Background
The ASEAN Member States (AMS), through the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), present the 9th ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO9). AEO9 is the official ASEAN energy outlook, endorsed by the ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM) and launched on 8 October 2026. It supports the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 and the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) 2026-2030. APAEC sets three targets for 2030: 30% renewable energy (RE) in total primary energy supply (TPES), 45% RE in installed power capacity, and a 40% reduction in energy intensity from 2005 levels. ASEAN’s growing demand, rising oil-import exposure and geopolitical shocks such as the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis put energy security at the centre of the Outlook. AEO9 presents regional integration as the strategic response.
Scenarios
Drawing on historical data from 2005 to 2024, AEO9 projects ASEAN’s energy system to 2060 with two linked models developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). The Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) carries the bottom-up accounting and simulation of energy demand, transformation, supply and emissions, and the Next Energy Modeling system for Optimization (NEMO) adds least-cost optimisation, above all for the power system. The results are internally consistent pathways, not forecasts. AEO9 gives more technology detail than earlier editions and adds thematic chapters. It compares three scenarios:
the Baseline Scenario (BAS), which follows current trends
the AMS Target Scenario (ATS), which reflects stated national policies and targets
the new ASEAN Coordinated Transition Scenario (ACTS), which explores stronger regional cooperation on electricity trade, efficiency, technology and investment while keeping flexibility for national pathways
In the BAS and the ATS, power capacity follows committed and planned projects, while in the ACTS capacity and dispatch are chosen by least-cost optimisation.
Results
Under the BAS, final energy consumption more than quadruples between 2025 and 2060. Efficiency and electrification under the ACTS hold it to nearly half that level, and electricity then supplies 57% of final energy, against less than a quarter today. Energy-related emissions are higher in 2060 than today in every scenario. The ACTS ends about two-thirds below the BAS and levels off in the 2040s, but it does not reach a lasting decline. National policies and targets alone, as in the ATS, deliver about three-fifths of what the ACTS achieves, on both energy demand and emissions.
By 2060 the ACTS uses about 8 million barrels of oil per day less in transport than the BAS. Data centres grow fast in every scenario and account for about one-fifth of the growth in electricity demand between 2025 and 2030. Renewables make up 64% of generating capacity in the ACTS in 2060, about twice their share in the BAS. In the same scenario, cross-border interconnection under the ASEAN Power Grid grows about 20-fold by 2060, and the electricity exchanged between the grid’s sub-regions grows about 12-fold. ASEAN entered 2025 having met none of the three targets of the previous plan, and reaching the 45% target for renewable capacity by 2030 takes about 26 GW of new renewable capacity a year, about four times the pace of the past decade.
Sectoral Highlights
The ACTS reaches these results through changes in every sector:
In industry, the ACTS pairs efficiency with a change of fuels and production routes. Light industries such as food, textiles and paper become almost fully electric, industrial coal use ends below its 2025 level, and in steelmaking coal-based blast furnaces are replaced as they retire by scrap-fed electric furnaces and hydrogen-based ironmaking.
In transport, the ACTS makes cars and motorcycles fully electric by 2060 and extends electrification to buses and trucks, alongside better fuel economy, biofuels, hydrogen for heavy trucks and sustainable aviation fuel. Electricity becomes the sector’s largest fuel by 2060, supplying about 43% of its energy.
In buildings, the ACTS brings electric cooking about fifteen years earlier than national targets and makes every household air conditioner a high-efficiency model by 2060, alongside LED lighting and more efficient equipment in homes and commercial buildings. Households then use about one-third less energy than in the BAS, and less than they do today.
In power, the ACTS builds more solar than anything else, about two-fifths of all the capacity added to 2060, and backs it with wind, hydropower, storage, gas plants, some with carbon capture, and a first small nuclear fleet. Generating a unit of electricity in 2060 then emits nearly three-quarters less than in 2024.
On the supply side, the ACTS needs about a third less primary energy than the BAS in 2060 and draws roughly half of it from renewable sources. It is the only scenario in which coal supply falls below its 2025 level and in which low-carbon hydrogen enters the energy system.
Across borders, the ACTS expands the ASEAN Power Grid step by step, adding fifteen cross-border lines to the eight in operation today, so that surplus renewable electricity can move to where it is needed and Member States can draw on a wider pool of supply and flexibility.
Other Analyses
AEO9 examines the barriers to these pathways, sets out a technical agenda by sector, and assesses economic and financing implications. Under the BAS, ASEAN’s oil bill more than doubles, from about USD 165 billion a year in the late 2020s to about USD 369 billion a year after 2045, in 2020 prices, while under the ACTS it falls to about a third of that. The ACTS requires investment averaging around USD 405 billion a year to 2060, counting energy supply and the demand side together. The report proposes seven policy directions:
efficiency standards
less reliance on imported oil
early action on new industrial investment
planning new power capacity alongside retirements
sustainable bioenergy
finance aligned with priorities
stronger institutions and a just transition
The report also recommends that ASEAN set an explicit long-term regional energy direction to at least 2050, with successive APAEC cycles as milestones.
Taken together, these recommendations point towards one course for ASEAN to pursue: deeper regional integration. National priorities remain the foundation of energy policy, and regional integration can make them easier to achieve by lowering system costs, increasing resilience and widening technology options. The Outlook’s central message is that ASEAN’s energy security requires integration, not isolation.
The AEO9 was developed with support from United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) through the ASEAN-UK Green Transition Fund (GTF); the Australian Government through the ASEAN-Australia Energy Cooperation Programme (AAECP), under the Australia for ASEAN Futures Initiative (Aus4ASEAN Futures); and the Government of Norway though the ASEAN Climate Change and Energy Project (ACCEPT) Phase II under the Norway-ASEAN Regional Integration Programme (NARIP). Further contributions came from Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the World Bank under the Multi-Phase Programmatic Approach: Accelerating Sustainable Energy Transition (MPA ASET), and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).