SIEW Energy Insights: Strengthening Regional Cooperation, Innovation for ASEAN's Shared Net Zero Goals

Collective effort coupled with low carbon innovations have become increasingly crucial to addressing the challenges and opportunities of ASEAN's rapidly changing energy landscape. Alex Ong, Associate Director, Infrastructure Advisory, KPMG Singapore, reports. This article is contributed by KPMG - the official Content Partner for SIEW 2022.

In the current climate of volatile energy markets where many countries face different challenges in energy supply and security, there is still strong commitment from governments to meet their net zero targets. Regional cooperation and low carbon innovations are increasingly crucial to achieving a resilient and sustainable energy future.

This was the main takeaway from Energy Market Authority's Chief Executive Ngiam Shih Chun in his Opening Remarks at the SIEW Energy Insights.

Singapore's commitment to net zero by 2050

Mr Ngiam opened the session by observing the timeliness of this first in-person meeting at SIEW since the global pandemic, and that it coincides with a volatile global energy market. Yet, the upside is that governments, both regionally and globally, remain committed to meeting their net zero goals.

He highlighted the few key energy initiatives by Singapore that Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Lawrence Wong had announced earlier in his Singapore Energy Lecture on 25 October.

In affirming Singapore’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050, DPM Wong had announced that the country will launch a National Hydrogen Strategy. This will look at how Singapore intends to use hydrogen for its power system, as well as for the industry and maritime sectors.

An Expression of Interest (EOI) is also being targeted for release by end 2022. This seeks to develop small-scale ammonia-powered projects and will explore partnerships across different countries and between the public and private sectors. Hydrogen will play a key role in enabling Singapore’s clean energy journey, and could supply up to 50% of the country's power needs by 2050.

Regional power grid to drive cross-border electricity trade

Mr Ngiam also highlighted another key part of Singapore’s energy transition strategy. This is the development of a regional power grid which is critical given the renewable resources constraint in Singapore and the huge renewables potential in the region.

Among the most successful examples of Singapore’s collaboration with multiple countries in this area is the Lao-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP). This commenced operations in June this year. Mr Ngiam said the project serves as a pathfinder towards realising the broader ASEAN Power Grid vision and how countries can better integrate power systems across the region. The LTMS-PIP can accelerate the development of renewable energy projects, enable mutual support and improve energy security.

Technological innovations to drive the energy transition

Mr Ngiam further emphasised the importance of technological innovations to enable and facilitate the energy transition. SIEW 2022 has seen presentations on low carbon innovations and collaborations from many companies regionally and globally. Among them, Sun Cable and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have entered into a Master Research Collaboration Agreement. Both will jointly look into energy modelling as well as technologies to enable better interconnection of grids across the region. Mr Ngiam also shared about the collaboration between Sydrogen Energy and City Energy on off-grid hydrogen fuel cells to enable electric vehicle (EV) charging.

 

Achieving net zero requires the collective effort of sheer numbers of stakeholders across private-public sectors and multilaterals. Actionable steps to reduce, substitute, compensate and reuse are among key actions identified by KPMG in supporting its clients in its energy transition roadmap.

In his Keynote, Anish De, Partner and Global Head of Energy, Natural Resources and Chemicals, KPMG India, said that achieving net zero requires the collective effort of hundreds, if not thousands, of projects. This need to be undertaken across different stakeholders from corporates to cities and countries.

Due to the sheer number of entities and stakeholders involved, he sees the benefit that a platform can bring to help facilitate two-way dialogue and collaboration in collectively achieving shared goals.

Leveraging KPMG’s global network of member firms, KPMG launched its Global Energy Hub in 2022 to facilitate such collaboration. 

Achieving net zero requires response and actionable steps to multiple key questions. Mr De further shared insights into the challenges faced by multiple corporate leaders in meeting their net zero ambitions. Among the key questions typically faced by corporates are:

1. What is our current carbon footprint?
2. What are the net zero goals we can commit to?
3. How do we measure our progress in achieving our net zero goals?
4. What steps are required to ensure the stability of the organisations (or governments) in achieving net zero goals?

Four key actions to facilitate net zero goals

Mr De highlighted the four key actions identified by KPMG to support corporates and governments in achieving their net zero goals. These are to:

1. Reduce—reduce energy use by improving efficiencies, optimising operations and redesigning processes;
2. Substitute—replace conventional sources with renewable technologies and low carbon products;
3. Compensate—compensate emissions through offsets or by removing unavoidable residual emissions; and
4. Reuse—reuse energy and resources to minimise emissions and waste.

Each of these actions require details on actionable and implementable plans, which require customisation for different sectors, stakeholders and countries. Inter-sector and inter-country collaborations are key to facilitate such information exchange. Lessons learned enable a more rapid path towards net zero.

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