Sustainable Development and Energy Transition in Europe and Asia

8Southeast Asian Energy Transformation: Is It Enough and Sustainable?

The Southeast Asian region is characterized by abundant renewable resources that are unevenly distributed. This is viewed as a major deterrent to the development of the renewable energy sector and as an enhancer of the region’s dependency on fossil fuels. Although the region has significant potential to develop renewable energies, its utilization in the electricity generation process requires high levels of capital investment, regional interconnection, and energy market integration – all features that are currently absent in the region. Infrastructural development and the effective implementation and coordination of key stakeholders that implement effective and coherent renewable energy policies with a long-term perspective are viewed as major disincentives to ensure that the region achieves its objectives of minimizing its reliance on conventional energy. Further complexities need to be considered in terms of the countries’ economic and political dynamics, as different regional leaders appear to be more interested in securing their national energy supply and political interests. The region exhibits a clear dependency on fossil fuels for both energy consumption and electricity generation processes, where coal and natural gas are identified as the dominant resources. This is a situation that is not expected to change over the next few decades due to significant challenges in terms of collaboration and cooperation, ...