The Vietnam Electricity (EVN) said that 12,765 rooftop solar power projects have registered to sell power to it with total power generation of 30.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh).
Of which, total capacity of rooftop solar power projects of customers was 216 megawatts. It is expected that by the end of this year, another 300 megawatts of rooftop solar power will be added and 2,000 megawatts by the end of 2020.
The Decision No.11/QD-TTg on mechanism to encourage the development of solar power has already expired from June 30 this year but there has not been new decision to replace it so the EVN does not have legal basis to carry out procedures to buy power of new rooftop solar power projects.
Earlier, the Government had a resolution and a decision on the implementation of some specific mechanisms and policies to support Ninh Thuan Province in socio-economic development, in which the Government gave nods to the policy to develop the province into a center of renewable energy of Vietnam. Accordingly, the Prime Minister also ordered that by the end of 2020, the connected infrastructure with a design capacity of 2,000 megawatts must be completed.
In order to make up for a shortage of power generation during off-peak hours of wind farms and solar plants in this region, a pumped storage hydroelectric plant with large capacity has been planned to build. However, the investment of the solar power plant and the power transmission infrastructure has not been implemented synchronously. Building a wind farm or a solar power plant takes just a few months whereas it takes at least 3-5 years to build a power transmission network. Therefore, after developing rapidly for two years, wind farm and solar power projects in Ninh Thuan Province have showed signs of slowdown due to overloading of transmission and connected infrastructure to the national power grids.
Union Minister for Electricity and Energy U Win Khaing received Ambassador of Timor-Leste Mr Joao Freitas de Camara at Union Minister’s guest hall yesterday afternoon.
During the meeting matters relating to sharing Myanmar’s experience in electricity and energy sector development, increasing investment of international companies in Myanmar electricity and energy sector, experience of gradually privatizing state own enterprises, opportunities and challenges in onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and production works, power generation status from renewable energy according to Generation Mix and investment status of infrastructures in natural gas and electricity sector were discussed. — MNA (Translated by Zaw Min)
MANILA, Philippines – Retiring Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio welcomed the possibility of Russian participation to explore for oil and gas in Philippine waters being claimed by China.
Carpio disclosed this in a recent Rappler Talk interview with Rappler editor-at-large Marites Vitug, saying joint exploration in the West Philippine Sea should not be limited to China alone.
“Yes, I would welcome the participation of Rosneft…. because we should be spreading our service contracts. We should have one, or maybe several with China, some with the Western countries, including Russia,” Carpio told Rappler.
During his second state visit to Russia, President Rodrigo Duterte invited Russian oil giant Rosneft to conduct oil and gas exploration in various parts of the Philippines, including the West Philippine Sea. The maritime area continues to be claimed by Beijing through its 9-dash line, which has already been invalidated by the 2016 Hague ruling that uphled the Philippines’ rights in the West Philippine Sea.
Rosneft is a state-owned enterprise of Russia and is the biggest oil and gas exploration of the northern country. The company is currently helping Vietnam to explore for oil and gas in waters within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, which is also being claimed by China.
Beijing has opposed this and issued warnings against oil exploration activities as part of efforts to assert its claim to the area. Despite this, Russian firms have not abandoned the projects. (READ: Malaysia, Vietnam show PH can stand up to China)
Unlike China, Russia does not claim sovereign rights over waters in the South China Sea and its companies are willing to explore for natural resources as contractors of states with such rights.
Dealing with China: Duterte’s invitation to Rosneft comes as the Philippines is pursuing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China on joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea.
The two governments have already formed committees tasked to draft contracts covering specific areas. State corporations from both countries have been designated as default implementors of such contracts.
Both Manila and Beijing are expected to meet and finalize proposed areas for exploration by November this year.
The MOU also specifies oil and gas exploration would be done without prejudice to the legal positions of both the Philippines and China.
For these reasons, Carpio said the MOU, once finalized, may be the solution to the South China Sea dispute.
“If this can be done, this will be the template for the formula, for the peaceful solution of the South China Sea dispute because if we accept this, if it’s acceptable to us, and probably be acceptable for Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia,” Carpio said.
“Then we have found the formula to settle peacefully the maritime dispute at least. Not the territorial dispute, that will continue,” he added.
The West Philippine Sea reportedly contains rich reserves of oil and gas, including Recto Bank (Reed Bank). Exploration here is covered by Service Contract No 72, which had been awarded to Forum Energy PIc, a firm led by Filipino businessman Manuel Pangilinan’s Philex Petroleum Corporation.
According to previous reports, the firm was initially in talks with Chinese state-run firm CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) on developing the area’s energy reserves. – Rappler.com
Around the world, there is a palpable sense of urgency to accelerate the energy transition. With millions of citizens participating in the #FridaysForFuture movement and still more facing intensifying natural hazards like typhoons, droughts and hurricanes, climate change has become an indisputable condition of our modern world.
