ASEAN's Energy Transition No Longer Aspirational But Competitive Necessity - UEM Group

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- The road to energy transition and renewable energy (RE) in the ASEAN region is no longer aspirational but a competitive necessity, said UEM Group Bhd managing director Datuk Amran Hafiz Affifudin.

He said that no company, sector or country can achieve those goals alone, and that business-led collaboration, backed by strong policies and resilient infrastructure, must drive the transition from ambition to action.

He noted that to date, corporate buyers have already enabled over 3.3 gigawatts of new RE capacity in ASEAN through power purchase agreements, with data centre energy consumption in Southeast Asia projected to quadruple by 2030.

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“The critical question now is whether supply can scale fast enough to meet this surging demand,” he said in his keynote address at the ASEAN Energy Business Forum 2025 (AEBF 2025) here today. 

Amran said that to meet the surging corporate demand, the region needs to accelerate decarbonisation and build a seamless regional power market.

“ASEAN must recognise that corporate leadership and government action (are) two sides of the same coin that must work hand in hand to address both immediate and long-term necessities,” he said.

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Amran, who is also UEM Lestra Bhd chairman, said there is a need for robust transmission and flexible distribution systems that enable high RE penetration and grid balancing through cross-border interconnections and power trade to optimise resources and reliability.

“A resilient grid is the great enabler, unlocking utility-scale solar, wind, hydro and new flexible resources.

“One of the critical areas for deploying more large-scale RE systems is increasing investments,” he added.

However, he noted that due to the limited fiscal capacities of countries and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises, there is an urgent need to attract private sector participation.

He said a well-structured public-private partnership can align long-term public outcomes with private innovation and efficiency.

“The urgency of the clean energy transition demands a new kind of leadership, one where businesses play a central role as co-creators of systemic change,” he said. 

-- BERNAMA