SOUTHEAST ASIA’S CITIES
CENTRAL TO DECARBONIZATION FIGHT By Mitesh Patel, Black & Veatch and Yatin Premchand, Black & Veatch Management Consulting
nations are expanding renewable energy generation to ensure their power systems remain reliable, accessible and sustainable. One opportunity is to integrate renewable energy into urban energy systems.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Mitesh Patel
Yatin Premchand
Business Development Director and Associate Vice President, Renewable Energy, Asia, Black & Veatch
Managing Director - APAC, Black & Veatch Management Consulting, LLC
Cities are central to decarbonization efforts. Globally, the United Nations (UN) Habitat estimates that while cities occupy less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, they consume over threequarters of the world’s energy and produce over 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The UN forecasts that another 2.5 billion people will reside in urban areas by 2050. Worldometer data indicates that currently half of Southeast Asia’s population of 673 million is urban. Key factors that cities will need to consider when deploying large-scale renewable energy include the availability of natural resources, land and project financing, and dense urban landscape. Working with these considerations, many cities have turned to renewable energy technologies, such as rooftop and floating solar systems, to solve their challenges creatively.
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