Wind and renewable energy have achieved strong progress in cost reduction and deployment so far, however their adoption has not been fast enough to slow the rate of carbon emissions. Despite the critical need to integrate renewable energy into our energy systems, challenges such as incumbent interests, regulatory frameworks and market design are holding back the growth of wind power.
Let’s explore the factors that are holding back South East Asia’s wind energy potential, and why we must urgently do everything we can to remove these obstacles for the future of the region.
1. South East Asia’s Insatiable Energy Demand
As a highly populous region of rising economic growth, South East Asia has pushed up electricity demand at an annual average rate of 6.1 per cent since 2000 – twice the world average. Power demand has roughly tripled over this period and, in particular, per-capita electricity consumption grew robustly in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Average annual growth in per-capita electricity consumption in South East Asia, 2000-2015
As energy demand rises, fossil fuels continue to dominate the generation mix with coal-fired generation in South East Asia growing at an annual average rate of 9.8 per cent and increasing its share in the mix to around one-third in 2016, from one-fifth in 2000 (Figure 2). While electricity generation has more than doubled since 2000, the ratio of renewable to non-renewable generation remains largely the same (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Power generation mix in South East Asia1
Studies show that warming seas can compound the duration and intensity of natural disasters like typhoons. In recent years, South East Asia’s vulnerability to the hazards of climate change has been experienced with devastating and fatal impact, as seen with Typhoon Haiyan and Tropical Storm Nock-ten.
It is proven that the impacts of pollution will accelerate climate change, endangering lives and sustainable development unless nations act now to make a fundamental difference in global efforts to limit warming. “Due to rapid urbanisation coupled with the current energy policies, most countries in the region risk committing to highly polluting electricity generation, transport and industry,” said Dr Ernest Moniz, former United States Energy Secretary in June 2019, during the Ecosperity Conference.
These trends of growing power demand, intensifying natural disasters and urbanisation present an unambiguous argument for South East Asian nations to scale up clean energy and integrate renewables into their sustainable development pathways.
“South East Asia will reap large economic and sustainable development benefits by keeping warming below 1.5°C,” said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics and co-author of the report Decarbonising South & South East Asia?. The report estimates that total global benefits will exceed US$20 trillion, with the poorest countries benefiting the most.
2. As Renewables Become More Competitive, Coal Still Dominates
The over-reliance on coal stems from widely accepted thinking that coal is the cheapest option for power, with renewables typically dismissed as uncompetitive. This has subdued the outlook for wind and renewable energy in the region, despite enormous and largely untapped potential. The International Energy Agency (IEA), for instance, predicts that coal will retain its dominant position in the energy mix and account for almost 40 per cent of the growth in primary energy demand between 2017 and 2040, shown in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Primary energy demand in Southeast Asia in the New Policies Scenario
In their efforts to fuel economic growth and raise living standards, South East Asia must tread carefully to foster a sustainable development pathway, as individual nations and as a region. The continued reliance on incumbent fuels, with coal use almost tripling to 2040, leaves a small amount of headroom for integration of renewable energy.
This situation, if left unchanged, will result in a globally significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. There is an urgent need for local policy efforts which incentivise renewables-based capacity, including through ambitious targets, feed-in tariffs, tax breaks and soft loans.
And while coal remains a crutch of energy systems in South East Asia, renewable energy has achieved tremendous cost reductions and is now cheaper than electricity produced from new coal power plants.
According to BloombergNEF and Lazard, the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE, lifetime costs divided by energy production) for coal ranges from 60 USD/MWh to 160 USD/MWh, depending on the specific market. Onshore wind has an LCOE of less than half that of coal: 29 USD/MWh to 59 USD/MWh, depending on the market.
Due to technological breakthroughs and large-scale deployment, renewables such as wind power are now cheapest across more than two-thirds of the world, according to BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook 2019. BloombergNEF further predicts that wind and solar will undercut coal and gas in price almost everywhere by 2030.
3. Coal is Cheap… But only due to Stubborn Fossil-Fuel Subsidies
Fossil fuel subsidies are prevalent in six countries in South East Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. These subsidies artificially lower end-user prices to below international market levels and below the full cost of supply.
Figure 4: Fossil-fuel subsidies in Southeast Asia
A gradual phase-out of fossil-fuel subsidies is reflected in Figure 4. But in practice, fossil fuel subsidies have not been efficient for three reasons: 1) they disproportionally benefit wealthier segments of society; 2) they encourage wasteful energy consumption and 3) artificially low electricity prices will discourage private investment in the power sector, as returns are dampened.
