Toward a Coherent Policy Approach to Solar Uptake in Southeast Asia: Insight from Indonesia and Vietnam

This chapter examines Indonesia and Vietnam’s experiences with adopting utility-scale solar power, finding that despite landscape pressures, such as the need to address energy security concerns and policy commitments to emissions reduction, challenges in local contexts and incumbent electricity regime often hindering  translating these pressures into action. It also highlights the need for a coherent policy framework that can address both the emergence and wider adoption of niche electricity technologies and reconfigure the incumbent regime. Developing such a framework requires careful planning and consideration of cross-cutting issues, however, which can take time. A key strategy to reconcile the need for rapid transitioning to address the climate crisis with the usually prolonged transition process is to focus initial efforts on promoting clean technologies that already play a significant role in the energy mix, which could reduce immediate demand for major regime change and ensure a quick start to the transition, while buying time to plan to reconfigure the incumbent regime for a clean electricity future.