to achieve the objectives. In this paper, we develop a simple analytical framework based on economic efficiency and welfare arguments for the purposeful reallocation of subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The need to remove poorly targeted fossil fuel subsidies, which generate greater environmental costs, also facilitates this reallocation. Our focus is on utilizing the synergies between market-based reforms and renewables as the electricity sector lies at the confluence of these multiple objectives. We illustrate our framework using experiences from four emerging economies, drawing lessons for policy makers pursuing supply diversification through renewables.