‘Not charity’: Asean Power Grid promises shared benefits, says DBS executive

[SINGAPORE] The Asean Power Grid (APG) is not about “charity”, but fostering shared growth and resilience, said DBS’ group head of institutional banking Han Kwee Juan.

The growth in artificial intelligence, data centres and advanced manufacturing in South-east Asia means that energy requirements are of a “scale that often extends beyond national borders”, he said.

He was speaking at a forum organised by DBS and the Energy Market Authority (EMA) on Friday (Aug 21), ahead of the Singapore International Energy Week in October.

The APG envisions linking up Asean member states’ power systems for energy trade by 2045. Singapore itself aims to import around 6 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon electricity from the region by 2035, to meet around a third of its energy needs then.

With the APG, “countries endowed with abundant renewable resources can secure their own energy future, and in time, turn that into an economic advantage and export renewable energy,” Han said.

Likewise, countries with growing energy needs can tap clean energy imports to support their development.

“That is the promise of the APG – not charity but shared prosperity. Not dependence, but collective resilience,” he said.

He cited Singapore’s import of clean power from Laos – via Thailand and Malaysia – as evidence that Asean can trade power across multiple borders.

That said, he added: “To progress from pilot projects to commercial-scale investments, we will need to develop feasible, bankable and scalable business models to mobilise the capital required for the APG.”

DBS is providing a US$210 million senior financing facility to an investment vehicle, under Singapore’s Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (Fast-P) initiative.

The bank has also contributed US$75 million to Fast-P’s flagship Green Investments Partnership fund managed by Pentagreen Capital.

More rules and cables

Industry players who spoke at a forum on Friday said that the APG is promising, but that regulatory clarity is critical before cross-border power cables can be laid.

Assaad Razzouk, chief executive of Singapore-based renewable power company Gurin Energy, said there is a need for “less memoranda of understanding, (and) more rules and more cables”.

Gurin Energy is part of a consortium awarded a conditional licence from EMA to import clean power into Singapore from Indonesia.

He cited Texas as a positive example for Asean: The US state built interconnectors between areas with high solar-power potential and cities needing energy, adding several gigawatts of clean power in just a few years.

Vikram Kumar, director for infrastructure and natural resources in the Asia-Pacific at development finance player IFC, a part of the World Bank, pointed out that it also helps to codify issues such as wheeling charges and who underwrites curtailment risk.

Such clarity helps companies with forecasts and modelling on the cost of delivering power, he said.

Wheeling charges are the fees levied for using power infrastructure to transmit electricity; curtailment occurs when a power plant generates more electricity than the grid can handle, and the output has to be restricted.

Separately, Razzouk called for centralised procurement of subsea power cables, given supply constraints.

“Governments should give us a hand in procuring these ahead of time, so that as a region, we don’t find ourselves in five years without the ability to … build the Asean grid because the rest of the world gobbled (the cables),” he said.