The ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO) has become one of the flagship references for policy and planning in the region’s energy development, especially in achieving the regional aspirational targets, known as the ASEAN Plan of Actions for Energy Cooperation (APAEC), as well as development towards the ASEAN Economic Community. With the diverse interest of the 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS), the development of the AEO, from edition to edition, has been adjusted to best adapt to the varied Member States’ energy landscape, development stages, and other factors considering the global developments.

Supported by the ASEAN-German Energy Programme (AGEP), ASEAN Centre for Energy initiated the Capacity Building on Data and Modelling, targeting, among others, the officials, data statisticians and researchers of the AMS. The capacity building was intended to share the insights about how the ASEAN’s data were processed and developed into the outlook modelling; to improve the understanding of modelling concepts and tools, narrow the knowledge gap, and foster harmonisation/minimise the discrepancy between national and regional forecasts. The activity is very timely with the ongoing development of the AEO 7^th edition, with which ACE communicates intensely with the AMS.

Back-to-back with the 2^nd Workshop of the AEO, the capacity building was held virtually on 25-26 April 2022. The two-day event consisted of live lectures focused on introducing key concepts, software and modelling demonstrations, hands-on exercises to the trainees to gain modelling experience, and Q&A. Participated by around 50 trainees from eight AMS. The capacity building was received positively with further requests such as more training duration, offline training conduct, as well as advanced training for policy integration into modelling. (JM)