As crude prices hover around US$75 a barrel, power producers are feeling the pinch and passing on the cost to customers. Malaysia’s utility company, Tenaga Nasional (TNB) imposed a 1.35 sen (US$0.0135) per kWh surcharge to offset its fuel and generation costs this month.
The current period of sustained economic growth in Southeast Asia is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Analysts are projecting the cumulative growth of economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to be upwards of 5.1 percent for this year. This situation has rightly prompted a rise in energy demand within the region.
In the coming years, digital technologies are set to take energy systems by storm – making them even more interconnected, intelligent, efficient and sustainable. Headway in areas like data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology have reached the shores of the energy sector.
The gears of industry would not turn if not for power. In the modern world, we have come to depend on electric power generated from traditional fossil fuel resources like coal. However, amid a global awareness of the dangers of fossil fuels to our environment, we have since entered a paradigm shift – a shift towards renewable energy.As a region, Southeast Asia cannot be removed from this global upheaval.
