EVENT: ASIAN POWER FORUM BANGKOK SEA energy opportunities explored in Asian Power Forum

“The most impactful way to decarbonise in Southeast Asia is increasing the share of renewables,” Billen said.

Asian energy sector’s future

The second speaking session was held by Dr Florian-Patrice Nagel, First Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy at B.GRIMM Power, who gave a power producer’s perspective on how the world has been evolving and what has been driving the energy sector given this shift.

Nagel explained that with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the global economy becoming imperative, renewables are seeing exponential growth in Southeast Asia. In addition to this, he noted that installed capacity is showing a tremendous growth trajectory, but it does not realistically get close to the target as a multiple of at least two or three times more is needed to meet the required production.

“I personally believe that this is only possible if the private sector will invest and puts up all this money. To be able to do this, we need sector reforms to enable more business cases and attract more private investments into the energy sector of this region. For example, unconditional third-party grid access and a supplydemand driven energy prices would make energy storage viable as a business for the private sector,” Nagel said.

Many industry leaders are focused on the progress of sustainable energy in Asia, which has seen significant advancements in recent years. The region’s energy leaders have set an example for others to follow, making Asia a key player in sustainable power development.

Asian Power brought together key stakeholders in the region at the Bangkok leg of the 2023 Asian Power Forum, held on 5 April at the JW Marriott Bangkok. This is the first forum held in Bangkok after years of holding events virtually. During the event, industry professionals got to connect with experts in the sector through presentations and a panel discussion.

Hydrogen opportunities in Southeast Asia

For the first speaking session of the event, Dieter Billen, partner for Energy, Sustainability & InfrastructureSoutheast Asia at Roland Berger, offered his perspective on green hydrogen opportunities. Particularly, he talked about the point of view of power producers in Southeast Asia, the huge interest in green hydrogen, and the opportunities within Southeast Asia.

“We expect the global market for green hydrogen to rise very rapidly, especially in Europe and North America – with strong government support like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. Although only a fraction of the announced projects will materialise, this will still represent strong growth in green hydrogen capacity”, Billen said. However, the growth in Southeast Asia is lagging behind, given limited to no support in most countries in the region.

Billen also stressed the need to assess hydrogen opportunities by project archetype: small-scale green hydrogen (less than 10MW), on-site industrial green hydrogen production (less than 250MW), and centralised large-scale green hydrogen gigaprojects for exports (more than 250MW). Although there are a number of announcements for largescale export projects, Billen expects the majority of projects in Southeast Asia by 2030 to be small-scale projects or on-site industrial production projects, given the high cost of transport at this stage.

With these challenges in Southeast Asia, Billen advised starting with smallscale hydrogen projects and ensuring nearby demand before exploring other large-scale opportunities.

Outside hydrogen, Billen noted the strong opportunities in solar and geothermal energy that a lot of Southeast Asian markets still offer, as well as wind power in certain geographies in the region.

Ultimately, renewable energy is expected to have the biggest impact on Southeast Asia’s decarbonisation, but this will need investments, not just in terms of generation, but also in the modernisation of grids and storage capacity.

He then suggested digitalisation to enable real-time control of grids using AI and machine learning, amongst other things. This is imperative to manage grids becoming ever so complex.

Nagel put forward B. Grimm’s GreenLeap Strategy, which is rooted in the insight that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of the global economy is the S-Curve for decades to come. The said strategy aims to build resilience to geopolitical events and public sector decision-making, especially regarding the main cost driver of B.GRIMM Power—the gas pool price.

The GreenLeap Strategy is focused on increasing and improving margins, continuing to look for efficient operation of combined cycle gas power plants, taking part in the growth of renewables worldwide, and investing in sustainable fuels and feedstock such as ammonia and hydrogen.

Nagel also raised the role of demand shaping strategies complementary to technologies for storage of green energy. This may be in form of incentives that encourage the shift in production times, thereby reducing the need for storage capacity.

“Incentivise the customer to shift their production to times where we actually have excess power is a way to reduce the load during times where you don’t have enough power,” he suggested.

Read the full event coverage at https:// asian-power.com/