Race to the Top Southeast Asia 2023 Methodology

Data sources

The data is gathered from Global Energy Monitor's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker before November 1, 2023.

The solar and wind datasets are available for download here (solar) and here (wind) under a creative commons license.

The Global Wind Power Tracker and the Global Solar Power Tracker have identified projects that fall under our nominal capacity threshold, 10 MW for wind, 20 MW for solar. The sub-threshold data are included in the tracker when there is a readily available government dataset. However, in order to make a fair comparison between countries across the region, none of the sub-threshold data was considered in this report.

Terminology

The following terms are used throughout the text:

Prospective: Any projects that are either announced, in pre-construction, or under construction. To get prospective capacity numbers we sum the capacity of projects that are announced, plus the capacity of projects that are in pre-construction, plus the capacity of projects that are under construction.

Announced: Proposed projects that have been described in corporate or government plans or media releases but have not yet taken concrete steps such as applying for permits.

Pre-construction: Projects that are actively moving forward in seeking governmental approvals, land rights, or financing.

Construction: Site preparation and equipment installation are underway.

Operating: The project has been formally commissioned; commercial operation has begun.

Shelved: No progress has been observed at the project-level for at least two years, or suspension of operation has been announced.

Large utility-scale: This refers to any project that is large enough to be included in the Global Wind and Global Solar Power Trackers. GEM catalogs all solar installations greater than 20 MW and all wind installations greater than 10 MW. In the report, this is used synonymously with utility-scale.

Southeast Asia nuances with regards to terminology

In Southeast Asia, particularly for regional giants Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, their open markets and institutional processes have facilitated the rapid progression of a large number of projects into the preconstruction phase. This does not necessarily guarantee that the projects will progress into construction.While these projects meet the requirements of preconstruction over announced projects, this demonstrates some of the intricacies and limitations of the trackers’ methodology when countries and regions operate differently and within their unique context.

Methodology

Data collection is done via secondary research by GEM staff; the Wind and Solar methodology pages describes the process a bit more. The Wind and Solar FAQ pages also provide information about the datasets.

Utility-scale Solar and Wind Percentages of Total Electrical Capacity

The total electrical capacity for each country was obtained from Ember Climate's electricity data release. The utility-scale solar and wind capacities were calculated by summing all of the operating wind capacity above 10 MW and solar capacity above 20 MW from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database and Global Solar Power Tracker database at the country level. The total capacity and the percent share of wind and solar are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Utility-scale solar and wind capacity percentages of total
Country	Total Operating Capacity (MW)	% Wind and Utility-Scale Solar
Region Total	321,040	9%
Brunei	440	0%
Cambodia	2,530	17%
Indonesia	84,660	0%
Laos	10,810	0%
Malaysia	40,990	4%
Myanmar	6,520	3%
Philippines	27,630	11%
Singapore	11,550	2%
Thailand	56,520	6%
Timor-Leste	350	0%
Vietnam	79,040	25%

35% RE Capacity by 2025 Calculations

The ASEAN regional target to reach 35%^[1] renewables uses a broad definition of renewables that includes wind, solar, hydro-power, geothermal, and bioenergy. To determine the current share of how much capacity all these renewables contribute to the region, capacity data for each type of energy source was compiled using Ember Climate's electricity data release and bucketed into renewables and all other categories on a per-country basis. The resulting data are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Percent of all renewable types in the electricity capacity
Country	Renewable capacity (MW)	All other capacity (MW)	Percent Renewable
Region Total	101,780	219,260	32%
Brunei	0	440	0%
Cambodia	1,750	780	69%
Indonesia	12,590	72,070	15%
Laos	8,930	1,880	83%
Malaysia	9,030	31,960	22%
Myanmar	3,440	3,080	53%
Philippines	7,660	19,970	28%
Singapore	850	10,700	7%
Thailand	12,200	44,320	22%
Timor-Leste	0	350	0%
Vietnam	45,330	33,710	57%

To determine how much additional utility-scale wind and solar capacity will be needed to achieve a 35% share of renewables in 2025 we first assumed a 3%^[2] annual growth in electricity generation and then computed the total generation required in 2025. Generation data were also gathered from Ember Climate's electricity data release and are shown in table 3.