Not only are fossil fuel subsidies creating unequal playing fields in the energy sector of markets across South East Asia, hampering investment in low-carbon technologies like wind power, but they distort the electricity market in ways that are counterproductive to a just energy transition.
4. Coal is Cheap… But Bears Socio-Economic and Health Burdens
The 2018 World Air Quality Report shows that 95.5 per cent of people in South East Asia live in areas where air quality exceeds World Health Organization limits (Figure 5). Pollution, smog and exposure to emissions are a reality of the region – but one with dire consequences.
Figure 5: Collective results of 145 PM2.5 monitors in Southeast Asia by World Health Organisation
“Some three million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution,” according to the UN, drawing on data from 3,000 sites across the world. And nearly two-thirds of these fatalities occur in South East Asia and the Western Pacific regions.
South East Asia is at a crucial crossroads, facing a choice to build and sustain major low-carbon energy infrastructure and systems in a bid to develop sustainably and safeguard quality of life in the long term; otherwise, its cities face worsening pollution and following in the footsteps of a Los Angeles or Beijing saddled with an air pollution epidemic.
5. Coal is Cheap… But Leaves Stranded Assets
South East Asia’s most populous nations – Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines – are pumping US$120 billion into coal-fired power plants that are under construction or planned, according to a recent study by London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative. Wind and solar investments are still a fraction of this.
While the build rate of coal-fired power plants is slowing globally, existing and newly built plants are consistently underutilised and represent an enormous stranded asset risk estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. In South East Asia alone, it is estimated by Carbon Trust that up to US$60 billion of coal-fired power generation assets may be stranded in the next 10 years.
Furthermore, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Chinese institutions are financing or have committed to finance more than one-quarter of the 399 GW of coal plants currently under development worldwide. That is the same for Japan, which supports going green at home while funding coal-fired power projects overseas that would not meet its own emissions standards.
Figure 6: Japanese public finance agencies’ overseas coal financing by country (2013-2019)
Institutions like Mizuho, MUFG and ICBC have lost touch not only with the social and financial realities of climate change, and should keep pace with their global peers such as Natixis and Standard Chartered which have ceased financing new coal-fired power plants.
This means that coal assets are not economically viable over the long-term. With global coal-fired power capacity on track to peak shortly, according to Carbon Brief, the time is well past for investors to exit coal financing, everywhere. What was once a blue chip is now a red flag.
6. Driving Deployment of Wind Energy
According to KPMG, wind power has the potential to increase its contribution to global electricity demand by nine times by 2040 (growing from its present 4 per cent to 34 per cent). Its deployment could account for 23 per cent of the necessary reduction in carbon emissions by 2050: 5.6 billion tons of CO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of the 80 most polluting cities. This reduction would have real benefits for society, saving up to four million lives a year and reducing health-related costs by up to US$3.2 trillion a year.
The potential for these achievements in South East Asia is outlined in the ambitious targets for renewable energy, which have been set by the region’s governments (Figure 7). While countries are falling behind in their aims, “the will to make things work is present, and roadblocks are slowly but surely being cleared,” said Andrew Affleck, founder and managing director, Armstrong Asset Management.
Figure 7: Renewable energy targets of South East Asia countries by 2020
Affleck adds that South East Asian governments can improve their chances of achieving these targets by adjusting the pricing of fossil fuels through carbon pricing and lowered fuel subsidies, as well as upfront grants and interest-free loans to accelerate investments in renewables, which will help to diminish inequalities in the energy market.
Indeed, for South East Asia, any decisions made now will change the course of millions of lives in the region. Divesting from coal is only one part of the challenge. Reducing reliance on coal must happen in tandem with providing a positive policy environment for wind and renewables to integrate in energy systems. Access to sufficient financing and necessary adaptions to market design (e.g. equal market access, transparent and predictable procurement processes, secure dispatch processes, a pipeline of grid infrastructure) will be required to grow the share of wind and renewable energy across the region.
In order to accelerate the deployment and integration of wind and renewables, South East Asian governments should refocus on the design of their energy markets, current allocation mechanisms and whether a roadmap is in place to ensure sufficient infrastructure and transmission investments. This is necessary to ensure a smooth phaseout of coal, reduce the risk of stranded assets, enhance the share of renewable energy in the generation mix and safeguard a pathway to sustainable development.
Southeast Asian ride-hailing firms Grab and Gojek signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday with Indonesia’s state-owned electricity provider, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), to develop the country’s electric vehicle industry.
The memorandum also involved Indonesia’s biggest taxi operator, Blue Bird, Chinese automaker BYD, Indonesian public bus operator Transjakarta, and Indonesian automaker PT Mobil Anak Bangsa.
