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Southeast Asian nations face power connectivity challenges
Southeast Asian countries will need to collaborate more closely to build a power grid and other infrastructure to connect renewable energy supplies across the region, but the starting point is transmission grid upgrades, an expert says.
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A solar power plant is surrounded by rice fields in Sengkol village, Central Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara, in this undated photograph. (Antara/Ahmad Subaidi)
Southeast Asian countries will need to collaborate more closely to build a power grid and other infrastructure to connect renewable energy supplies across the region, but the starting point is transmission grid upgrades, an expert has said.
Peerapat Vithayarichareon, DNV principal consultant for energy systems in the Asia Pacific region, said inadequate policy support and limited access to capital undermined the expansion of clean energy in the region.
“Speaking from the technical perspective, there are concerns related to the potential impact of the cross-border power grid on the power systems within the countries,” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
ASEAN member states need to invest in transmission grid upgrades to integrate electricity from intermittent electricity generators, such as solar and wind, which require power systems to be more flexible.
“Countries cannot just shift from coal-fired generation to renewable energy. We need to prepare the system to accommodate the increasing share of wind and solar power generation, for example. These are challenges for system operators,” Vithayarichareon said.
Southeast Asia must retire more than 5 gigawatts of coal-fired power plant capacity annually over the next two decades to phase out the fossil fuel in the region, according to a report from San Francisco-based nonprofit organization Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
