Solar inquiries jump 500% as ASEAN rethinks energy security

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Weekly customer inquiries to rooftop solar installers across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao have jumped more than 500 percent since the Middle East crisis erupted in late February, an installer survey presented this week showed, as ASEAN leaders meeting here moved to recast renewable energy as a security priority rather than a climate one.

Brenda Valerio, Philippine Country Director of New Energy Nexus, said the demand spike has outpaced delivery, with actual installations only doubling over the same period.

The findings landed as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. opened the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu on Friday with a call for stronger regional coordination on energy security, improved interconnectivity, and accelerated deployment of renewable energy.

“The current energy crisis has done something really no marketing campaign could ever do,” Valerio said. “It made solar urgent, practical, and economically compelling for Filipinos.”

“Solar is no longer a climate decision. It’s not for sustainability or for environmental reasons. It’s a cost management strategy,” she added.

Marcos pushes two-track plan

Speaking as this year’s ASEAN Chair, Marcos said leaders agreed on two concrete measures to bolster energy security and resilience: expediting the ratification of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Petroleum Security (APSA) and operationalizing the ASEAN Power Grid (APG). No timeline was set for either initiative, and key discussions are expected to continue in succeeding energy ministers’ meetings later this year.

The APG emerged as an economic priority, with leaders flagging its potential to deliver more affordable electricity to the region’s 700 million people. The energy push was echoed in the ASEAN Leaders’ statement on the Middle East crisis response.

At the Special Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Summit on Thursday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto urged ASEAN leaders to accelerate the development of regional energy networks, citing the sub-region’s significant renewable energy potential, particularly in hydropower and solar.

Prabowo, who recently announced Indonesia’s plan to build 100 GW of solar capacity within the next two years, said: “We invite our friends to improve our energy potential.”

ASEAN leaders are also prioritizing the development of more resilient supply chains to strengthen food security amid rising energy prices, disrupted shipping routes, and higher fertilizer costs.

Bottlenecks throttle Philippine solar surge

Valerio identified five bottlenecks throttling the market: supply chain breakdowns affecting panels, inverters, and mounting rails; weekly equipment price swings; a workforce that cannot scale overnight; high archipelagic logistics costs amplified by elevated fuel prices; and a surge of unqualified players threatening consumer trust.

“We’re not struggling to convince people to adopt solar. That seemed to be the problem years ago. We’re struggling to deliver it,” she said.

Her policy asks: expanded and simplified financing for households and small installers, faster permitting and net metering processing, and a crackdown on anti-competitive hoarding by suppliers selling equipment at three to four times the prevailing price.

“I would really push back on the idea that this is just panic, because panic doesn’t result in action at this scale. Once these systems are installed, they’re long-term assets. People don’t uninstall solar when the oil prices drop,” Valerio said.

Industry voices welcome Marcos signal

Rex Amancio, Regional Lead for Asia-Pacific at the Global Renewables Alliance (GRA), said the President’s framing of renewable energy as a security imperative reflects the urgent realities facing the region.

“At a time of heightened geopolitical uncertainty, energy price volatility, and growing climate risks, the President’s call for stronger ASEAN coordination and collective action to safeguard stable energy supply reflects the urgent realities facing the region,” Amancio said. “Importantly, his recognition that advancing renewable energy is essential to protecting ASEAN economies from external shocks sends a clear and timely signal.”

Amancio added that “[for] ASEAN, the pathway to long-term energy security lies in accelerating domestic renewable energy deployment, strengthening grids and storage, and advancing electrification — not in deeper dependence on volatile imported fossil fuels.”

Wai-Shin Chan, Director of Research at Asia Research and Engagement, said member states cannot navigate the transition alone.

“ASEAN economies cannot optimise the energy transition in isolation, especially in light of the Middle East crisis and the questions raised over energy security,” Chan said. “Regional cooperation makes much more sense economically, and in terms of resources — the abundance of solar and wind throughout the region is complementary.”

He said strengthening power trade, cross-border interconnections, and joint financial investment across ASEAN “would reduce overall system costs, enhance regional self-sufficiency, and accelerate renewable deployment.”

Dr. Dinita Setyawati, Senior Energy Analyst for Asia at Ember, said grid integration remains the missing link.

“Interconnection is the missing piece of the puzzle in ASEAN energy security,” Setyawati said. “To prepare for a fully operational ASEAN Power Grid by 2045, ASEAN should nurture innovative energy technology projects, promote the use of AI for better forecasting and demand flexibility options along the way.”

Doubts on petroleum-sharing pact

Other analysts cast doubt on the practical reach of the petroleum security framework during a region-wide shock.

