USAID Clean Power Asia Annual Report Fiscal Year 2019: October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019

Submission Date: October 15, 2019

Contract Number: AID-486-C-16-00001 Activity Period: June 27, 2016 – June 26, 2021 COR Name: Amanda Van den Dool

Submitted by: Dana Kenney, Chief of Party Abt Associates Abdulrahim Place, Suite 501 990 Rama IV Road Bangrak, Bangkok, 10500 Thailand Tel: +66 2026 3065 Email: [email protected]

This document was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development’s Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA).

ACRONYMS

ACE ASEAN Center for Energy ACEF Asia Clean Energy Forum ADB Asian Development Bank AEDS ASEAN Energy Database System AIMS ASEAN Interconnection Master Plan Study AIT Asian Institute of Technology AIIB Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank AMEM ASEAN Ministers of Energy Meeting API Application programming interface ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations BIDV Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam CA Concession agreement CCN Coordinating country national CEADIR USAID Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment, and Resilience CEIA Clean Energy Investment Accelerator Chula Chulalongkorn University CO Contracting Officer COD Commercial operation date COP Chief of Party COR Contracting Officer’s Representative CRM Customer relationship management DEDE Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (Thailand) DEPP Department of Energy Policy and Planning (Lao PDR) DC Department Circular (Philippines) DCOP Deputy Chief of Party DFAT Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade DOC Development Outreach and Communications DPPA Direct Power Purchase Agreement DPV Distributed photovoltaics DREI De-risking Energy Investments DWG Demand Working Group (Lao PDR) E3 USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment EAC Electricity Authority of Cambodia ECI Electrical Construction and Installation, State Enterprise (Lao PDR) EDC Électricité du Cambodge

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EDL Électricité du Laos ELD-Gen Électricité du Laos-Generation EGAT Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand EMMP Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plan EOI Expression of interest EPC Engineering, procurement, and construction company EPPO Energy Policy and Planning Office (Thailand) ERCOT Electric Reliability Council of Texas EREA Electricity and Renewable Energy Agency (Vietnam) ERI Energy Research Institute ESMAP Energy Sector Management Assistance Program ESS Energy storage systems EVN Vietnam Electricity FIT Feed-in tariff FS Feasibility study FMO Entrepreneurial Development Bank FTI Federation of Thai Industries GGGI Global Green Growth Institute GIS Geographic information system GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GRE Güssing Renewable Energy GWEC Global Wind Energy Council HAPUA Heads of ASEAN Power Utilities/Authorities HNEI Hawai'i Natural Energy Institute IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency IEA International Energy Agency IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency IREP Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion (Lao PDR) IRRP Integrated Resource and Resilience Planning JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency LBNL Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory LCOE Levelized cost of electricity LEAP Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning LHSE Lao Holding State Enterprise LM Lower Mekong M&E Monitoring & Evaluation MEA Metropolitan Electricity Authority (Thailand) MEM Ministry of Energy and Mines (Lao PDR)

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Meralco Manila Electric Company MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency MME Ministry of Mines and Energy (Cambodia) MOFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Cambodia) MOFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Lao PDR) MOIT Ministry of Industry and Trade (Vietnam) MoNRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Lao PDR) MOU Memorandum of Understanding MPI Ministry of Planning and Investment (Lao PDR) MW Megawatt MWG Modeling Working Group NCSD National Council on Sustainable Development (Cambodia) NDC Nationally determined contribution NECA New Energy Capital Asia NEMO Next Energy Modeling System for Optimization NEPC National Energy Policy Council NGO Non-governmental organization NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory OERC Energy Regulatory Commission (Thailand) PACE-D USAID India’s Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Deployment PD Project Director PDA Project development agreement PDOE Department of Energy (Philippines) PDP Power development plan PEA Provincial Electricity Authority (Thailand) PEU Provincial Electricity Utility (Cambodia) PFAN Private Financing Advisory Network PPA Power purchase agreement PSRT Power Sector Resilience Toolkit PV Photovoltaics PVOUT Potential photovoltaic electricity production RDMA USAID’s Regional Development Mission for Asia RE Renewable energy REBA Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance REO RDMA’s Regional Environment Office RE-SSN Renewable Energy Subsector Network REZ Renewable energy zone RFP Request for proposal

