The Transformative Role of Renewables in Southeast Asia, IRENA deep-dive workshop at Asia Clean Energy Forum June 2017

Manila, Philippines

The nations of Southeast Asia stand at a crossroads in terms of their collective energy future. Amid rapid economic growth, they face a 50% rise in regional energy demand within the next decade. This brings challenges in supplying energy affordably, sustainably and securely. Recognising this, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aims to rely more on renewables to support a sustainable, secure and prosperous future. To support this renewable transformation, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has been working with the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) and ASEAN Member States to explore the potential to accelerate renewable energy across the region.

IRENA’s global renewable energy roadmap (REmap) programme has been working with partners to explore the implications of accelerated renewable energy uptake. In late 2016, IRENA and ACE released a joint-report Renewable Energy Outlook for ASEAN which outlined how the region can meet its aspirational objective of securing 23% of the region’s energy from renewables by 2025. IRENA has also been working with large energy users such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand to develop country reports that identify their renewable energy potential or discuss the enabling environments around renewables. In addition, IRENA is also preparing a Renewable Energy Market Analysis for South-East Asia and during this event a report focused on Biofuel Potential in South-East Asia was released. ACE is active across the region on numerous projects and will be releasing their flagship ASEAN Energy Outlook 5 report in 2017.

All these reports and analyses have shown that the region has significant untapped potential for renewable energy, when if deployed, would lower costs for energy across the region, reduce energy-related CO2 emissions, significantly improve local air quality, and promote local jobs and economic growth.

To showcase these findings and discuss the topic IRENA and ACE organized a deep-dive workshop on the sidelines of the Asia Clean Energy Forum in Manila, Philippines. The event overviewed the findings from these various reports with a perspective on what can be achieved over the coming decades. Views were provided not just by IRENA and ACE, but also by countries and organisations active across the region providing a view on what efforts will be needed on country level and regionally to significantly scale up use of renewables.

The presentations are available to download from the following links.