Power markets • structure, policy & the grid
Power Markets & the Grid
The institutional layer behind the price. Where the electricity-costs dashboard shows what power costs, this shows why: the market model, the regulator, how renewables are procured, whether a factory can buy power directly or reach the grid at all, the reserve margin, the fuel mix, the cross-border interconnectors and their capacities, and the one binding constraint per country. Coverage grows bloc by bloc, starting with ASEAN.
Markets
11
ASEAN
Single-buyer / closed-ish
9
grid access closed or limited
Independent regulator
5 of 11
arm's-length from the ministry
Operating interconnectors
14
cross-border, grid-to-grid
Thailand vs Malaysia
116 / 60
industrial EUR/MWh, similar reserve
Cross-border interconnectors
The links on the map, with capacities. The ASEAN Power Grid is roughly 14 operating cross-border lines and a longer queue of planned subsea routes built mostly to feed Singapore. Note the gen-tie line: most of Laos's "exports" are dedicated dam-to-grid lines into Thailand, not grid-to-grid interconnection.
| Link | Route | MW | kV | Tech | Status | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laos hydro gen-tie into Thailand (aggregate)gen-tie | LAO → THA | 5,914 | n/a | hvac | Operating | n/a |
| Plentong – Woodlands | MYS → SGP | 525 | 230 | hvac | Operating | 1985 |
| Khlong Ngae – Gurun (HVDC) | THA → MYS | 300 | 300 | hvdc | Operating | 2002 |
| Ban Hat – Stung Treng | LAO → KHM | 300 | 230 | hvac | Operating | 2019 |
| Sirindhorn – Bang Yo | THA → LAO | 275 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2020 |
| Aranyaprathet – Poi Pet | THA → KHM | 250 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2007 |
| Mambong – Bengkayang | MYS → IDN | 230 | 275 | hvac | Operating | 2015 |
| Chau Doc – Takeo | VNM → KHM | 200 | 220 | hvac | Operating | 2009 |
| Nakhon Phanom – Thakhek | THA → LAO | 180 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2010 |
| Nong Khai – Thanaleng | THA → LAO | 100 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2007 |
| Bueng Kan – Pakxan | THA → LAO | 100 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2002 |
| Tha Li – Ken Thao | THA → LAO | 100 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2020 |
| Sadao – Chuping | THA → MYS | 80 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 1980 |
| Lawas – Mengalong | MYS → MYS | 50 | 275 | hvac | Operating | 2026 |
| Muang Long – Shan State | LAO → MMR | 30 | 115 | hvac | Operating | 2022 |
| Ban Hat – Kampong Sralao | LAO → KHM | n/a | 115 | hvac | Construction | 2026 |
| Tudan – Lumut | MYS → BRN | n/a | 275 | hvac | Construction | 2028 |
| Vietnam – Singapore (HVDC subsea) | VNM → SGP | 2,000 | n/a | subsea | Planned | 2035 |
| Peninsular Malaysia – Sarawak (HVDC subsea) | MYS → MYS | 1,600 | 500 | subsea | Planned | n/a |
| Sumatra (Riau) – Singapore (HVDC subsea) | IDN → SGP | 1,600 | 250 | subsea | Planned | 2028 |
| Cambodia – Singapore (HVDC subsea) | KHM → SGP | 1,000 | n/a | subsea | Planned | n/a |
| Sarawak – Singapore (HVDC subsea) | MYS → SGP | 1,000 | n/a | subsea | Planned | 2035 |
| Telok Gong – Perawang (HVDC) | MYS → IDN | 600 | 500 | subsea | Planned | n/a |
| Mae Sot – Myawaddy | THA → MMR | 365 | 230 | hvac | Planned | n/a |
| Kudat – Palawan (HVDC subsea) | MYS → PHL | 196 | 230 | subsea | Planned | n/a |
| Nam Ou – Dien Bien | LAO → VNM | n/a | 220 | hvac | Planned | n/a |
Capacities follow ACE / AIMS III; some planned-link figures are projections, not committed ratings. Endpoint positions on the map are approximate. Sources: ASEAN Centre for Energy, APG Interconnection Project Profiles (2024), ACE, APG deep-dive (ACEF 2025), EMA Singapore, regional power grids / low-carbon imports, EMA, LTMS-PIP Phase 2 (doubling to 200 MW).
The bottleneck is institutional, not physical
Across ASEAN the binding constraint on cheap, clean and reliable power is institutional, contracts, single-buyer structure, grid access, import dependence and governance, not a shortage of generating resource. Thailand and Malaysia make the point in one comparison: two over-built single-buyer systems at similar reserve margins, yet Thailand's industrial power costs roughly twice Malaysia's, because Thailand's tariffs carry take-or-pay payments for idle gas plants and an LNG-indexed fuel charge while Malaysia's stay on regulated domestic gas. Same spare capacity, opposite price. What differs is the contract and the market design.
