Policymaking drives solar and wind momentum in Southeast Asia: report

Vietnam leads the way with a 35 TWh increase in solar and 11 TWh in wind.

Plans and policies for decarbonisation have found a solid foothold in Southeast Asia, despite the prominence of fossil fuel usage.

According to an Ember report, Vietnam has led the charge in solar and wind generation over the region, with a 35-terawatt hour (TWh) increase for solar and an 11-TWh increase for wind.

Within the country alone, it established a solar feed-in tariff (FiT) rate of $9.35 cents/kilowatt-hour (kWh), the lowest among other ASEAN nations. Compared to other nations, Indonesia’s solar feed-in tariff rates extended from $14.5 to 25 cents/kWh, and the Philippines gained a rate of $19.4 cents/kWh.

Other countries are remedying this. With Malaysia, the Net Energy Metering (NEM) Scheme in 2016 is aimed at replacing the FiT scheme, allowing consumers to generate, use, and export energy to the grid, and gaining tariffs from $11.3 to 16.65 cents/kWh.

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However, in achieving decarbonisation goals, several ASEAN nations have formed stipulations on their respective FiT programmes. Vietnam’s fixed tariff FiT system allowed for incentives, such as land allocation, equipment tax exemptions and, the absence of local content requirements.

Indonesia’s solar FiTs are capped at 85% of the average cost of generation, whilst Malaysia’s NEM plan implements government-set quotas to regulate new large-scale solar projects.