Research Database

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one of the most diverse regions. 3.6% of global greenhouse-gas emissions was released in 2013 and is expected to rise substantially due to increasing population and income. Understanding how greenhouse-gas emissions in the region have evolved is an important first step to develop appropriate policies and this paper analyses the historical increase in CO2 emissions over the period 1971/2013, based on IPAT/Kaya approach combined with Variance analysis technique. Main findings indicate that: (1) population growth and increased income per capita have the largest contribution to emission growth; (2) fossil fuels increasingly become the dominant fuel and reversing this is a challenging task; (3) Energy efficiency gains have been achieved but it is the only factor that reduced emissions; and (4) the effect of changes in carbon intensity of fossil energy was negligible. These results should help Governments frame effective policies.

Offshore renewable energy resources are options to address a country’s energy and climate objectives without having to occupy vast amount of land space. Offshore wind power production, among the various offshore renewable options, has gained popularity albeit its dependence on the deployment location’s wind conditions, technical challenge in construction and grid connection, and potentially high capital cost. The wind conditions in Southeast Asia are generally much less favourable as compared to other parts of the world, but several economies in this region consider offshore wind energy as a long term solution to decarbonize the electricity sector and to diversify the source of electricity. There is thus a need to evaluate the true benefits of offshore wind energy under the region’s suboptimal climatic conditions. In response, this study employs the life cycle analysis approach to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy in the context of Southeast Asia. Findings from study suggest that the cost of offshore wind energy remains high at the moment for Southeast Asia. The findings further contribute to the debate on offshore wind energy by setting the bottom-line for deployment under unfavourable climatic conditions in the tropical region and world-wide. However, offshore wind farm could still represent a plausible option through technology innovation in wind turbine designs and reductions in the cost of wind turbine and submarine power cable. As suggested in this study, there is potential for the cost of offshore wind energy to reach parity against onshore renewables such as solar energy in the context of Southeast Asia.

The ASEAN Power Grid (APG) is the grand plan for an integrated regional power grid system in Southeast Asia designed to benefit its member countries by optimizing the use of energy resources. In this paper, we study how to fairly distribute the benefit of the APG to its member countries by focusing on the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Using data from two different years, 2012 and 2020, we analyze 12 scenarios with different combinations of the generation and the transmission capacities together with the maximum percentage of power trade allowed. We propose to allocate the total cost saving of the GMS by using the Myerson (1977) value. We show that the resulting Myerson value allocation from the 2020 plan satisfies two stability properties: (1) core stability, which implies that it belongs to the core when the core is nonempty, so that no country has an incentive to leave the APG, and (2) pairwise stability, which implies that no country has an incentive to add a new transmission line or delete an existing transmission line.

The Russian natural gas business has long been connected with the European market via pipelines. Recently, the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has brought up the importance of this resource on the Asian market and Russia is shifting its market strategy towards the countries in the region. While a lot of attention is focused on the potential of the gas relations with China, another country is where Russia is stepping up its efforts. Vietnam, part of the major economic association ASEAN, is cooperating with Russian companies to produce the 3rd largest amounts of natural gas in ASEAN. The article looks at the cooperation between Vietnam and Russia in the gas sector through the state-owned company, Gazprom, and tries to indicate if the strategy used in Vietnam can be extended to the whole ASEAN region, in order to bust the Russian presence.

Since 2015, the Indonesian solar electricity sector has witnessed unprecedented attention from international investors and developers, with planned solar photovoltaic (PV) projects announced in 2017 set to increase existing installed capacity from 9 megawatts (MW) to over 240 MW. This article examines the emerging geographies of renewable energy generation resulting from the rapid influx of foreign investment into Indonesia’s solar PV sector. While foreign investment may prove successful in increasing the country’s solar PV capacity, it may also produce several contradictory outcomes for Indonesia’s energy transition. Efforts to reconcile demands of risk-averse, profit-driven investors and developers with the needs of the approximately 25 million Indonesians who currently lack access to electricity has resulted in a geography of renewable energy generation characterized by large-scale centralized generation facilities that constrain opportunities for local ownership and control over the energy system. The result – a major contradiction when viewed through the lens of Indonesia’s energy transition development objectives – is not only a flow of economic benefits out of the country and limited improvement in energy access for much of the country, but a missed opportunity in terms of maximizing the socially and politically transformative potential a broader energy transition may entail.

