ASEANの越境電力、承認済みは9.25GW。実際に流れているのは200MW

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry updated a page on 20 August 2026. As of that month, Singapore had awarded Conditional Approvals to 13 projects to import 9.25 GW of low-carbon electricity from Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam (MTI). The target is around 6 GW by 2035, roughly a third of the country’s electricity demand then, so the approved pipeline is already half again as large as the goal it was built to hit. Six of those thirteen projects have moved up from Conditional Approval to Conditional Licence, and all six are Indonesian.

LTMS-PIP

The only multilateral cross-border power trade running in Southeast Asia is the Lao PDR–Thailand–Malaysia–Singapore Power Integration Project. Phase 1 ran from 22 June 2022 to 21 June 2024 and carried up to 100 MW of Lao hydropower to Singapore over transmission lines that already existed in Thailand and Malaysia. Phase 2 ran from 22 June 2024 to 21 June 2026, raised the ceiling to 200 MW, and added Malaysia as a second supplier so power could move in more than one direction (Single Buyer Malaysia).

So the approved capacity across the region is about forty-six times the capacity actually under contract, and it took four years and two phases to reach that 200 MW on wires that were already in the ground. None of that time went into construction. Regulators and utilities in all four countries had to settle who was buying from whom, and who paid when the power stopped.

The framework ASEAN agreed in 2024

In September 2024 the ASEAN Energy Ministers agreed to develop a framework on subsea power cables and to realise the ASEAN Power Grid by 2045. The framework’s job is to let member states permit subsea surveys in their waters, and the laying, maintenance and protection of cables across the region, “in a manner consistent with international law and national sovereignty” (MTI).

A cable route crossing three exclusive economic zones needs each coastal state to approve it before a survey ship can leave port. The framework was agreed in 2024, for a grid targeted at 2045, and what it delivers is permission to look at the seabed.

Singapore says it will keep granting Conditional Approvals to projects that are “credible, competitive, and can secure requisite approvals from relevant countries.” A Conditional Approval is Singapore saying yes. The exporting country has to say yes separately, and that is where most of the 9.25 GW is sitting.

What the IEA says it costs

The International Energy Agency put numbers on the physical side this year. Southeast Asia’s transmission and distribution networks need to more than double in length by 2050. Investment in grids and storage has to rise from about USD 13 billion today to USD 50 billion in 2050 to meet announced pledges, and roughly USD 27 billion of spending to 2040 is what the planned cross-border interconnections under the ASEAN Power Grid would require (IEA, Southeast Asia Energy Outlook 2026).

Set that against what the region invests today. Clean energy investment in Southeast Asia has risen 60% since 2015 and total energy investment passed USD 100 billion in 2025, which is still only around 3% of global energy investment. Coal accounts for around half of electricity generation.

Over the next decade alone, Southeast Asian electricity demand rises by an amount equivalent to Japan’s total electricity generation today. The fastest-growing established use is cooling, with the residential air conditioner stock set to triple by 2035, and data centres are adding new load in several countries at the same time. A region that adds a Japan of demand while running on coal is going to buy that power from somewhere, and the cheapest clean supply is usually across a border.

Japan has no cross-border interconnections

Japan is an island system that has to balance its own production and consumption, and for historical reasons it runs two frequencies, 50 Hz in the east and 60 Hz in the west (IEA). Japan does not appear in LTMS-PIP. It does not appear on Singapore’s list of import origins either.

So Japan cannot join the ASEAN Power Grid by wire. What it has instead are two diplomatic programmes.

The first started in March 2023, when Japan convened the opening ministerial meeting of the Asia Zero Emission Community. Leaders met that December. AZEC now has eleven partner nations: Japan, Australia, and nine ASEAN states — Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam. On 11 October 2024 the second Leaders’ Meeting signed a joint statement and an Action Plan for the Next Decade. What AZEC publishes after each round is a joint statement and a list of the MOUs signed around it (METI). METI ran the second AZEC Leading Action Forum in Tokyo and Osaka from 25 to 28 May 2026. Working-level officials from the partner countries met the Asian Development Bank and ERIA there. They toured energy facilities and exchanged views (METI).

The second is newer. On 15 April 2026 Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae hosted an AZEC Plus online summit on energy resilience and launched the Partnership on Wide Energy and Resources Resilience, POWERR Asia, with financial cooperation of approximately USD 10 billion. What Japan named there was fuel security. The summit statement talks about stockpiling and release systems, and about storage tanks that would extend how many days of crude oil reserve the region holds. Critical minerals and biofuels are named too (Prime Minister’s Office of Japan). The IEA’s outlook names POWERR Asia as a regional initiative that can improve collective preparedness against cascading disruption.

Neither programme pays for a wire. A country can be well stocked with crude and still unable to buy a gigawatt of Sumatran solar, because that purchase needs an export approval from Jakarta and a signed supply contract, not a fuel reserve.

Six, not thirteen

A Conditional Approval means Singapore will let the power in. A Conditional Licence means the exporting government has signed as well. Six projects hold the second document. If you sell cable, converter stations or grid software, plan against six.

LTMS-PIP shows what closing that gap takes. Lao PDR sells, Singapore buys, and Thailand and Malaysia both have to let the power cross their networks. That arrangement started in June 2022 at 100 MW. It took until June 2024 to double the ceiling and to let Malaysia sell as well. No second arrangement of that kind exists anywhere in the region.

T4IS2027 runs 18–19 May 2027 in Tokyo. The theme is One Planet, Built Across Borders, and the Japan–Europe Green Corridor is the flagship Strategy Dialogue track. The summit is invitation-only and the dialogue rooms are small. If you work on cross-border energy infrastructure in Asia or Europe and want to be in one, ask for an invitation at tech4impactsummit.com/apply.