Online, 5 May 2021

On 5 May 2021, The Board of Judges of ASEAN Renewable Energy (RE) Project Awards of the ASEAN Energy Awards 2021 held their virtual 20th Final Board of Judges Meeting. The meeting hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Cambodia for the final evaluation and awardee selection for this year’s submissions. The meeting was participated by the Board of Judges (BOJ) Members from six ASEAN Member States (AMS), namely, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and the representatives from ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE).

The ASEAN Renewable Energy Awards held annually to encourage greater private sector participation and recognise their contribution to renewable energy project development and best practices in the region. The importance of this award is highlighted by Dr Nuki Agya Utama, the Executive Director of ACE, in his opening speech.

“This award could exhibit exemplary business models and best practices to assist the other AMS in replicating the proven RE projects and demonstrate the affordability of RE resources in the AMS.”, said Dr Nuki.

Mr Asdirhyme Abdul Rasib, the Senior Undersecretary, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Malaysia, as the Renewable Energy-Sub Sector Network (RE-SSN) Chair, added, “There are various opportunities that AMS could take from the ASEAN RE Award, which could support to accelerate the efforts on RE development both in national and regional level, as well as the development of post-pandemic recovery plans.”

The final meeting of the BOJ of ASEAN RE Awards this year was chaired by Mr Chiphong Sarasy, the Deputy Director of Renewable Energy and Other Energy Department, Ministry of Energy and Mines and Principal Judge from Cambodia, together with Ms Ira Ayuthia from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia as the Vice-Chair of the Board of Judges. In his opening remarks, Mr Sarasy highlighted the importance of the awards to promote coordination between AMS in reaching the RE aspirational targets of ASEAN Plan of Action and Energy Cooperation (APAEC) Phase II.  

For this year, a total of 33 submissions from 4 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand) received for the seven categories under RE Project Awards, namely: off-grid power category, off-grid thermal category, on-grid category, bio-fuel category, combined heat and power generation category, and lastly particular submission category. Even though the entries slightly decreased from last year, the quality of the submissions proven to increase as they mostly met the requirements for each type.  

The selected winners and runners-up will be announced and awarded during the 39th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM) Awarding Ceremony hosted by Brunei Darussalam in September 2021. 

Additionally, the Judges also discussed various future improvement in the award mechanism, including the efficiency of the scoring system, submissions guidelines and mechanism, and quality of the submissions. As stated by Ms Ira Ayuthia, the Vice-Chair of the BOJ, in her closing remarks, the meeting had also resulted in numbers of recommendations to improve the award guideline. The AMS is expecting to have more entries for the ASEAN RE Awards in 2022. 

(VYS)

By Veren Yoshevania Sattvadharma