that East Malaysia and Lao
PDR, each has more than 20GW
of potential for hydro power
generation. Indonesia, Brunei
and Malaysia have considerable
amount of reserves and are
among the largest exporters
of natural gas in the region.
There are also known coal
reser ves in Indonesia,
Myanmar, the Philippines,
Thailand and Vietnam. Among
these countries, Indonesia
possesses the largest share of
coal reserves, where about twothirds are located on Sumatra
Island and the remaining found
on the islands of Kalimantan,
Java and Sulawesi. Indonesia is
also known to be among the top
20 producers of oil in the world.
Indonesia and the Philippines
also have enormous resources
of geothermal potential.
Building an AMS regional
power grid through cross-border
transmission links to utilise
all the indigenous resource
for power generation, so as
to lessen the dependency
on imported fuel from other
regions, is indisputably a wise
strategy which the AMS Heads
have adopted.
Benefits of the Proposed
ASEAN Power Grid
T h e A P G is a f l a gs h ip
programme mandated by the
ASEAN Governments under the
ASEAN Vision 2020 towards
ensur in g r e g ional en er g y
security while promoting the
efficient utilisation and sharing
of resources. In the ASEAN Plan
of Action for Energy Co-operation
2010 – 2015 (APAEC 2010 –
2015) published by ACE, it is
stated that ASEAN recognises
Figure 1: Potential Electricity Interconnections in ASEAN
the critical role of an efficient,
reliable and resilient electricity
infrastructure for stimulating
regional economic growth and
development. [2]
An integrated electric power
grid across a large region
would make energy supplies
more secure and less costly
because electric power will flow
either way across the borders
of countries or sub-regions, in
response to real-time pricing
signals and supply- demand
situations. Countries and subregions may leverage on their
respective indigenous resources
to construct power generation
plants, that produce relatively
lower cost electricity. This will
help to reduce the overall cost
of electricity for the whole
region. The strengthening and/
or restructuring of respective
electricity markets in AMS are
therefore oriented towards the
creation of APG.
A sizeable population in
ASEAN does not have access
to reliable and secure power
supplies from national power
grids. Q