The Asean Energy Grid (APG) has lengthy been touted as a key resolution to bettering the area’s entry to safe and inexpensive vitality. Right now, the rising urgency to decarbonise the vitality sector has made it much more important for Southeast Asian international locations to determine a versatile and dependable cross-border grid, which might enhance entry to renewable vitality assets.
Regardless of efforts because the Nineties to develop and preserve interconnections throughout nationwide electrical energy grids through the APG, the area’s vitality demand is predicted to triple by 2050 from its 2020 stage, in response to the seventh Asean Vitality Outlook, a 2022 report by the Asean Centre for Vitality. Asean will want stronger insurance policies to encourage renewable vitality growth in step with the regional renewables goal of 23 per cent of the whole main vitality provide by 2025, the outlook report notes.
Strategic investments will even be essential to the Asean vitality transition. In accordance with the Worldwide Renewable Vitality Company (IRENA), as much as US$7.3 trillion in investments can be wanted to assist Asean obtain 100 per cent renewable energy technology by 2050.
At Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s (TNB’s) Vitality Transition Convention, which befell on 28 and 29 August 2023, audio system mentioned the important thing parts wanted to realize a versatile and responsive energy grid that may help the scaling up of renewable vitality within the area.
Higher interconnections
Interconnectors are bodily constructions that allow high-voltage electrical energy to movement from one nation to a different. Crucially, interconnections can match the provision of renewable vitality in resource-rich areas to demand centres in neighbouring international locations, stated the deputy chief government within the sustainable provide division of Singapore’s Vitality Market Authority, Ralph Foong. “These assist speed up the collective decarbonisation of Asean.”
Indonesia, for instance, is wealthy in hydropower and geothermal vitality sources, however these areas are sometimes far-off from vitality demand, stated the director of transmission and system planning at state-owned utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), Evy Haryadi. The nation may leverage completely different peak demand occasions throughout borders, he added, to optimise the usage of interconnectors.
Southeast Asian international locations have the potential to share as a lot as 25 gigawatts of electrical energy through the Asean Energy Grid. Picture: 2QFY23 Analyst Briefing, Tenaga Nasional Berhad
In Peninsular Malaysia, TNB is already working interconnections with neighbouring Thailand and Singapore, highlighted the corporate’s chief grid officer, Dev Anandan. TNB has just lately accomplished a joint feasibility examine with Thailand to improve and improve its cross-border interconnectors to deal with the elevated electrical energy demand from the area’s inflow of knowledge centres.
“The interconnections have been initially for safety, stability and resilience. Nevertheless, after having signed on to the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore (LTMS) energy trade, [we are also seeing] lots of of megawatts in business buying and selling potential,” stated Anandan.
Embedding digital options
Given the anticipated improve in grid infrastructure, extra sources of data should be analysed concurrently to handle the movement of electrical energy throughout Asean. Digitalisation can be essential in managing knowledge from sources similar to climate forecasts, pricing indicators and industrial management methods, stated Rene Kerkmeester, world vp for good grids at tech consultancy CapGemini.
“Solely with digital [solutions] can we address the bodily challenges coming our means,” stated the chief innovation officer within the electrical energy digitalisation enterprise unit of Huawei Enterprise Enterprise Group, Edwin Diender.
The principle problem entails “remodeling the standard energy grid not into a wise grid, however through the good grid by including an clever layer of connectivity,” Diender stated.
Increasing on Diender’s level, DNV’s director of energy grids for Asia Pacific Matthew Rowe really useful that about 15 per cent of investments in grid infrastructure be used to enhance digitalisation. This sum ought to cowl the set up of extra sensor arrays, the administration and monitoring of distribution networks, and superior analytics capabilities.
Extra digitised grids might assist cut back operational and upkeep prices, improve plant effectivity and forecast hotspots of vitality demand, saving operators as much as US$80 billion a yr, he stated, citing an Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA) discovering.
Operators must also transition from reactive asset administration to extra predictive practices, Rowe added, referring to utilizing collected knowledge to offer early warnings to keep up grids.
At Tenaga Nasional Berhad, superior efficiency administration methods use digital software program to combine its quite a few utility methods. The system optimises distributed grid efficiency. Picture: TNB
Unlocking finance
Early investments are essential to bettering the regional grid, as a decentralised and versatile energy system is vital to decreasing renewable vitality growth prices, in response to IRENA director-general Francesco La Digicam.