The reserve-margin paradox
Reserve margin against industrial price, for the markets that publish a national reserve margin. Well to the right of the 15% adequacy floor means more than enough capacity; if a market is also high on the vertical axis, the price problem is not a shortage but how power is contracted and fuelled. Colour marks the binding constraint.
Reserve margins are this layer's curated figures (conventional definition); industrial prices joined from the electricity-costs layer.
The bottlenecks, by type
The binding constraint differs by country, but almost none of them is a shortage of generating resource. Grouped by the kind of constraint:
Take-or-pay / single-buyer lock-in
- Thailand. Take-or-pay gas PPAs under an EGAT single-buyer leave ratepayers funding roughly 11 GW of barely-used gas capacity while tariffs are indexed to rising LNG imports, so Thailand runs a 26 percent reserve margin and high, import-exposed prices at the same time.
- Indonesia. A single-buyer PLN locked into coal and take-or-pay IPP contracts on an oversupplied Java–Bali grid has neither the room nor the incentive to absorb renewables, while heavy industry escapes into off-grid captive coal, so the clean build-out stalls despite abundant solar and geothermal.
- Malaysia. A TNB single-buyer monopsony has kept power cheap and reliable but closed to competition; the binding constraint on cheap clean corporate power is grid access, only now cracking open through the CRESS third-party-access scheme.
Transmission bottleneck
- Vietnam. A single-buyer EVN and an underbuilt north–south 500 kV backbone cannot move a southern solar and wind boom to the load-heavy north, so Vietnam curtails clean power in the south while the north blacks out; retroactive feed-in-tariff clawbacks now chill new investment.
High-tariff liberalised market
- Philippines. A fully liberalised but high-tariff, thin-reserve market stranded on fragmented island grids with no international interconnection, so price and reliability both ride on imported coal and LNG rather than on any resource shortage.
Import dependence
- Cambodia. Structural import-dependence for around a quarter of supply collides with a fuel-cost-versus-fixed-tariff squeeze at EDC, leaving supply hostage to cross-border politics, as the 2025 suspension of Thai imports showed.
- Timor-Leste. Expensive imported-fuel (diesel and heavy fuel oil) generation on a single fragile 150 kV spine, so Timor pays world fuel prices to run an oversized thermal fleet with no interconnection and no domestic substitute yet online.
Export-revenue + dam debt
- Laos. An export-revenue-and-dam-debt model: EDL buys IPP power in dollars and sells it at home in a depreciating kip while sovereign debt near 108% of GDP locks Laos into building more dams to service the debt the dams created.
No domestic fuel
- Singapore. A well-functioning competitive market with no domestic fuel and almost no land, running on roughly 95% imported gas, so its decarbonisation and energy security hinge entirely on building cross-border interconnectors and import deals.
Subsidised fuel monoculture
- Brunei. A subsidised single-fuel gas monoculture: abundant cheap domestic gas plus deep consumer subsidies, the highest per-capita consumption in ASEAN, strip out any price signal to diversify or decarbonise.
Conflict / governance collapse
- Myanmar. A political-crisis collapse of generation, gas supply, grid maintenance and investment since the 2021 coup; peak output has fallen by roughly a third and barely half of demand is met, a governance- and conflict-made deficit rather than a resource limit.
Market structure at a glance
Who buys the power, whether the regulator is arm's-length, whether a third party can use the grid at all (TPA), whether a corporate buyer can sign a direct PPA, the reserve margin, and the joined industrial price and grid carbon intensity. TPA is the deeper reform: it is the right to wheel power over the incumbent's wires, and a direct PPA is mostly hollow without it, so TPA sits ahead of PPA here.