Putra Adhiguna, Managing Director of the Jakarta-based Energy Shift Institute, said fuel-sharing arrangements have natural limits.

“On the fuel sharing agreement, there is a place for that full sharing agreement when one or two countries get hit with a crisis, but when a crisis of this magnitude happens, I think everybody will kind of revert back to their own interests,” Adhiguna said.

Dr. Jayant Menon, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and former Lead Economist at the Asian Development Bank, echoed the concern.

“When it’s a system-wide shock, it’s very hard for these regional initiatives (APSA) to be effective,” Menon said. “You need an asymmetric shock, where only one or two countries are badly affected, the others are not, so they are in a position to help the ones affected.”

Menon, however, saw a silver lining. “Renewable energy is not shockproof, but it creates some kind of national independence, because it can be nationally generated. I think this will be the positive legacy of this crisis,” he said. “For hesitant countries, this [might] help them overcome that hesitancy, and for those that are already on the path, this will accelerate the transition.”

Philippines, Thailand among hardest hit

Indra Overland, Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Affiliate Researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said the Philippines and Thailand are the two ASEAN economies most exposed to the crisis.

“The crisis is severe. The Philippines and Thailand are the two most affected countries. But even Indonesia is substantially affected, as this former major oil exporter became a net oil importer and also subsidizes both petrol and natural gas,” Overland said.

He warned that if the crisis persists for several more months, prices could move “way above what we are seeing now,” but said it could also speed up renewable adoption in laggard economies, including the Philippines and Thailand, while strengthening China’s position as a clean-energy technology exporter.

Tara Buakamsri, Program Director of Climate Connectors, said Thailand imports roughly 30 percent of its liquefied natural gas and runs petroleum imports at 10 percent of gross domestic product, making the economic case for a renewable energy transition unusually direct.

“The Middle East crisis has done something that years of climate advocacy could not: it has made the economic case for RE transition self-evident to ministers who had previously treated it as optional,” Buakamsri said. “The question is whether Thailand’s government will use that window to address the structural conditions — investment certainty, offshore wind policy, Direct PPA legislation, subsidy reform — that actually determine the pace of transition.”

Indonesia signals shift, but execution lags

Adhiguna said the past six to eight weeks have produced a flurry of Indonesian government moves, including President Prabowo’s backing of a 100-gigawatt solar-plus-storage program, a special task force on energy transition, and the first significant renewable energy procurement by state utility PLN — the so-called “Giga-1” project. Electric vehicle incentives phased out earlier this year are also reportedly returning.

He cautioned, however, that the 100-gigawatt target has been quietly scaled down to around 13 gigawatts for the pilot phase, while coal plant co-retirement negotiations under the Just Energy Transition Partnership have stalled after more than two years of talks.

“The big ambitions will need to be translated into plans, and plans into actual deliveries,” Adhiguna said.

He flagged the risk of a “biofuel trap,” as Indonesia and Malaysia move to expand palm oil biodiesel programs as a faster, politically easier alternative to electrification.

“One of the last things the region wants to do is go full force into biofuel and then let go of some of the positive options on adopting more EVs and cleaner energy,” he said.

On the broader concept of energy security, Adhiguna said: “Iran has opened the Pandora’s box, and now that the box has been opened, they can close it at any time in the future. The definition of what secure energy means will shift permanently. Localizing or regionalizing energy supply is crucial at this stage.”

Crisis tracker launched

Two days before the summit’s opening plenary, the GRA, with partners across the Global Clean Energy Network, launched the Global Energy Crisis Policy Monitor 2026, a publicly accessible tracker documenting how governments across Asia and beyond have responded since the crisis broke out in late February.

The Global Energy Crisis Policy Monitor 2026 was developed by the GRA in partnership with the Global Clean Energy Network, E3G, Ember, and the Global Gas and Oil Network, and is updated continuously.

Amancio said two policy tracks are emerging from the data: short-term measures such as fuel subsidies, price caps, and emergency consumer protections; and a more consequential track in which governments are using the crisis to accelerate clean energy buildouts they had been planning slowly.

“We’ve got laws already in place. But the big question is about implementation. The Middle East crisis gave us the push to really triple down on that,” Amancio said.

An Earthwise researcher said the shift to renewable energy in ASEAN is “not only a climate agenda, but also a competitiveness strategy,” describing it as “a shield against fuel price volatility and a way to prevent industrial growth from being constrained by geopolitical crises.”

Whether the region’s governments can translate the political framing into execution — the permitting, the grid investment, the financing mechanisms, and the regional interconnection agreements — before the political urgency of the crisis fades remains the test ahead of the energy ministers’ meetings later this year.