Large-Scale Development of Renewables in the ASEAN: Economics, Technology and Policy

This book combines the fundamentals of economics, technology, and policy in deriving feasible solutions to facilitate the large-scale development of renewables in the ASEAN. A unique feature of this book is documenting that achieving large-scale renewables deployment inevitably requires combining these three distinct but interrelated forces of economics, technology, and policy. The economic foundations are guided by the microeconomic foundations grounded on economic efficiency and the associated market designs to deliver short-run economic efficiency including the application of auction designs and cost-benefit analysis. The role of battery technology and utility-scale batteries as enabling technologies for large-scale deployment of renewable energy is evidenced through energy modeling techniques. This book also pays particular emphasis on identifying key policy barriers of large-scale renewable development and pathways to overcome them such as the importance of carbon pricing in ASEAN countries and cross-border electricity trade to improve energy security by achieving clean energy targets. Country-specific case studies and regional case studies are used to study the economic, technological, and policy facets of large-scale renewable development with a view to derive policy lessons and recommendations in decarbonizing economic regions such as the ASEAN. The case studies are carefully selected and supported by rigorous data analysis and modeling as appropriate. This book on energy economics and policy is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and robust overview on the recent empirical evidences of facilitating the large-scale development of renewables with a particular reference to the ASEAN and Asian economies including India and China.

Dr. Han Phoumin is Senior Energy Economist with the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). He has more than 20 years of experience at various international and intergovernmental organizations and multidisciplinary research consortiums related to energy markets and technologies, the environment, integrated water resource management, governance, and economic development in the region of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia. He specializes in economic development and policy and applied econometrics. Much of his career over the past decade has involved the power sector, sustainable hydropower development, renewable energy research, energy efficiency, clean coal technology, energy security, and energy demand and supply forecasting.

Dr. Rabindra Nepal is an Associate Professor of Economics at the School of Business of the Faculty of Business and Law of the University of Wollongong in Australia. He is an internationally recognised economist specialising in the economic and policy analysis involving energy, environment and resource. Dr. Nepal is widely published, with more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, in addition to two co-edited volumes. With a strong policy focus in his research, he edits international journals with a similar emphasis, including co-editor of the journal Economic Analysis and Policy and serving as an International advisory Board member of the journal Energy Policy. He has taught diverse classes in Economics.

Professor Fukunari Kimura was born in Tokyo in 1958. He received his Bachelor of Laws from the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo, in 1982. He then received Master of Science and Ph.D. titles from the Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1990 and 1991, respectively. He worked for the Department of Economics, State University of New York at Albany as an assistant professor in 1991-1994, and in the Faculty of Economics of Keio University as an associate professor in 1994-2000. In particular, he has recently been active in writing academic/semi-academic books and articles on international production networks and economic integration in East Asia.

Dr. Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary is an associate professor of economics at Tokai University, Japan. He is also a co-founder and vice-president of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS), based in Australia. In 2022 he was listed on Clarivate’s list of Highly Cited Researchers, a global index of the top 0.1 percent of scientists. In 2023, he received the Medal and Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan for his outstanding research achievements in renewable energy financing, especially for designing the green credit guarantee scheme. He serves as Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (The World Scientific) and associate editor and board member of several other journals. His research credits include authoring over 275 academic journal papers and book chapters and editing 20 books from such major publishers as Springer, Routledge, World Scientific, and the Asian Development Bank Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Keio University, Japan, sponsored by a scholarship from the Government of Japan (MEXT).