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How ASEAN will cooperate on energy
3/12/2025
8 min read
Feature
Amid a shifting global order and a loss of clear economic direction from traditional global powers, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is emerging as both an increasingly confident and influential force, more determined to reshape the global narrative and to assert its role as a stabilising anchor in international affairs. The ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) 2026–2030 captures the region’s collective ambition to build an integrated, sustainable and secure energy future, one that balances growth with environmental stewardship, innovation with inclusivity, and resilience with opportunity, writes Energy Institute Asia-Pacific (APAC) Managing Director Peter Godfrey FEI.
Over the past two decades, the region's collective diplomacy and steady leadership have transformed it from modest beginnings into an increasingly integrated powerhouse and strategic player in the Indo-Pacific. This progress has been achieved while preserving ASEAN's overarching philosophy of balance, flexibility, neutrality and inclusiveness, thereby bridging vast cultural diversity and differing stages of economic development.
Looking ahead, ASEAN recognises the urgency of accelerating reforms to overcome persistent challenges, such as regulatory inconsistencies, bureaucratic inefficiencies and gaps in technological capability, industrial capacity and human capital development. These reforms are crucial to deepening regional cooperation across key sectors, including energy, manufacturing, infrastructure and digital transformation – the building blocks of ASEAN's shared prosperity and resilience.
Within this wider transformation, the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) has released the fourth edition of the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) 2026–2030, a strategic blueprint that both reflects ASEAN's evolving energy priorities and defines its direction for the decade ahead.