Table 3: Electricity generation, latest data from 2022
Country	Generation (TWh/year)
Region Total	1,209.35
Brunei	4.69
Cambodia	8.69
Indonesia	333.56
Laos	39.97
Malaysia	181.09
Myanmar	22.36
Philippines	112.81
Singapore	54.79
Thailand	190.88
Timor-Leste	0.53
Vietnam	259.98

With a 3% annual growth rate, the regional electricity generation goes from 1,209 TWh/year in 2022 to 1,321 TWh/year by the end of 2025, or that an additional 112 TWh/year is required over current values. We assume some percent of that extra 112 TWh of generation comes from fossils, with a 50/50 split between gas and coal-fired power plants and the remaining percent of the extra generation comes from a 33/33/33/ split of wind, large utility-scale solar and smaller-scale solar.

Capacity factors for coal power come from GEM's Global Coal Power Tracker emissions calculations, and likewise capacity factors for gas power come from GEM's Global Oil and Gas Power Tracker emissions calculations. Capacity factors for wind and solar are Southeast Asia regional averages obtained by comparing generation and capacity values listed in Ember Climate's electricity data release. Capacity factors used are shown in table 4.

Table 4: Capacity factors used to convert between generation and capacity
	Capacity Factor
Coal	0.53
Gas	0.41
Wind	0.19
Solar	0.16

These capacity factors are used to convert between generation (TWh/year) and capacity (MW) using the following formula:

Capacity [MW] = Generation [TWh/year] * 1,000,000 * 1 / Capacity Factor * 1 / (3,766 hrs/year)

Applying this formula to the extra generation expected in 2025 due to growth then provides the extra capacity expected for both fossil and renewable (wind and solar) sources. This new capacity is added to the existing capacity and the percentage of total capacity that comes from renewable sources is calculated. The percentage of the extra 112 TWh/year of generation that comes from fossil fuels is adjusted until renewables contribute 35% of total capacity. This occurs when fossils make 65% of extra generation and wind and solar contribute to 35% of that generation. Final values shown in table 5.

Table 5: Additional generation and capacity needed by 2025 to meet growth and have 35% of total capacity be from renewables.
	Additional generation in 2025 (TWh/year)	Additional capacity in 2025 (MW)
Coal	36.4	7,845
Gas	36.4	10,253
Wind	13.1	7,855
Large Utility-Scale Solar	13.1	9,328
Small-Scale Solar	13.1	9,328

In this scenario, the final fossil-sourced capacity in 2025 is 237.5 GW and the renewables-sourced capacity is 128.3 GW. The additional utility-scale solar and wind required in order to achieve this is 17 GW. Assuming the 6.3 GW of utility-scale solar and wind power under construction comes online by 2025 another 11 GW of utility-scale wind and solar must also come online in addition to 9 GW of smaller scale solar.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Figure 1 was produced by summing all of the operating wind capacity above 10 MW and solar capacity above 20 MW from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database and Global Solar Power Tracker database at the country level.

Figure 4

Figure 4

Figure 4 used capacity data from Ember Climate (downloaded October 2023). The data provide aggregated capacity values by country for the following categories: "Wind and Solar", "Fossil", and "Hydro, Bioenergy and Other Renewables". Because there is no nuclear capacity in Southeast Asia the total electrical capacity for each country is computed as the sum of the above categories. A percentage for each category is then computed from the total amount for each year since 2012.

Figure 5

Figure 5

Figure 5 was produced by summing all of the prospective wind capacity above 10 MW and solar capacity above 20 MW from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database and Global Solar Power Tracker database at the country level.

Figure 6

Figure 6

Figure 6 was produced by summing all of the prospective wind capacity above 10 MW and solar capacity above 20 MW from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database and Global Solar Power Tracker database at the country level. This is then plotted against that country's Gross Domestic Product (GCP) as reported by the IMF^[3].

Figure 7

Figure 7

Figure 7 was created by summing the capacity of utility-scale solar projects above 20 MW and wind projects at or above 10 MW that were under construction, in pre-construction, and announced by country. The plot is arranged by showing the country with the most total prospective utility-scale solar and wind capacity at the top and stepping down from there. For ledgibility not all countries are shown, rather the remaining countries were grouped together and are displayed under "Other countries combined".

Maps

Map 1

Map 1

Map 1 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all operating wind projects 10 MW and larger in Southeast Asia from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker.

Map 2

Map 2

Map 2 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all operating solar projects 20 MW and larger in Southeast Asia from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker.

Map 3

Map 3

Map 3 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all prospective wind projects 10 MW and larger in Southeast Asia from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker.

Map 4

Map 4

Map 4 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all prospective solar projects 20 MW and larger in Southeast Asia from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker.