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The Southeast Asia (SEA) region has ambitious goals to achieve
net-zero emissions between 2050 and 2065. It surely will require
great efforts for the region's power sector to achieve these
targets, as most SEA countries rely on fossil fuels to meet their
power demands. In 2020, coal-fired power accounted for more than
half of SEA's power supply, from Indonesia (61%), the Philippines
(57%), Malaysia (51%), and Vietnam (50%). Some SEA countries rely
less on coal, but their energy sources are heavily reliant on
natural gas, with Singapore at 96% and Thailand at 53%.
IHS Markit recently published Southeast Asia (SEA) power and
renewable market briefing for the first quarter of 2022 (Q1-2022)
and discussed the recently announced policies that are related to
their new renewables target in four SEA countries (as shown in the
chart below):
Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM)
proposed to have 100% renewable energy in the energy mix by 2060
through the National Grand Energy Strategy (GSEN), with the goal of
achieving net-zero emissions by 2060 or sooner. The GSEN
anticipates that the capacity addition will be entirely from
renewables from 2030, and the total installed capacity will reach
587 GW of renewables by 2060. Coal plants owned by the state-owned
utility PLN will be retired sooner than their lifetime.
Indonesia obviously stepped up its ambitions in achieving
net-zero emissions by 2060, but concerns linger over the
execution. There are no solutions presented in the GSEN
proposal for fundamental issues such as grid reliability and
stability issues with 100% penetration of intermittent renewables,
neither did it describe a solution to overcome the financial
barriers in renewables development. As a result, it is unlikely for
the market to shift to 100% renewables before a proven model is
available and clear policies are enacted to enforce that model.
Thailand intends to ramp up the renewable energy share
to 50% in the energy mix by 2050 in order to achieve climate
pledges. Thailand's Ministry of Energy unveiled plans to
increase the renewable share to 50% by 2050, and the goal of
achieving carbon neutrality and net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions by 2050 and 2065, respectively. Thailand's power fuel mix
will evolve to uptake more imports from Laos, with the PPA
increasing from 9GW to 10.5GW, and advanced clean technologies,
such as hybrid projects combining hydro, floating solar and
storage, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) system.
Vietnam's strategy centered on green and affordable power
supply, with the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
After several amendments to the draft Power Development
Plan VIII (PDP8),the final PDP is targeted to be
submitted to the PM in May for approval. Two plans were
proposed in the March 2022 version of the draft PDP 8. The first
plan called for total installed capacity of 146 GW by 2030 and 352
GW (including 7.8 GW of rooftop solar power) by 2045, with the
lowest fossil fuel share among all draft versions at 48.5% and
40.2% by 2030 and 2045, respectively. The second plan with higher
installed capacity, 151 GW by 2030 and 427 GW by 2045, is unlikely
to be implemented due to lack of national grid development planning
to accommodate power expansion and the huge investment required to
upgrade the transmission network.
Three scenarios were put forth for Singapore to reach
net-zero by 2050. Singapore's Energy 2050 Committee
published a report, "Charting the energy transition to 2050", which
aimed to achieve net-zero emissions in power sector by 2050. Based
on the three scenarios, the committee concluded that achieving
net-zero emissions is realistic and technically feasible while
maintaining energy security and affordability. The three
scenarios—clean energy renaissance, climate action bloc, and
emergent technology trailblazer—all represent a significant
shift from Singapore's current generation mix that is dominated by
natural gas. The scenarios show that hydrogen use and electricity
imports will play a crucial role in future power generation mix,
accounting for 70-80% of the country's power demand.
