Research Database

Southeast Asian countries stand at a crossroads concerning their shared energy future and heavily rely on fossil fuels for transport and electricity. Within Asia, especially India and China lead the world renewable energy generation undergoing a period of energy transition and economic transformation. Southeast Asian countries have huge potentials for sustainable energy sources. However they are yet to perform globally in renewable energy deployment due to various challenges. The primary objective of the study is to examine the renewable energy growth and analyse the government policies to scale up the deployment of renewables for power generation substantially. The study also offers policy recommendations to accelerate renewable energy exploitation sustainably across the region. To achieve the ambitious target of 23% renewables in the primary energy mix by 2025, ASEAN Governments should take proactive measures like removal of subsidies of fossil fuels, regional market integration and rapid implementation of the existing project. Eventually, each of this strategy will necessitate sustained leadership, political determination, and concrete actions from stakeholders, in particular, increased cooperation across the region.

Balancing between favorable energy subsidy and the financial burden of government is crucial for policymakers. This article intends to advance this thinking by informing policymakers about how price reacts to changes in the international oil price and energy subsidy program. Hence, it is essential to investigate the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between the international oil price and energy subsidy, and price behavior. This study used time series data covering the period 1981–2015 to explore the price behavior on energy subsidy rationalization and oil price fluctuation in Malaysia. To prepare concrete empirical evidence, we employed the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) approach to capture the long-run dynamic behavior. Our findings indicated that both factors, oil price and energy subsidy, are significant in influencing the pattern of price behavior. The PPI (Producer Price Index) was more sensitive to changes in the oil price than the CPI (Consumer Price Index). The PPI was found to be affected more while the CPI was less affected. We call on policymakers to provide the Malaysian economic system with a productive social safety net to offset the negative impact caused by energy subsidy reform.

The article attempts to investigate impacts of determinants on per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in six developing countries in Southeast Asia between 1985 and 2014 using a panel dataset. We found that electric power per capita, energy use, and gross domestic product have positive influences on per capita CO2emissions in Southeast Asia. However, population and renewable energy consumption negatively affect per capita CO2 emissions in this region. Our results also addressed that per capita CO2 emissions of Indonesia and Viet Nam are higher than that of other countries in the region. Lastly, policies are recommended to reduce CO2 emissions and protect the environment in Southeast Asia, including improvement of energy efficiency of countries in the region, implementation of the Project in Clean Energy Investments, reduction of fuel and CO2 emissions applied to light duty vehicles and high duty vehicles, exploitation of advantages in exporting greenhouse gas emissions, and cooperation among countries in the region in order to reduce emissions.

Vietnam has abundant natural resources, but a high vulnerability to climate change. The Vietnamese government, therefore, has avddeclared its intention to encourage clean energy development. To achieve this, the cost of renewables needs to be competitive with fossil fuels. The purpose of this paper is to review past studies of the levelised international costs for various renewable energy resources and compare them to the costs of renewables in Vietnam. In Vietnam, there is evidence that the cost of non-hydro renewables has fallen in recent years, as they have internationally, making them more viable. In the Vietnamese case, however, the potential for growth in the use of non-hydro renewables is impeded by the low cost of hydropower, which constitutes a significant barrier to the introduction of non-hydro renewables in the short to medium terms.

Aerosols emitted from fossil fuel burning can cause air quality and human health issues. In this sensitivity study, we examine the impact of fossil fuel aerosols on air quality in Southeast Asia under five different hypothetical fuel consumption scenarios. These scenarios reflect air pollutant outcomes of implementations of certain idealized policies in the power generation, industry, and residential sectors. Analyses based on comparison among the modeling results from these scenarios reveal the sectors that should be targeted by air pollution mitigation policy. The results reveal that in Southeast Asia, sulfate could be decreased by 25% if coal were to be replaced by natural gas in the power generation and industry sectors. Black carbon concentration would reduce 42% overall if biofuel were replaced by natural gas in the residential sector. Shipping emissions are especially critical for the urban air quality in Singapore: fine particular matters (PM2.5) could be dramatically cut by 69% in Singapore by merely eliminating shipping emissions.

