SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES FOR ELECTRICITY INDUSTRIES IN ASEAN NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZING COUNTRIES Peerapat Vithayasrichareon 1 , Iain MacGill 1 , and Thanawat Nakawiro 2 1 School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications and Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2 Fuel Management Division, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand Email: peerapat@student.unsw.edu.au ABSTRACT The region of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one of the fastest developing regions in the world. Strong economic and social development have contributed to rapid growth in electricity consumption within this region, which whilst representing significant societal progress has potentially growing adverse environmental impacts. This study evaluates some key challenges in the electricity industries of five ASEAN newly industrializing countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The framework for this study is the 3A’s energy sustainability objectives: Accessibility, Availability and Acceptability introduced by the World Energy Council. The key sustainability challenges in these countries are generally attributable to satisfying rapid demand growth; enhancing security of electricity supply; and mitigating the increase in CO 2 emissions as a result of electricity consumption. We assess the status of the electricity industries in these countries against a range of performance indicators for these challenges. Our study highlights some of the key issues facing governments, the electricity industry and investors, and the need for new decision support tools to guide electricity sector development. KEY WORDS Energy sustainability, electricity industries in ASEAN, electricity industry investment. 1. Introduction Sustainable development, as defined by the Brundtland Commission, is development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [1]. There are continuing debates about whether sustainability is better seen as a desired end point or, rather, process of improvement. It has also proved a difficult concept to implement in practice. What is clear is that energy sustainability has vital social, economic and environmental dimensions. In terms of social sustainability, energy is a basic need which can greatly improve our quality of life. In sustainability’s economic dimension, energy availability is a key driver in economic welfare. Of particular relevance to this paper, access to modern energy services such as electricity at an affordable price is essential to poverty eradication and economic development within developing countries [2]. Environmentally, the world’s present energy systems are key drivers of some of our greatest environmental challenges including, of course, climate change. The global electricity sector is the largest single contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels [3]. Countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been identified as playing an increasing important role in future world energy demand in the next few decades due to their rapid economic expansion, large population size, and consequent growing energy consumption. It is predicted that the total investment in the power sector in the ASEAN region in the next twenty years would amount to $0.6 trillion despite the financial crisis [4]. Five ASEAN member countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, referred as the ASEAN-5, are currently the five largest energy consumers in ASEAN, which account for more than 80% of ASEAN total primary demand, and are projected to account for more than 75% of incremental energy demand through to 2030 [4]. Countries in the ASEAN-5 possess some important similarities in both their economic and social development status. These countries have strong economic growth prospects and large populations. Rapid economic growth and social development have implications for energy and environmental situations since economic activities are the main driver in energy consumption [5]. Increases in energy consumption given current energy infrastructure almost always lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore it is important that energy development in these countries progresses in a sustainable manner - that is to ensure adequate and affordable access to energy for present and future generations in an economic viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sound manner. This paper aims to evaluate and identify key sustainability challenges for the electricity industries in the ASEAN-5. This study adopts the energy sustainability framework introduced by the World Energy Council (WEC) to identify key sustainability challenges based on energy sustainability objectives of accessibility, availability and acceptability in the ASEAN-5. In the next section, we briefly describe the social and economic context of the ASEAN-5. The detail of the energy sustainability framework used in the paper is presented in section 3. Section 4 presents the