Integrated Resilience: A First-of-its-Kind Transition Framework for a Decarbonised ASEAN Power Grid (Phase 2.3 Report)
As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) faces accelerating power demand and intensifying climate imperatives, remaining static in national energy isolation (Scenario S1) is no longer economically or environmentally viable. This report presents the first generation-storage-transmission co-optimised LEAP-NEMO modelling assessment of the ASEAN Power Grid (APG), establishing a strategic blueprint to transition from fragmented bilateral trade to a deeply coupled, multilateral clean energy market by 2040.
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Grounded in calibrated regional data, the baseline projections for installed capacity (GW) and total generation (TWh) closely align with the 8th ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO8) published by the ASEAN Centre for Energy. Moving beyond static modelling paradigms, this analysis introduces cross-decadal temporal variance and fuel price trajectories through 2050, capturing the evolving economic pressure that volatile global fossil fuel markets exert on traditional strategies of isolated national sovereignty.
Crucially, as national expansion plans and APAEC 2026–2030 priorities continue to position natural gas as a primary transition fuel, an unconstrained regional grid naturally defaults to gas as its primary flexibility mechanism. The central finding is therefore definitive: physical interconnector deployment alone cannot break the structural inertia of legacy thermal assets. To prevent regional coupling from merely re-entrenching fossil baseload, grid integration must be explicitly paired with robust carbon pricing or targeted fossil phase-out policies.
To evaluate these dynamics, this study models three distinct regional development pathways alongside one sensitivity analysis:
- S1 (Isolation): Establishes a baseline of absolute national self-sufficiency, restricting all transboundary interconnections and regional dispatch.
- S2 (Policy Baseline): Models a policy-constrained expansion pathway for generation, storage, and transmission, aligning interconnection capacities and coordinated cross-border trade with existing AIMS III targets.
- S3 (Market Integration): Unlocks frictionless regional trade by fully co-optimising endogenous capacity to achieve a system-wide, least-cost configuration.
- S3+ (Deep Decarbonisation): Acts as a sensitivity analysis on S3, maintaining endogenous capacity co-optimisation while applying near-zero carbon dispatch constraints by banning all fossil fuels to set an emissions-free benchmark.