The 26^th Meeting of the Heads of ASEAN Power Utilities/Authorities (HAPUA) Working Group Committee (HWC) and Associated Meetings was held on 28-30 November 2017 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. The Meeting was attended by all HAPUA Members from 10 ASEAN Member States’ (AMS) power utilities/authorities such as Electricité du Cambodge (EDC), Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) of Indonesia, Electricité du Laos (EDL), Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) of Malaysia, Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE) of Myanmar, National Power Corporation (NPC) of Philippines, Singapore Power (SP), Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), and Vietnam Electricity (EVN). Also in attendance were ASEAN Power Grid’s project consultants; the ASEAN Centre for Energy, International Energy Agency, and Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia.

The Meeting was conducted to monitor and sharing the status of HAPUA’s activities for ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) Phase II 2016-2020. The Power Grid Interconnection projects was updated by four (4) HAPUA Working Groups (HWG): Generation and Renewable Energy led by PLN (HWG 1); APG/Transmission led by EGAT (HWG 2); Distribution and Power Reliability & Quality led by SP (HWG 3); Policy Studies and Commercial Development led by Meralco (HWG 4); and Human Resources led by TNB (HWG 5)

The Working Groups prioritised the implementation of ASEAN Interconnection projects such as the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study (AIMS) III, development of ASEAN Generation and Transmission System Planning Institution (AGTP) and ASEAN Transmission System Operators Institution (ATSO) study. The projects are expected to accelerate the implementation of multilateral power trading and deliver a fully operable multilateral power trading with high utilisation of renewable energy as ASEAN’s indigenous resources.

The Meeting acknowledged the latest status of ASEAN Power Grid-transmission interconnection projects. Total existing shared capacity is 5,000 MW with 30,000 MW targeted capacity. Currently there are 5 sub-systems established in ASEAN with bilateral connections. The interconnection projects will be continuously implemented within the direction of a stable and quality multilateral power trading system. (SBS. featured photo credit:  MOEE, Myanmar)