| Country | Market model | Regulator | TPA | Direct PPA | Reserve | EUR/MWh | gCO₂e |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thailand | Enhanced single buyer | Independent | Limited | Pilot | 26% | 116 | 555 |
| Vietnam | Single buyer (partial competitive generation) | Ministry | Limited | Allowed | n/a | 74 | 477 |
| Indonesia | Single-buyer monopoly | Ministry | Closed | Prohibited | 18% | 67 | 682 |
| Philippines | Competitive wholesale market | Independent | Open | Allowed | n/a | 172 | 618 |
| Malaysia | Single buyer (cracking open via CRESS) | Independent | Limited | Allowed | 32% | 60 | 610 |
| Singapore | Competitive wholesale market + full retail contestability | Independent | Open | Allowed | 27% | 173 | 499 |
| Laos | Single buyer (export-oriented) | Ministry | Closed | None | n/a | 73 | 232 |
| Cambodia | State utility + IPPs + heavy imports | Independent | Limited | Limited | n/a | 124 | 497 |
| Myanmar | State monopoly (single-buyer style) | Ministry | Closed | None | n/a | 44 | 579 |
| Brunei | Vertically integrated state utility | Ministry | Closed | None | n/a | 28 | 893 |
| Timor-Leste | Vertically integrated state monopoly | Ministry | Closed | None | n/a | n/a | 667 |
Reserve margin uses the conventional definition; "n/a" marks markets with no published national figure. Industrial price and grid carbon intensity joined from electricity-costs.
What runs the grid
Approximate generation mix, latest available year. The fuel a country is locked into shapes both its price and its CBAM exposure.
Country detail
Click a country to expand its structure, policy, fuel risk, and sources.
Take-or-pay gas PPAs under an EGAT single-buyer leave ratepayers funding roughly 11 GW of barely-used gas capacity while tariffs are indexed to rising LNG imports, so Thailand runs a 26 percent reserve margin and high, import-exposed prices at the same time.
Market model
Enhanced single buyer. EGAT is the sole wholesale offtaker and grid owner, buying nearly all generation under long-term PPAs; a third-party-access code and a 2,000 MW direct-PPA pilot (draft Oct 2025) are being layered on top.
Dominant utility
EGAT (state) — sole buyer + national transmission; MEA/PEA distribution
Regulator
Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) — Independent by statute (Energy Industry Act 2007); tariff and policy direction steered in practice by the NEPC and Ministry of Energy.
Renewable target
51% of generation capacity from renewables by 2037 (Draft PDP2024 (not yet finalised)).
Reserve margin
~26% on the conventional 2024 measure (planning floor 15%); ~50%+ counting all contracted-but-idle nameplate capacity.
Fuel risk
Gulf of Thailand gas is depleting and Myanmar pipeline gas is falling; the gap is met by LNG imports (~27% of gas supply, heading toward 43–46% by 2037), so tariffs are increasingly exposed to spot LNG.
Interconnection
Net importer (~14–16% of supply, chiefly Lao hydro/coal) and the transit corridor for the LTMS-PIP, the ASEAN Power Grid's pathfinder.
Third-party access: Draft third-party-access (TPA) code issued October 2025, initially scoped to the 2,000 MW direct-PPA data-centre pilot; not yet general open access.
Direct PPA: 2,000 MW direct-PPA pilot approved Jun 2024; draft direct-PPA + third-party-access regulations issued Oct 2025, initially scoped to BOI-promoted data centres.
Methodology and sources
What this layer is. Curated, source-cited market-structure and policy data, hand-built per country from regulators, official power-development plans, and energy-policy research. This is qualitative structural data, not a build-time API fetch. Industrial tariffs and grid carbon intensity are joined at render time from the global electricity-costs layer; this layer adds the institutional picture behind those prices. Reserve-margin figures use the standard (conventional) definition where a clean national number exists; several markets have no published national figure (regional imbalance, crisis conditions, or seasonal hydrology) and are left null with a note.
Coverage. Curated bloc by bloc; the selector offers only blocs with curated data. ASEAN is first. The country geometry is reused from the demographics layer.
Interconnectors. The AIMS III masterplan identifies 18 priority interconnection projects; about 8 are operating, ~3 under construction or committed, and the rest planned or at study stage. Of the ~7.7 GW of operating capacity, roughly 5.9 GW is Laos dam-to-grid 'gen-tie' (dedicated hydropower lines into Thailand) rather than true grid-to-grid transfer (~2.9 GW). LTMS-PIP (200 MW) is the only genuine multilateral trade; the Philippines is electrically isolated. Endpoint coordinates are approximate (substation town / border-crossing locations) for mapping; capacities follow ACE/AIMS III, some are projections rather than committed ratings.
Domestic grid backdrop. The optional transmission overlay is OpenStreetMap power lines at 220 kV and above (the EHV/HV backbone), coloured by voltage. Line-level transfer capacity is not available in open data, so this is a voltage map, not a capacity map; the 150/132/115 kV sub-transmission layer is not shown, which thins Indonesia, whose workhorse is 150 kV. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Prices and carbon. Industrial electricity price (EUR/MWh) and grid carbon intensity (gCO₂e/kWh, Ember-normalised) are joined at render time from the electricity-costs layer.
Per-country sources are listed inside each country's detail panel; interconnector sources are under the table above.