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# ASEAN’s New Energy Outlook Sees Electrification Leading, With Biofuels, SAF and Hydrogen in Support
- URL: https://review.iffw.sg/aseans-new-energy-outlook-sees-electrification-leading-with-biofuels-saf-and-hydrogen-in-support/
- Published: 2026-10-10T00:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-10T00:29:59.000Z
- Description: ASEAN’s 9th Energy Outlook has electrification leading transport decarbonisation, with biofuels, SAF and hydrogen in support. Oil stays near 7 million barrels a day in 2050, and sustainable bioenergy feedstock is flagged as limited.
- Author: Editor
- Tags: News, Aviation, Maritime, Land

The ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) has launched the 9th ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO9), the official regional energy outlook endorsed by the ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting, projecting the region's energy system to 2060\. It is a broad regional energy outlook rather than a fuels policy, but it sets out where biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), hydrogen and bioenergy fit in ASEAN's transition pathways, and where it expects them to fall short of replacing oil.

### How the Outlook Is Built 

AEO9 uses two linked models from the Stockholm Environment Institute: LEAP for energy demand, transformation, supply and emissions, and NEMO for least-cost optimisation, mainly of the power system. It compares three scenarios: a Baseline (BAS) following current trends, an AMS Target Scenario (ATS) reflecting stated national policies, and a new ASEAN Coordinated Transition Scenario (ACTS) with stronger regional cooperation. ACE describes the results as internally consistent pathways, not forecasts. The Outlook places the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis and rising oil-import exposure at the centre of its energy security argument.

### Where Fuels Sit in the Transport Pathway 

In the ACTS, cars and motorcycles become fully electric by 2060, with electrification extended to buses and trucks, alongside better fuel economy, biofuels, hydrogen for heavy trucks and SAF. Electricity becomes transport's largest fuel by 2060 at about 43% of the sector's energy, and the ACTS uses about 8 million barrels of oil per day less in transport than the Baseline. The ACTS is also the only scenario in which low-carbon hydrogen enters the energy system. The pages reviewed do not quantify biofuel, SAF or hydrogen volumes; those figures would sit in the full report.

### Why Oil Does Not Disappear 

Even in the ACTS, oil supply stays around 7 million barrels per day in 2050 and slightly higher by 2060, because petroleum continues to support freight, aviation, shipping, petrochemicals and household fuels where substitution remains incomplete. The Outlook treats that persistent demand as a security question: the oil that remains needs stockholding and emergency coordination under the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement.

### The Outlook's Caution on Bioenergy and Imported Fuels 

The Executive Summary is direct that electrification does not reach every energy use. Remaining liquid, gaseous and solid fuel needs draw on feedstock, land, processing and logistics, and bioenergy must share resources with food production, ecosystems and other industry. Technical feedstock potential, it says, does not establish a sustainable supply at the scale implied by demand, and imported alternative fuels can replace one external dependence with another. Its recommendation is that sustainability criteria, traceability and recognition of competing land uses should precede expansion of bioenergy and emerging fuels, with limited sustainable feedstock directed to applications where electrification is less practical.

### Fuel-Related Actions Named for the Region 

In its sequencing table, the near-term regional actions to 2030 include bioenergy sustainability criteria, a heavy-duty fuel-economy standard and operationalising the petroleum security agreement, while national actions include setting dates for ending new internal combustion vehicle sales. For the medium term to 2045, regional coordination includes clean fuels corridors and offtake. The report proposes seven policy directions, among them less reliance on imported oil and sustainable bioenergy.

### The Delivery Gap and the Cost 

ASEAN entered 2025 below all three regional targets for 2030: 30% renewables in primary energy, 45% renewables in installed capacity, and a 40% cut in energy intensity from 2005\. Reaching the capacity target requires about 31 GW of renewable additions a year, against a historical average of 6.5 GW. On cost, the report page estimates ASEAN's oil bill more than doubling under the Baseline to about US$369 billion a year after 2045, versus about a third of that under the ACTS, while the ACTS requires investment averaging about US$405 billion a year to 2060\. ACTS emissions end about two-thirds below the Baseline but remain above 2024 levels in 2060.

*Source:* [*ASEAN Centre for Energy*](https://aseanenergy.org/publications/the-9th-asean-energy-outlook?ref=review.iffw.sg)*, 8 October 2026.*