ASEAN-German Energy Programme (AGEP) successfully held its 6^th ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO6) Workshop on Regional Target on 30-31 January 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. It marked the third and final AEO6 Working Meeting throughout its development period. The first working meeting on data was held in Yogyakarta in February 2019, continued by its second meeting on model and scenario in Phnom Penh in March 2019.

The 2-day meeting was not only attended by the representatives from energy ministries working on their countries’ energy data, policy and planning, but also representatives from the region’s sub-sector networks (SSN) and specialised energy bodies (SEB). It aimed to discuss and explore each countries’ effort to achieve the regional target, especially the target of 23% renewable energy share in the energy mix by 2025.

The meeting was opened with the remarks from Mr Beni Suryadi from ACE and Mr Rizky Fauzianto from GIZ-AGEP, who both have been overseeing the AEO6 development since the beginning. It was then followed by a presentation on the recap and updates of AEO6 from Dr Tharinya Supasa, the AEO6 modeling team lead. She mentioned that the team is currently in the finalisation step of the model, which later will be reported and reviewed by a team of external experts. The outlook will be launched at the 38^th ASEAN Ministerial Energy Meeting (AMEM) in September 2020 in Vietnam.

The first day of the meeting was held in 2 parallel sessions: Plenary and Country Session. In the plenary session, the internal and external experts shared their insights on member states’ effort in achieving the regional target by different sectors such as industry, transportation, commercial, residential and power sector. While in the country session, the modeling team had a more private and in-depth discussion with each countries’ representatives to deliver the initial findings and gather some feedbacks on the national energy projection. On the second day, Dr Tharinya and Mr Charlie Heaps from Stockholm Environment Institute, as the technical consultant of AEO6 development, presented the initial findings for the regional outlook and further triggered the country representatives to explore a more ambitious national target to achieve the regional target.

Throughout the meeting, AGEP also had a chance to interview some participants and asked for their opinion on the ASEAN Energy Outlook development. The member states’ representative mentioned that they are satisfied with the development process of this AEO6 which is systematic and structured, and how the development team has put a lot of effort in accommodating each countries’ needs with its unique characteristics. Member states also hope that the finalisation of this outlook will be smoothly executed until it is officially launched in AMEM later this year. (MW)