Research Database

Global Energy Interconnection(hereafter GEI) is not only connectivity of power grid, but also a series of methodical innovations for energy transition towards sustainable and resilient societies,which is different from the traditional energy development mode in the past. This paper seeks to summarize the key features about the above-mentioned innovations, as Green & Clean, Balanced & Reciprocal, Efficient & Intelligent and Vitality & Business opportunity. Finally it puts forward some reflections on the future development of GEI based on ASEAN practice cases.

Climate change phenomenon has become one of the major issues discussed in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN as one of the most influential regions in the world tries to combat climate change by developing renewable energy and creating a better living in the region. To pursue its ambition, ASEAN cooperates with United States of America (U.S) as one of its dialogue partners following the implementation of the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) 2016- 2025. This paper is using qualitative research method through secondary data analysis to explain how ASEAN-U.S cooperation on renewable energy helps ASEAN to combat climate change. Throughout the research, ASEAN-U.S cooperation on renewable energy is potentially beneficial and helpful for ASEAN to pursue its ambition in terms of investment provision and technology and information exchange.

A novel ‘Sustainability Window’ (SuWi) approach is applied for simultaneous analysis of the pillars of sustainable development; social, environmental and economic, of Lao PDR. This new method employs a variety of indicators for a comprehensive and holistic analysis of sustainable development and green inclusive economy. The analysis is grounded in the assumption that economic development is required for social development, but that simultaneously development needs to be guarded or limited to protect the environment that underpins it. As all three dimensions of sustainable development are interlinked, a comprehensive analysis requires an analytical approach that is simultaneous. The analyses provide information on minimum levels of economic development that are needed to fulfil social sustainability criteria, in tandem with the maximum economic development that avoids breaching environmental sustainability criteria. If actual economic growth lies between these minima and maxima, we can interpret that development is more sustainable with respect to the relationships embodied by the selected social and environmental indicators. The main source of data is the database of the Sustainable Society Index (SSI) developed by the Sustainable Society Foundation (SSF). The indicators used by SSI have been chosen for the Sustainability Window analysis as they can be used to assess both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ interpretations of sustainability. Weak sustainability is defined operationally as no increase in the environmental or carbon emissions intensity of the economy, while strong sustainability is defined as no increase in absolute emissions. Further, a novel Environmental Efficiency Gap analysis has been included in the Sustainability Window. This provides information about the necessary improvement in GDP production efficiency with respect to environmental emissions. Sustainability Window combined with Environmental Efficiency Gap analysis, provides critical knowledge for planners and decision makers. It provides strategic indications of how to aim for social and environmental sustainability through economic investment and growth targets. These new methods can be used in transdisciplinary research of sustainable development and can also assist in national and regional comparisons. In the case of Lao PDR, the analysis needs to be broadened for more fundamental understanding of the gaps and weaknesses. SuWi can be used to assess the sustainable development needed to address the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The SuWi does not provide direct policy recommendations as such, but helps to inform decision makers about the direction of development pathways towards these key goals.

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 total amount exploitable hydropower resources in the Association for South East Asia Nations (ASEAN) is large providing a low-carbon development opportunity for the region through cross-border grid connection. For more than a decade several, goals and planning frameworks have been formulated and implemented but no effort has been made to assess the sustainability potentials of planned interconnections. This paper establishes a methodology to critically review the energy security, affordability and carbon emission profile of the region under deepened cross border grid connectivity scenarios. The analysis shows the planned grid connectivity is economically and technically feasible, but changes in the current institutional environment will inevitably bring low-carbon benefits of cross-border grid connectivity. Investments in a diversity of renewable energy options to the interconnected grids could enhance ASEAN energy security and meet climate goals, without having to resort to building fossil fuel powered plants. Considering the cross-borders grid connectivity and integration of renewable energy into current grid infrastructure options are capital intensive, a further coordinated approach for the ASEAN governments involved is recommended.

Global warming is one of the most significant challenges facing the world today, as it poses an alarming threat to the entire ecosystem, human health, the economy, and national security. With the ever-increasing emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, there has been a progressive rise in mean temperatures recorded, causing global sea levels to increase as a result of the acceleration of warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets and glacial retreat. Global warming has heightened the ferocity and frequency of extreme calamities such as heat waves, drought, wildfires, hurricanes, floods and storm surges. Extreme mitigation measures must be taken to stop this trend, failing which global warming could cause a devastating impact on the entire planet and its communities. It is imperative that more research be carried out to evaluate the impact of various factors affecting carbon emissions, as it is one of the main greenhouse gases. This study is therefore in the right direction, as it examines the long-run relationships and short-run dynamic interactions between carbon emissions and its determinants comprising of income per capita, energy use, trade openness and financial development, over the period 1970 to 2016. The study applies the dynamic heterogenous panel estimation techniques of Mean Group (MG), Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Dynamic Fixed Effects (DFE) to analyse a set of macro panel data of the ASEAN-5 countries, to establish the possible causal relations between these variables. An analysis of the results reveal the existence of a long-run causality between carbon emissions and its explanatory variables, indicated by the significant error correction terms for all the models tested in this study. There is evidence that energy use, trade openness and per capita income significantly contribute to carbon emissions, with energy use being the most dominant contributor. Interestingly, the study also reveals that financial development is not significant in determining carbon emissions in these selected countries. The study concludes with an examination of policy implications of the findings.

This paper mentions to an application of new type of small wind turbine to power for a safety drinking water disinfection system. In Vietnam, as well in other emerging and developing countries such as in ASEAN, there are considerable problems to realize a safe drinking water supply in rural, removed and island areas. Such regions are characterized by insufficient infrastructure, e.g. there are often no drinking water connection, no wastewater treatment and an unreliable energy supply. As a main problem in water quality, the available surface water is often polluted with germs and coliforms. For an efficient drinking water treatment or disinfection at present and in the medium-term, the needed equipment and requirements for a comprehensive improvement of water quality are not available (e.g., missing chemicals, financial resources, energy capacities). With regard to germ load problem, there are additional difficulties due to microbial recontamination, as well as biofilm formation during water storage at the given climate conditions. The idea for carrying this study is to develop a Safety Drinking Water Disinfection System for rural areas in Vietnam as such as in ASEAN developing countries where the national electric grids may be lacked. The study will focus to develop two main parts: development an energy-efficient UV treatment technology (e.g. LED-lamp irradiation) as main disinfection step with a small-scale electrolysis cell (using MOX electrodes) and development a small Mixture Axis Wind Turbines (MAWT) for supporting the electric to the UV treatment and MOX electrodes. The MAWT wind turbine will works with both horizontal and vertical axis principles of wind turbines. Research found that the safety drinking water disinfection system that powered by wind energy is very suitable with the life standard condition in rural and removed areas in Vietnam.

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.