Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 146, November 2020, 111770
Energy Policy

Exploring requirements for sustainable energy supply planning with regard to climate resilience of Southeast Asian islands

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111770Get rights and content

Highlights

  • GIS analysis of Southeast Asian island landscape considering energy access & climate risk.

  • Southeast Asian islands are grouped in climate risk zones through cluster analysis.

  • Identification of three specific climate risk island archetypes.

  • Measures to enhance climate resiliency of future energy supply systems.

  • Integration of climate risk assessments to energy planning processes.

Abstract

Southeast Asia is one of the regions most affected by impacts of climate change underlying the urgency to build resilience especially for remote and isolated island communities. Moreover, these islands face the problem of expensive and unreliable electricity supply. The large number of island communities further magnifies the difficulty of reaching universal sustainable electricity supply. Off-grid electrification technologies promise to tackle this challenge entailing high investments yet also market potential. Currently both aspects – electricity access and climate resilience - are barely linked in electrification planning. Energy planning in a region highly affected by climate change requires integrative planning considering these risks. Here, to enhance integrative planning, we study the status quo of energy access and risk exposure of non-electrified Southeast Asian islands. We identify 1932 islands with a population greater than 21 million having limited access to electricity. Our study reveals three risk-specific island archetypes, which need different technical measures to enhance climate resiliency of future electricity systems. We conclude that future energy planning in Southeast Asia requires climate resilience as an additional planning dimension. The identified cluster groups serve as a blueprint for decision makers to support measures improving energy systems’ resilience avoiding expensive re-investments in the future.

Introduction

Southeast Asia is one of the regions most affected by the impacts of climate change (Lee et al., 2013). This is especially true for remote communities located on the numerous small islands in the region. The latest world risk report identified Southeast Asia as one of the five global hot spots of disaster risk (Heintze et al., 2018). Besides floods, droughts, landslides, cyclones (Lee et al., 2013) and sea-level rise (David et al., 2008), the alteration of weather patterns like the monsoon poses a big threat to the livelihoods of Southeast Asian nations (Loo et al., 2015). As a consequence Asia and Southeast Asia account for most of the world's disaster related fatalities (van der Keur et al., 2016). Five of the eleven Southeast Asian countries have a very high world risk index (rank 3 Philippines, rank 8 Brunei, rank 12 Cambodia, rank 13 Timor Leste, rank 25 Vietnam) and two a high index (rank 36 Indonesia, rank 64 Myanmar) (Heintze et al., 2018).

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) states in their report “Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030” that the region is exposed to sea-level rise, severe coastal erosion, projected increases in cyclone intensity, rising surface temperatures and increased precipitation or droughts (NIC, 2009). The magnitude of these challenges varies within the region: During the period 1993–2001 for example, the largest increases in sea-level (15–25 mm per year) occurred near Indonesia and the Philippines, while only moderate changes (0–10 mm per year) occurred along the coasts of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam (NIC, 2009).

Most Southeast Asian countries (except Laos) encompass long coast lines or are island states. The NIC report emphasizes that coastal regions are amongst the most at-risk areas for the impacts of climate change due to their prevalence and high population density (NIC, 2009). Especially, highly urbanized areas along the coastline are under threat (Darmanto et al., 2019). Ecosystems that helped to protect coastal areas and their inhabitants, such as mangroves and coral reefs are themselves highly impacted by climate change (NIC, 2009). Indonesia and the Philippines as the two archipelago states have a high number of people at risk from sea-level rise (David et al., 2008). Projections show that the number of people at risk will dramatically increase by 2050 (Indonesia from 13.0 Million to 20.9 Million; Philippines from 6.5 to 13.6 Million) (David et al., 2008).