Since 2015, the Indonesian solar electricity sector has witnessed unprecedented attention from international investors and developers, with planned solar photovoltaic (PV) projects announced in 2017 set to increase existing installed capacity from 9 megawatts (MW) to over 240 MW. This article examines the emerging geographies of renewable energy generation resulting from the rapid influx of foreign investment into Indonesia’s solar PV sector. While foreign investment may prove successful in increasing the country’s solar PV capacity, it may also produce several contradictory outcomes for Indonesia’s energy transition. Efforts to reconcile demands of risk-averse, profit-driven investors and developers with the needs of the approximately 25 million Indonesians who currently lack access to electricity has resulted in a geography of renewable energy generation characterized by large-scale centralized generation facilities that constrain opportunities for local ownership and control over the energy system. The result – a major contradiction when viewed through the lens of Indonesia’s energy transition development objectives – is not only a flow of economic benefits out of the country and limited improvement in energy access for much of the country, but a missed opportunity in terms of maximizing the socially and politically transformative potential a broader energy transition may entail.

Closing the gap between economy activity and environmental quality is one of the solutions for reaching “sustainable development” in Malaysia. To do so, the cubic polynomial functional form of EKC is utilized by accommodating renewable energy into the base of the EKC model and validating its hypothesis between CO2 emissions and GDP growth for the 1971–2015 period. The F-bounds, VECM Granger causality, CUSUM, and CUSUMSQ tests are utilized. The estimated results consistently show that the inverted N-shaped EKC hypothesis holds in Malaysia. Ceteris paribus, the CO2 emissions will be declined when the GDP reach RM2841.9 billion in 2030, which is beyond the sample period. The renewable energy has a negative significant effect on CO2 emissions, and the direction of causality is running from CO2 emissions to renewable energy. Also, the GDP growth will be the remedy for environmental pollution problems and that renewable energy is one of important elements to be considered for improving environmental quality. A tighter and concentrated environmental policy is needed to direct the environment–economic growth nexus toward a downward trend. Consequently, these results may help Malaysian policymakers to establish an energy policy that guarantees a balance between economic growth and environmental prosperity.

This study quantifies the environmental burdens created by a planned rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar installation on a university campus in Bangkok, Thailand, and models the potential of rooftop solar to meet the country’s renewable energy goals. Impacts are evaluated using Life Cycle Assessment and recommendations made for upstream purchasing decisions according to different scenarios. Results indicate that main contribution to impacts occurs in manufacturing by stage and from PV modules by component. Impacts generated by the mounting structure and inverters are also significant, and together these components constitute over 90% of environmental burdens. A climate change impact of 0.079 kg CO2-eq/kWh is produced over the lifetime of the system. Energy Payback Time is calculated as 2.5 years, and the Economic Payback Period is 7.4 years. The system is estimated to avoid 1.00E+06 kg CO2-eq over its lifetime. Installation of similar rooftop PV systems on 50% of university and government buildings in Bangkok could result in a net reduction of 4.80E+09 kg CO2-eq. Domestic production of components and recycling of materials is identified as a best-case scenario, with alleviations across all impact categories. Economic analysis suggests on-site electricity consumption paired with a net-metering policy scheme is the best way to incentivize PV solar energy installations.

The development of renewable energy policies is necessary to ensure secure and sustainable energy supplies at reasonable costs and to address issues related to global climate change. Since the year 2000 in Malaysia (time of the 8th Malaysian Plan), renewable energy has been included as a key fifth element in the country's fuel policy along with hydro, coal, gas, and oil, and a target of obtaining 5% of the total energy supply from renewable sources was set, although it has not yet been reached.This work explores public opinions regarding climate change and renewable energy in Peninsular Malaysia. Probability sampling and a stratified technique were used to conduct a survey with subjects aged 20 years and over with higher education qualifications. The results showed that the majority of Malaysians are concerned about climate change and have heard about renewable energy. However, only two out of five people in Peninsular Malaysia have used renewable energy products. This finding can be explained by the high price of renewable energy products, lack of knowledge about government policies, and ineffective programs and initiatives.