Southeast Asia to Miss Green Goal on Slow Storage Deployment

(Bloomberg) -- Southeast Asia will miss its renewable energy production goal, highlighting the difficulties in weaning the region off fossil fuels like coal and liquefied natural gas, according to an intergovernmental think tank.

Clean power will make up 19% of the regional total by the end of next year, the ASEAN Centre for Energy said in a report, compared with an Association of Southeast Asian Nations target of 23%. Southeast Asia may become a net importer of LNG by 2027, it said.

Industrial and transport sectors in bigger economies like Indonesia and Vietnam are the main power consumers, but household electrification in smaller countries like Cambodia will also contribute to a more than doubling demand by 2050, said Zulfikar Yurnaidi, head of energy modeling and policy planning at the think tank. 

By 2025, the ASEAN group will have exceeded its renewable installation target, the report showed. But limited storage capacity means the region will struggle to consistently dispatch that energy into the grid, Yurnaidi said. 

To cut emissions and strengthen energy security, governments must push multiple climate-friendly policies at once, the researchers said. That includes green financing, modernizing national grids, adopting emerging technologies like carbon capture and sustainable aviation fuel, and even updating education programs to prepare workers for green jobs.

When it comes to phasing down fossil fuels, the energy transition in the region is a “delicate” balancing act, Yurnaidi said. 

Unlike the European Union, ASEAN has no common governing mechanism and operates on a consensus-building basis among its members. Critics say that prevents the bloc from taking coordinated action on urgent and complex issues like climate change.

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