In addition, Southeast Asian islands face the problem of limited and unreliable supply of electricity (Blechinger et al., 2016). Looking at the issue of electricity access in Southeast Asia we can see two main dimensions: the first is that 65 million people currently have no access to electricity and the second is that many millions only have access to sub-par connections, relying on costly and polluting diesel generators to provide power (IEA, 2017). Both situations hinder the ability to achieve the sustainable development goal (SDG) 7: Access to sustainable energy supply (Gambhir et al., 2017). Regional policy makers have recognized this problem and put strong efforts on improving the supply situation on remote islands. Even in its conservative New Policies Scenario, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that all countries in Southeast Asia will achieve universal access by the early 2030s (IEA, 2017). To reach this goal it is expected that $14 billion need to be spent (Climatescope, 2018). On the technical side it is estimated that 40% of the population will be connected via grid extensions, one third via mini-grids and the remainder via small-scale off-grid solutions such as solar home systems (IEA, 2017). The two island states Indonesia and the Philippines will reach about 75% of their off-grid population with mini-grids (Climatescope, 2018). All energy sources play crucial roles, but renewables are of special importance for electrifying remote areas, providing a viable alternative to expensive diesel generators (IEA, 2017). These facts underlie the region's high market potential and upcoming investments to connect Southeast Asia's last mile.

Renewable energy (RE) holds significant potential on islands given the limited access to conventional sources due to the many islands’ remoteness, small land area and degree of isolation (Kuang et al., 2016). Kuang et al. (2016) underline that hybrid electricity systems based on RE technologies are one of the most feasible solutions for supplying islands with electricity (Kuang et al., 2016). However, small scale island systems are fragile and require a robust design to increase resilience to natural or economic impacts (Erdinc et al., 2015). Neves et al. (2014) presented an overview of hybrid electricity system case studies in which different RE and conventional technologies were applied and underline the necessity of more comprehensive and integrative energy access planning (Neves et al., 2014). Additionally, the feasibility of energy systems with high RE shares has been studied for several island case studies to showcase the ability to adapt and mitigate to climate change by decarbonizing the energy sector (Gioutsos et al., 2018). A high techno-economic potential of RE based hybrid systems, was identified for the focus region by Blechinger et al. (2016) and were confirmed by Meschede et al. (2016), who applied a cluster analysis for highlighting the RE potential for islands on a global scale (Blechinger et al., 2016), (Meschede et al., 2016).

Given that both climate change impacts and the electrification challenge are crucial issues for Southeast Asian islands, it becomes obvious that integrated planning is necessary for the region's sustainable development. The National Intelligence Council of the United States for example states that the “[electric power] sector is itself vulnerable to projected changes in climate” (NIC, 2009) and the “[…] Electric power in Asia and the Pacific is […] a vulnerable sector in a vulnerable region” (NIC, 2009). If electrification planning is to withstand current and future climatic changes, it is necessary to consider these changes in technical designs and integrate social structures and adaptation needs on the islands into the planning procedures (Bundhoo et al., 2018). According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) “Electric power investment decisions have long lead times and long-lasting effects, as power plants and grids often last for 40 years or more. This explains the need to assess the potential impacts of climate change on such infrastructure, to identify the nature and effects of possible adaptation options and to assess the technical and economic viability of these options” (Johnston et al., 2012).

It is therefore a significant weakness that both aspects – electricity access and climate resilience - are barely linked to current adaptation and electrification strategy planning. The missing link becomes clear while screening current literature. A review on the topic compiled by Perera et al. (2015) concludes that “only a few” documents contained “evidence demonstrating the link all the way through from access to energy to adaptation and building resilience to climate change and climate variability” (Bertheau and Blechinger, 2018). Ebinger and Vergara (2011) also emphasize the importance of integrated-risk based planning processes e.g. in the energy sector to address occurring climate change impacts and build resilience (Ebinger and Vergara, 2011). At the same time they state that the knowledge base is still nascent (Ebinger and Vergara, 2011). Another review conducted by Schaeffner et al. (2012) reveals the various impacts of climate change on energy systems and underlines that “[…] climate impacts research is fundamental in developing tools to assist energy planners and policy makers to avoid unexpected surprises and overcome potential energy systems’ bottlenecks […]” even though little research has been conducted on this subject (Schaeffer et al., 2012). We validate these findings and research gap for our research area (Southeast Asian island communities) through conducting an own review of electrification case studies for Southeast Asian islands. We identified 17 island electrification case studies, of which only one mentions the topic climate change (the mitigation potential of switching to renewable energy sources) (Shirley and Kammen, 2015). Climate change induced impacts are not yet considered in energy planning and the optimization is mostly based on a least cost approach. More details of our review can be seen in annex 1.