The memorandum will see the companies collaborate to build a network of electronic charging stations for EVs.
Ridzki Kramadibrata, president of Grab Indonesia, said the partnership with PLN is a part of the firm’s plan to develop the EV ecosystem in Indonesia.
“Grab is committed to developing the electric vehicle ecosystem in Indonesia through an investment of US$2 billion for Indonesia. We believe that electric vehicles can be an option for our driver partners and a long-term solution for Indonesia, especially to reduce air pollution, which has recently become a challenge,” Kramadibrata said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Gojek and its investor, Indonesian auto distributor Astra International, have tested the implementation of electric motorbikes through the GoRide service since last June.
“At the moment, we explore the trial implementation for the next stage. We will increase the project scale by involving more vehicles, more drivers, and expand in more areas,” Nila Marita Indreswari, chief corporate affairs of Gojek, told KrAsia.
The partnership between Grab and PLN includes a joint planning session to discuss the technical, business, and legal aspects of the development and implementation of e-mobility in Indonesia. Both companies have agreed to conduct research and development of business models for market study and e-mobility development, including for mini scooter vehicles, electric bikes, and electric cars.
“PLN has been assigned by the government in the framework of providing electricity charging infrastructure for battery-based storage systems. The MOU has become the commitment for both to accelerate electric vehicle development in Indonesia,” said Sripeni Intenser Cahyani, the acting CEO of PLN.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians should continue to assert pressure on the respective authorities to do more in solving the haze menace once and for all.
Social activist Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the transboundary haze, which has become an annual problem to Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries, should not be taken lightly despite the situation having improved over the past two weeks due to the monsoon season.
“The haze which hit Malaysia more than a month ago has affected the daily lives of many people, causing many of them to express their dissatisfaction on social and mainstream media.
“However, many Malaysians tend to forget about how bad the haze was after the situation gets better. This process is repeated every time haze occurs.
“Therefore, I would like to remind the public not to forget about the issue, but to continue putting pressure on the authorities,” he said in a statement today.
Lee said Malaysia needs to have its own cross border haze act, like Singapore with its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, which allows legal action to be taken against those causing haze in the country.
“The Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change Ministry’s proposal to establish our very own cross border pollution act is a necessary step and I hope that the process for submission to the cabinet will go smoothly.
“The Malaysian government must have a clear and concise stance on this haze issue, along with discussions with neighbouring countries on measures to resolve the issue for the sake of health and environmental protection and subsequently to achieve the ‘Haze Free’ status soon.”
SET-listed B.Grimm Power is confident 2019 revenue will grow by 15-20% after commencing operations at two solar farms totalling 677 megawatts in Vietnam.
Nopadej Karnasuta, the chief financial officer, said the two units of Dau Tieng 1 and Dau Tieng 2 have combined power generation of 420MW.
B.Grimm started operating the two units in early September.
The project is a joint venture of B.Grimm and Dau Tieng Tay Ninh Energy Joint Stock in Tay Ninh province.
The second solar farm started operations in early June with a capacity of 257MW. Phu Yen TTP Joint Stock is the operator for the project.
Both projects have 20-year contracts to supply Vietnam Electricity Group.
“The two solar farms in Vietnam make B.Grimm one of largest solar operators in Asia,” Mr Nopadej said.
Revenue will also increase from the 15MW Nam Che hydropower plant in Xaisomboun province, Laos. The project started operating in June, selling output through the state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.
Mr Nopadej said additional 2019 revenue will be derived by higher efficiency in gas-fired small power projects, as gas prices has fallen from last year.
B.Grimm is in negotiations with a Vietnamese company to acquire a development licence for a solar farm for the Dau Tieng 3 farm with a capacity of 60MW in the first phase. This project will double power generation to 120MW in the coming years.
“B.Grimm will soon conclude the further acquisition plan in Vietnam in early 2020,” Mr Nopadej said. “We are on course to grow our power portfolio by continuing to invest in projects both domestically and abroad, raising capacity to 5,000MW in 2022 from 3,245MW at 56 projects.”
B.Grimm’s power projects are 75% domestic and 25% foreign by plant numbers.
Domestically, the company is pursuing new power generation investments in accordance with the national power development plan for 2018-37.
BGRIM shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 49.75 baht, down 1.50 baht, in trade worth 1.49 billion baht.
[JAKARTA] Indonesia’s energy ministry allocated 9.59 million kilolitres of unblended biodiesel for its mandatory biofuel programme in 2020, a ministerial decree released on Friday showed.
That is 45 per cent higher compared with the 6.63 million kilolitres allocation for this year.
President Joko Widodo has proposed starting mandatory use of palm-based biodiesel with 30 per cent bio-content in January, up from the current 20 per cent content.
