For decades, the ASEAN Power Grid has remained one of Southeast Asia’s most ambitious and challenging integration projects. But as energy demand rises, decarbonization pressures intensify and governments seek greater energy security, cross-border electricity trade is moving from a long-term aspiration to an urgent regional necessity.
Recent analysis by the ASEAN Centre for Energy, supported by consultations undertaken by the U.N. Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and partners under the ASEAN Power Grid Advancement Programme, suggests that smaller sub-regional power trading arrangements may offer the most practical path toward broader ASEAN electricity integration in the near term.
Building on the successes of the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP), which was officially launched in 2022, there are now compelling reasons to begin developing new sub-regional multilateral power trade arrangements.
There are myriad potential combinations of ASEAN member states that could come together to develop beneficial new sub-regional multilateral power trading arrangements. In identifying a potential pilot grouping, ESCAP and partners have considered factors including existing and planned interconnections, regulatory readiness, experience with cross-border power trade, and nations’ broader relevance to ASEAN-wide integration efforts. Based on these criteria, there is particular promise in pursuing multilateral power trade between Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, or VTMS for short.