Whereas one potential mannequin for financing grid enhancements entails treating cross-border transmission as a “regulated asset with a regulated return,” some renewable vitality builders are centered on the potential long-term business returns from well-structured tasks, stated Foong of Singapore’s Vitality Market Authority.
“What [the developers] ask of different stakeholders on the state and federal ranges are for regulatory readability and certainty to plan,” stated Foong.
With the ability to reference fastened coverage frameworks will even assist multilateral growth banks fund energy-related developments by concessionary or hybrid finance, he stated. “[Blended finance] will serve to enlarge the candy spot inside which numerous stakeholders can establish and obtain win-win outcomes,” Foong added.
Storing renewable vitality
Because of the intermittent nature of renewable vitality sources, battery vitality storage methods (BESS) are important for capturing most photo voltaic and wind vitality when provide peaks, which might be distributed to shoppers at peak demand hours.
Versatile vitality storage methods can even reply shortly to sudden will increase in vitality demand, including “an enormous quantity of worth to vitality methods that can not be added by standard technology,” stated Rowe.
Excessive battery prices, nonetheless, have up to now confirmed difficult for renewable vitality builders in Malaysia, stated the managing director of Malaysian photo voltaic agency Gading Kencana, Dr Muhamad Guntor Mansor Tobeng. Putting in BESS shouldn’t be obligatory for producers beneath present nationwide schemes to encourage clear vitality adoption, such because the Company Inexperienced Energy Programme.
Local weather-induced excessive climate has additionally affected how a lot renewable vitality might be generated, added Guntor. For instance, the technology of photo voltaic vitality in Malaysia has been unpredictable throughout completely different months this yr. “These erratic climate situations can have an effect on the effectivity and lifespan of the battery,” he stated, noting that the lifecycle of BESS can be more durable to calculate.
To beat these challenges, Malaysia can draw on classes from international locations like Australia, the place large-scale battery firms exploit arbitrage – or choose to buy vitality throughout off-peak hours – within the vitality market to generate income, stated the pinnacle of enterprise evaluation and engineering at TNB Renewables (TRe), Dr Wan Syakirah Wan Abdullah. Early financing for the primary few BESS tasks is supported by the Australian authorities, she famous, in trade for information from builders of the storage methods.
Malaysia can take into account two different fashions to additional implement BESS, stated Syakirah. “Possibility one is to incorporate BESS within the regulated property or enterprise of TNB, the place the corporate gives all of the grid infrastructure,” she stated. Possibility two, she added, can be to open battery provide and administration to the market, so makers of impartial batteries can help the system.
Because of the intermittent nature of renewable vitality sources, battery vitality storage methods (BESS) are important for capturing most photo voltaic and wind vitality when provide peaks, which might be distributed to shoppers at peak demand hours.
An aerial view of battery vitality storage methods (BESS) in Malaysia. Picture: TNB
Regulatory alignment
Alignment on nationwide insurance policies, particularly these surrounding the import and export of renewable vitality, will underpin the success of cross-border electrical energy commerce, the audio system agreed. Completely different grid codes and regulatory conditions for vitality commerce have been among the many early challenges seen through the growth of the APG, stated PT PLN’s Haryadi.
“Now the extra problem is that each nation has their decarbonisation targets primarily based on their Nationally Decided Contributions beneath the Paris Settlement. How can we export renewable vitality whereas additionally attaining this goal?” requested Haryadi. In addressing this, regulators could must discover mechanisms to commerce carbon credit in trade for renewable vitality, he stated.
The multitude of stakeholders concerned in discussions regarding energy technology and transmission would possibly additional complicate regulatory negotiations, stated Foong. This contains renewable vitality builders, homeowners of working methods and downstream shoppers of renewable vitality, along with the state and federal regulators with oversight roles.
Thus far, efforts to boost Asean’s grid interconnectivity are actively underway, in response to TNB. The Malaysian utility supplier is actively engaged in talks with its counterparts in Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam through numerous bilateral memorandums of understanding (MOUs).
TNB is exploring the feasibility of a brand new interconnection linking Sumatra in western Indonesia to Peninsular Malaysia with PT PLN and the Asean Centre for Vitality. Equally, TNB and Singapore’s SP Energy Property are exploring a second interconnection facility.
TNB can be exploring alternatives in potential renewable vitality technology and investments with utility suppliers in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
“All of us agreed that the timing was proper to make the Asean Energy Grid a actuality. It’s now a matter of our survival,” stated TNB president and chief government officer Dato’ Seri Ir. Baharin bin Din on the Vitality Transition Convention 2023.