Investments into initial energy infrastructure are often combined with subsidies and favouring regulations. Policy makers need to incentivise climate resilient supply systems according to the respective risks for electrification projects in Southeast Asia. The complex task of electrification policies and optimized planning has therefore a new dimension: climate resilience. This leads to the main objective of our paper, which is to shed light on climate resilient electricity access planning in Southeast Asia as guidance for policy makers. In order to achieve this, we need to better understand where the regions with the most non-electrified island communities are and what climate risks – e. g. sea-level rise, cyclones – affect them the most. Understanding these risks and identifying typical island archetypes is crucial to derive technical recommendations which can be translated into concrete action plans for policy makers and planners. These steps translate into the following research questions:

  • -

    On which islands live people with no or limited electricity access in Southeast Asia?

  • -

    What island archetypes can be identified regarding climate risk patterns?

  • -

    What technical design aspects need to be considered for electrifying those archetypes?

  • -

    How can such technical aspects be translated into policy making?

The questions are addressed by spatial analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS) which gives an overview of different climate change impacts and extreme weather phenomena relevant for Southeast Asian islands, highlighting their vulnerability. Cluster analysis of these climate risks supports the identification of island archetypes. Literature review serves to develop technical recommendations to electrify those island archetypes. Finally, our study highlights the importance of integrating climate change impacts in energy planning in order to sustain positive effects of electrification in the long run. Our paper thus shows the missing but important connection between two main challenges of Southeast Asian island communities: first access to reliable and sustainable electricity supply and second increasing impacts of climate change.

Section snippets

Background on climate change resilience, energy access and energy planning

Our study includes three main research fields: resilience (including risks and vulnerability), energy supply with focus on electricity access and energy planning and policy making. In order to foster a well-informed interdisciplinary discussion, we discuss in this background chapter the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, its terms and definitions, the options to provide electricity access and basic principles of energy planning.

Material and methods

We apply a two-step consecutive approach for this study: First, we utilize geospatial analysis to assess the island landscape and derive key information for population and climate risks. Second, we apply a risk cluster analysis to explore and identify similar patterns and island archetypes with regard to climate risks. The research steps are illustrated in Fig. 3.

Spatial identification of islands with limited electricity access

Based on the approach explained in the previous section, we identify 13,388 islands with a population of more than 385 million and an accumulated area of more than 2.4 million km2. The discrepancy in island quantities to other information, e.g. more than 7700 islands for the Philippines (Boquet, 2017) or 17,500 for Indonesia (Dsikowitzky et al., 2019), are due to simplifications of the GADM dataset. However, since these simplifications result only in the merge of very small islands and given

Discussion and recommendations for energy planning and policy

Our results identify three main climate risk archetypes for Southeast Asian islands showing different risk patterns and exposure. In summary, the risk analysis has shown, that all islands will be affected by increased temperatures while the other risks such as flooding, sea-level rise and cyclones are more site specific. With exacerbating climate change, accounting for climate change related risks will become increasingly crucial for energy planning and related policies.

The cluster analysis

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Katrin Lammers: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Investigation, Resources, Formal analysis. Paul Bertheau: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Software, Resources, Visualization, Formal analysis. Philipp Blechinger: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

K. Lammers is grateful to the PhD scholarship of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. P. Bertheau is grateful to the PhD Scholarship of the Reiner Lemoine Foundation. The authors are grateful to Alexis Hudes, Zakia Soomauroo and Karoline Gerbatsch for their support and feedback.

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