Nuclear potential, data centre boom may be addressed in new Asean energy masterplan

[SINGAPORE] An upcoming masterplan for the Asean Power Grid (APG) could take into account room for nuclear energy in the region, alongside other emerging forms of clean power, said Razib Dawood, executive director of the Asean Centre for Energy (ACE). The growing energy demand from a boom in data centres could also feature in the outlook.

The centre has just started work on the fourth edition of the Asean Interconnection Masterplan Study (AIMS), which explores the viability of cross-border electricity trade in the region, Razib told The Business Times. The study is likely to be completed in about a year.

He noted that there have been significant changes in the energy landscape since ACE and the head of the Asean Power Utilities/Authorities Council released the previous edition of AIMS in 2024.

That report made no mention of data centres, but these facilities have since mushroomed across Asean and become a major guzzler of electricity.

In October, ACE projected that data centres would account for 20.7 per cent of the region’s electricity demand growth between 2025 and 2030.

Earlier forecasts could not have expected that “suddenly they’d need gigawatts (of power) over a short period of time”, Razib said. He added that the ongoing AIMS review may also have to factor in Asean’s potential adoption of new technologies. These include pumped hydro storage, battery energy storage and small modular nuclear reactors in the longer run.

When asked, Razib said that it might eventually be possible for nuclear energy to be traded in the region as part of the APG, similar to how France exports nuclear energy to European neighbours such as Germany.

He is also bullish on the potential for increasing wind energy exports in the region, given the completion in 2025 of a successful project that exports wind power from Laos. Also, Singapore recently gave conditional approval for a project to import up to 1.3 gigawatts of renewable electricity from Vietnam and Malaysia, including wind-generated power.

“Rules first” approach needed

That said, Razib acknowledged that “there may be some sceptics saying ‘you’ve been talking about this (APG) for over three decades… so why now?’”

But he believes that the time is right for the development of APG as the global energy crunch from conflict in the Middle East has renewed a drive for energy cooperation in South-east Asia. Against this backdrop, efforts to iron out APG policy details have continued.

For instance, Asean energy ministers in October endorsed the terms of reference for the Submarine Power Cables Development Framework. This will facilitate the laying, maintenance and protection of the undersea cables needed in the APG.

This comes as the industry has called for greater regulatory clarity on the ambitious regional interconnectivity project. Some APG interconnectors could require subsea cables to run more than 800 km – beating the world’s current record of 630 km.

Separately, Alessandro Panico, chief commercial officer and senior vice-president of the transmission business at Italian cable manufacturer Prysmian, urged a “rules first” approach to APG development.

In his view, the technical feasibility of laying long cables “will not really be a problem”, since existing technology theoretically allows maximum distances of more than 1,000 km.

Instead, “the bottleneck at the moment… is that the business case has to work”, he told BT. “Projects have to be bankable, and in order to do this, we need political willingness and regulatory frameworks.”

Prysmian has operated in Singapore for more than 50 years. It has a track record of supplying subsea cables for South-east Asian projects that deliver electricity to islands. This includes a subsea power cable system linking Phu Quoc to Vietnam’s national grid on the mainland.

The APG will step into new territory with cross-border undersea power linkages. While several grid connections already run overland between countries, South-east Asia now has only one cross-border subsea interconnector, running between Singapore and Johor.

While Panico sees potential for the APG to ramp up demand for subsea power cables, he stressed that political will is needed to realise these projects.

Still, regional electricity trade tends to bring down prices, he noted. There is “a lot of potential to create a proper Asean grid that will benefit, at the end of the day, all the taxpayers in the region”, he added.