Information platform promotes coordination in SE Asia power sector

MANILA, Philippines — Regional initiative Clean, Affordable, and Secure Energy for Southeast Asia (CASE) has launched an information platform to promote coordination in the power sector in Southeast Asia to help accelerate the region’s energy transition.

The Southeast Asia Information Platform for the Energy Transition (SIPET) serves as a pioneering interactive knowledge and coordination platform designed to help overcome persistent communication and coordination challenges faced by thousands of clean energy stakeholders in the region.

“SIPET is a one-stop platform that pulls together available information and research, facilitates evidence-based discussions, supports professionals to understand key data and trends, and greatly improves coordination and knowledge-sharing among stakeholders,” said Simon Rolland, energy project director of German development agency GIZ.

“Through SIPET, we aim to facilitate the narrative in the power sector towards an evidence-based energy transition that robustly supports the region’s development strategies, and towards joint actions that secure a clean, affordable and secure energy future for Southeast Asia,” Rolland said.

The role of SIPET in accelerating the energy transition is seen critical as energy demand is projected to grow by 80 percent in 2050.

Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam represent nearly three-quarters of total power generation in the region.

The ability of the region to meet its development goals will be impacted by the current and future energy strategies under consideration by Southeast Asia’s leaders.

“We share so much in Southeast Asia such as storms, as the Philippines and Vietnam experienced days ago when supercharged Typhoon Noru hammered our respective countries. There is no reason why we should not also share data, insights, and analysis to help the region transition to modern energy services so we can move forward together,” said Renato Redentor Constantino, executive director of the Manila-based think tank Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), the expert organization of CASE in the Philippines.

“We designed SIPET as an open-source, transparent platform to encourage practitioners, experts, and advocates across Southeast Asia to coordinate and exchange information in a more seamless and inclusive manner. We hope to elevate the quality of dialogue in the region as we aim to speed up and scale up the transition to sustainable energy,” Constantino said.

Among the common challenges in coordinating the shift to clean, sustainable energy identified by energy transition stakeholders in Asia  include the lack of institutional capacity, a dearth of platforms for timely information and intelligence sharing, and persistent duplication of work because stakeholders are unaware of activities undertaken by other practitioners and advocates.

SIPET is meant to tackle these challenges by providing a suite of power sector resources, a project database and mapping tool, a knowledge-sharing hub, and a community forum for energy transition professionals.