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SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition SCG Siam Cement Group SEAC Solar Energy Association of Cambodia SEDA Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Malaysia) SEI Stockholm Environment Institute SETA Sustainable Energy & Technology Asia SHB Saigon-Hanoi Bank SOME Senior Officials Meeting on Energy STEM Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics SWG Supply Working Group (Lao PDR) TAC Technical Advisory Committee TCN Third-country national TICA Thailand International Cooperation Agency TOR Terms of reference TPVA Thai Photovoltaic Industries Association TRC Technical Review Committee TUG Thai Union Group USAID United States Agency for International Development USEA United States Energy Association USG United States Government USTDA U.S. Trade and Development Administration VA Vulnerability assessment VECO Visayan Electric Company V-LEEP USAID Vietnam Low Emissions Energy Program VRE Variable renewable energy WC Working Committee (Lao PDR)

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1. PROGRAM OVERVIEW/SUMMARY

Program Name: USAID Clean Power Asia Activity Start Date And End Date: June 27, 2016 – June 26, 2021 Abt Associates Inc. Name of Prime Implementing Partner:

Contract Number: AID-486-C-16-00001 Stockholm Environment Institute ASEAN Centre for Energy Name of Subcontractors/Sub-awardees: Navigant Consulting, Inc. Chulalongkorn University Cambodia: National Council for Sustainable Development, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Electricity Authority of Cambodia, Électricité du Cambodge Lao PDR: Ministry of Energy and Mines, Électricité du Laos, Électricité du Laos-Generation Major Counterpart Organizations: Thailand: Chulalongkorn University Vietnam: Ministry of Industry and Trade/ Electricity and Renewable Energy Agency Philippines: Philippines Department of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission Geographic Coverage: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam Reporting Period: October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019

1.1 Program Description

Energy demand in Asia is expected to increase dramatically in the next decade. Without a concerted effort to promote a low emission power system, the region will continue to rely heavily on conventional energy sources such as coal and large-scale hydropower to meet this demand. Further expansion of conventional power plants will have far-reaching negative impacts, both for global greenhouse gas emissions as well as for ecosystems, human health, fisheries, and livelihoods throughout the Mekong River Basin.

The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Clean Power Asia initiative is a $16.3 million contract, implemented by Abt Associates, which works with Lower Mekong countries and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states to encourage power sector investments in environmentally friendly, grid-connected renewable energy (RE) sources. The program focuses explicitly on incorporating renewable energy into planning, promoting smart incentives, building an enabling environment for renewable energy policies and frameworks, and catalytic finance.

The program collaborates with diverse stakeholders, partners, and regional organizations in four Lower Mekong (LM) countries, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam, and shares lessons learned and best practices among additional ASEAN member countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia.

The goal of USAID Clean Power Asia is to accelerate the regional transition to a high performing, low carbon power sector. The program goal is to be accomplished through three interconnected outcomes:

1. High renewable energy scenarios included in energy planning. 2. Improved enabling policy, regulatory, and technical environment for renewable energy deployment. 3. Increased investment in and deployment of grid-connected renewable energy projects.

1.2 Summary of Results to Date

Indicator 1 - Number of laws, policies, regulations, or standards addressing clean Program stakeholders; law/policy/regulation/standa energy formally proposed, rd/plan documents; records See details adopted, or implemented as - 0 16 5 0 0 2 3 31.25% of program’s contribution to below supported by USG assistance (EG.12-3) developing/improving the measures Unit of measure: Number of measure

Activity records of how the Indicator 2 - Amount of program has supported the investment mobilized (in USD) mobilization of reported for clean energy as supported 0 246.70 4.04 0.50 See details investment and associated - 0 by USG assistance (EG.12-4) 126.30 below financial instruments, the 251.24 198.92% source of funds, and types of Unit of measure: US. Dollars millions projects funded.

Indicator 3 - Clean energy Program beneficiaries and generation capacity supported stakeholders; RE-project by USG assistance that has documents from project 0.10 See details achieved financial closure developers; public - 0 182 268.3 0 264.6 3.6 147.41% below (EG.12-5) announcements of new RE capacity financed and Unit of measure: Megawatts beginning construction.

Indicator 4 - Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimated in metric tons of CO2 equivalent, Program beneficiaries and reduced, sequestered, or stakeholders; records of avoided through clean energy program’s contribution to 12, See details - 0 100,000 396.81 1,060.45 50,060.74 64.03% activities supported by USG emissions reduced/avoided; 64,037.92 519.92 below assistance (EG.12-6) standard calculation of GHG reduced/avoided.

