Obstacles remain in vision of Asean regional power grid

Challenges include connecting national power systems of all 10 Asean countries

- Cheryl Tan

Singapore on Sept 20 announced plans to double its electricity import capacity via a regional grid, in an extension of the landmark Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore (LTMS) power integration project – which brought the Republic its first imports of clean energy.

This announcement, which comes after news that progress on the second phase of the LTMS project had stalled, may at first glance seem worth celebrating.

But closer scrutiny into the details of this development raises some important questions.

For one thing, the energy imported under this phase of the project is unlikely to come solely from renewable sources.

The LTMS project was announced in June 2022 to much fanfare, particularly as the electricity would come from Laos' low-carbon hydropower.

But details on the second phase of the project were scant.

It was revealed - only after The Straits Times put forth questions on how the electricity will be generated - that the energy from Malaysia will be from its grid, and hence, come from a “mix of generation sources”.

According to the Asia Natural Gas and Energy Association, coal accounted for more than 43 per cent of Malaysia's electricity production in 2023, compared with natural gas at 36 per cent and hydropower at nearly 17 per cent.

In many ways, the LTMS project can be seen as a pathfinder project for the Asean regional power grid - a vision where countries in the bloc share excess power with one another to meet rising electricity demand, while ensuring energy security.

Given the region's uneven distribution of renewable resources, having a connected grid could allow countries to better optimise their use of green power and hedge against intermittencies.