From India to Bhutan and Sri Lanka to Nepal, countries in South Asia are making a big push towards their energy transition. Energy developments in the region, however, are unfolding in a geopolitical environment that has heightened concerns around energy security and strengthened the case for renewable energy as a strategic imperative for economic stability and national security. This report “How South Asia’s Energy Transition Can Respond to Global Disruptions- Regional Stakeholder Perceptions”, published by CEEW brings together perspectives from South Asia on the emerging trends and challenges for a just energy transition.
The report further identifies pathways for strengthening cooperation among South Asian countries, with their varied resources and consumption trends, to help them manage the transition, reshape their economies as fossil fuel revenues decline, and move together towards a renewable energy-powered future. The report highlights several challenges facing South Asia’s energy transition, including complex trilemma with respect to high-cost, high-risk, and massive-scale capital needs, bottlenecks in electricity markets, infrastructure, and governance systems, such as the precarious finances of state-owned discoms, inadequate domestic manufacturing capacity, and supply chain concentration and socio-economic impacts of expanding renewables, including on communities affected by large-scale projects.
The report also recommends creating future-ready power markets that deliver efficient prices and protect long-term reliability, and ensuring regional power market integration, building supply chain collaborations between the Global South, which has the resources, and the Global North, which has the capital and technology, leveraging the digital revolution to advance the energy revolution and coordinating catalytic action across finance, technology, and capacity building to unlock the transition’s potential at scale.
Access the report here