This work discusses the development of hydropower in four Southeast Asia countries. With rapid economic development and insufficient energy supply, hydropower, as an important clean energy, plays a bigger role than before. It is shown that hydropower has immense potential and is the best choice to cater for the energy demand in Southeast Asia. In this work, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar are selected to analyze their hydropower development. This work introduces the status of hydropower resources, the current situation of hydropower development and the main distribution of hydropower stations in the four countries. In addition, the paper also introduces some energy policies, the development advantages and obstacles of the four countries, and puts forward suggestions for the future hydropower development of these four countries.

This study by using the random effects (RE) and robust least square estimates (RLS) examines the influence of two different types of FDI namely Greenfield (GF), Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) and energy consumption, on environmental performance of the eight selected economies in SAARC and ASEAN regions over the 2003-2014 period. Moreover, economic growth and population growth are used as controlled variables. The originality of this study is the use of Environmental Performance Index (EPI) to examine the effects of two different types of foreign capital inflows on the environment. According to the empirical outcomes of this study, GF and M&A investments have exacerbated the environmental performance in the selected eight SAARC and ASEAN countries, hence confirm the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH) to be valid. In addition, energy consumption and population growth are also found to be serious havoc for the environmental performance in this case. Nonetheless, economic growth has improved the overall environmental performance in these countries. The study suggests the formulation and enforcement of strict environmental regulations to seek environment friendly and energy efficient GF and M&A investments. In addition, renewable energy use and population control policies are highly desirable in these countries for clean and healthy environment. Accordingly, these economies are recommended to develop policies to realize sustainable economic development for improved environmental performance.

In 2015, ASEAN established a goal of increasing its renewable energy share in its energy portfolio from approximately 13–23% by 2025. Renewable electricity, especially intermittent and variable sources, presents challenges for grid operators due to the uncertain timing and quantity of electricity supply. Grid flexibility, the electric grid's ability to respond to changing demands and supply, now stands a key resource in responding to these uncertainties while maximizing the cost-effective role of clean energy. We develop and apply a grid flexibility assessment tool to assess ASEAN's current grid flexibility using six quantitative indicators: grid reliability, electricity market access; load profile ramp capacity; quality of forecasting tools; proportion of electricity generation from natural gas; and renewable energy diversity. We find that ASEAN nations cluster into three groups: better; moderately; and the least prepared nations. We develop an analytical ramp rate calculator to quantify expected load ramps for ASEAN in an integrated ASEAN Power Grid scenario. The lack of forecasting systems and limited electricity market access represent key weaknesses and areas where dramatic improvements can become cost-effective means to increase regional grid flexibility. As ASEAN pursues renewable energy targets, regional cooperation remains essential to address identified challenges. Member nations need to increase grid flexibility capacity to adequately prepare for higher penetrations of renewable electricity and lower overall system costs.

Dye-sensitised solar cell (DSSC) is an emerging type of solar cells in photovoltaic (PV) technology that are desirable because of their flexibility, easy fabrication, and has benign environmental impacts. The environmental performance of DSSC can be investigated by life-cycle assessment (LCA) to further develop this technology in a sustainable manner. This study aimed to evaluate and quantify the LCA of window-integrated PV systems using DSSC module in Malaysia. Typical indicators of solar PV such as cumulative energy demand (CED), energy payback time (EPBT), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rate from cradle-to-gate were assessed with SimaPro. Several environmental impacts were also observed through the Recipe Midpoint (H) method. Results showed that the CED produced throughout the DSSC life cycle was 18.75 GJ/kWh, EPBT of 2.42 years and GHG emission rate of 70.52 gCO2-eq/kWh. Moreover, extensive electricity consumption during module fabrication and panel manufacturing processes using Malaysia’s energy mix, as well as the use of glass substrates, silver and inverter, were some of the factors that have been identified in this research that affected CED, EPBT, GHG emission rate and a number of environmental impacts including metal depletion, freshwater ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, human toxicity and fossil depletion.