By Tay Kai Soon
Around 100 million people in ASEAN do not have access to electricity, said Dr Sanjayan Velautham, Executive Director, ASEAN Centre for Energy, while speaking during a panel on “Energy Access in ASEAN“ at the Energy Access Forum. Of these, 53 per cent are located in remote areas.
Providing access to these people has its challenges. One example is the process of efficiently getting payment for power delivery. Technical solutions such as mobile financial services have become a common practice in developing countries and could be adopted in these remote areas. “Every nine out of ten homes have a mobile phone”, said Didar Islam, Founder of Solaric Global. However, charging the phone is itself a big issue if they do not have access to the right voltage.
Governments have a significant role to play in delivering this energy access. For example, the Indonesian government is planning to invest in 35,000 mega-watts of new power in the next four years to increase the country’s electrification ratio to about 99 per cent from around 88 per cent today. Another initiative highlighted by Peter du Pont, Senior Climate Change Advisor at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Asia, was the US-ASEAN Connect. The initiative, which was established by President Obama at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit in Sunnylands, California, has established centres in Singapore and Bangkok. Together, they connect businesses, thought leaders and educational institutions to bring sustainable clean energy to the region.
Cambodia is yet another example of the impact of a government’s role. Delivering the opening address for the panel, H.E. Dr Ith Praing, Secretary of State, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Cambodia, said that the Royal Government of Cambodia, “in its effort to achieve rural development, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for people who are living in the rural areas – continues accelerating the development of rural electrification fund to ensure that all households have access to sustainable electricity supply at reasonable tariff”. To date, about 73 per cent of villages and more than 60 per cent of households had benefited from the rural electrification fund and have access to grid quality electricity in Cambodia.