Myanmar

Indonesia will have to get to work installing more than 24 GW of solar this year – and every year – if the region is to achieve the 2.1 TW to 2.4 TW of photovoltaics the International Renewable Energy Agency has estimated it will require to achieve a net zero carbon energy system by 2050.

Myanmar’s government has announced a plan to increase conventional and renewable energy generation to address electricity shortages. Reports from Burmese exiles, however, detail increasing issues for the construction of large scale solar projects tendered prior to the military coup in February 2021 and Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow said the project it secured in the country’s first tender has been canceled.

PV markets in Southeast Asia have picked up over the past two years, driven by the astounding growth of Vietnam. Regional policies, combined with growing demand for renewable power in the manufacturing industry, will result in 27 GW of new PV installations across the region over the next five years, writes IHS Markit analyst Dharmendra Kumar. PV installations in these countries are driven by attractive feed-in tariffs, net energy metering, tariff-based auction mechanisms, and other incentives.

Minh K Le, senior renewables analyst at Rystad Energy, examines five key trends to watch in Southeast Asia utility-scale solar, as mega-scale projects ramp up, Indonesia emerges, and Vietnam steps back.

Southeast Asia, when taken as a whole, is a global laggard in the uptake of renewable energy, but some countries are leading the way, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Myanmar. And as ‘Angry Clean Energy Guy’ Assaad W. Razzouk argues, policymakers in the region cannot hold back the tide of solar and wind for much longer.

The country’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy is seeking proposals for 30 large-scale solar plants. The selected developers will be awarded 20-year power purchase agreements.

Thailand-based Modern Energy Management (MEM) says it has teamed up with an undisclosed investor to develop a 130 MWp solar PV project in Myanmar. It is expected to come online in Q4 2019. Overall, the country is said to have a large-scale solar pipeline totaling 1.5 GW.

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are on track to make solar and other renewables account for 23% of the region’s total primary energy supply (TPES) by 2025, but governments will need to create better policy and investment frameworks to make it happen, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).