Unit of measure: Metric tons of Co2 equivalent (tCO2e)

Indicator 5 -Projected GHG emissions reduced or avoided through 2030 from adopted Program beneficiaries and laws, policies, regulations, or stakeholders; Records of the technologies related to clean program’s contribution to energy as supported by USG emissions reduced/avoided; - 0 7,000,000 3,419,729.80 83,904.40 68,085.5 3,266,817.3 922.60 48.85% See details assistance (EG.12-7) standard calculation of GHG below reduced/avoided; official

Unit of measure: Metric tons of documents on law, policy, Co2 equivalent (tCO2e) regulation, standard, plan.

Indicator 6 - Number of Program stakeholders; renewable energy zones (REZ) written records of assessments conducted to designated and/or under See details identify feasible REZs; - 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0% development (Custom) below consents and permits Unit of measure: Number of obtained and stakeholder zone meeting minutes.

Indicator 7 – Number of grid- Program stakeholders; connected renewable energy records of program contribution to targets established and/or See details establishing/improving RE - 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0% improved (Custom) below targets; draft of RE targets; Unit of measure: Number of evidence of target target endorsement

Indicator 8 - Clean energy generation capacity that has achieved commercial operation as supported by USG assistance Program beneficiaries and (Custom) See details stakeholders; RE-project - 0 50 265.28 0.58752 7.6 257 0.10 530.57% below Unit of measure: Megawatts documents (MW)

DO 1: Regional Institutions’ Ability to Promote Sustainable and Equitable Regional Growth Increased IR 1.1: Improved Management of Natural Capital Sub-IR: 1.1.1: Mobilization of public and private sector for low emission development strategies increased Baseline Data FY2019 Quarterly Status – FY2019 Annual Annual Annual Performance Comment Indicator Data Source Cumulative Year Value Cumulative Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Achieved to (s) Planned Actual Date (in %) Target Indicator 9 - Number of people trained in clean energy supported by USG assistance Training sign-in sheets; See details - 0 90 201 14 58 129 0 223.33% (EG.12-1) training/workshop reports below Unit of measure: Number of people Indicator 11 - Amount of Activity records of how the investment mobilized (in USD) program has supported the for climate change adaptation mobilization of reported as supported by USG assistance See details investment and associated - 0 23.70 47.155 0 46.30 0.76 0.095 198.76% (EG.11-4) below financial instruments, the

source of funds, and types of Unit of measure: US. Dollars projects funded. millions Indicator 12 – Number of people using climate change information or implementing risk-reduction actions to improve resilience to climate change as supported by USG Government counterparts See details assistance (EG.11-6) through interviews or follow- - 0 12 2 0 0 0 2 16.66% below up surveys. Unit of measurement: Number of people

Details of results reported

A: General updates

1. For this annual report, new targets for some indicators, as stated in the second MEL plan expected to receive USAID approval by October 15, 2019, have been used. Program achievement is calculated against new targets.

2. With the second MEL plan, the following changes have been made to indicators:

- Number of persons trained with USG assistance to advance outcomes consistent with gender equality or female empowerment through their roles in public or private sector institutions or organizations (CPA’s indicator 10), that was previously included, is no longer applicable as it was agreed by USAID to allocate the intended funding for this activity to other core program tasks due to uncertainty of funding levels for the program during calendar year 2017 and;

- 2 new indicators have been included in the program to respond to the use of adaption funding. The first one is indicator 11 - Amount of investment mobilized (in USD) for climate change adaptation as supported by USG assistance (EG.11-4); the target for this indicator is shared proportionately with EG.12-4, based on the level of funding expected over the life of the program between “Adaptation” (15.80%) and “Clean Energy” Funds (84.20%). The second is indicator 12, the number of people using climate change information or implementing risk-reduction actions to improve resilience to climate change as supported by USG assistance (EG.11-6).

3. Some results from previous quarters have been updated with new data and reported in this annual report, as indicated in section B below:

B: Annual results achieved at the end of FY19 (in %) and brief details of results, as shown in the table below.

The table below highlights annual achievements in percentages against each indicator target and a brief description of achievements in Year 3. The key challenges are also addressed briefly for some indicators where achievements are planned, but the completion dates were moved out 2-3 months compared to the Year 3 work plan.

Annual results achieved (in %) Indicators (Brief details of achievements and/or challenges)

Indicator 1 - Number of laws, policies, Achievement rate is 31.25% regulations, or standards addressing clean energy formally proposed,  For Q3 adopted, or implemented as supported o DPV (1 adopted and 1 proposed) - On May 23, 2019, the Thailand Energy Regulatory Commission made a policy announcement on DPV in by USG assistance (EG.12-3) Thailand to purchase solar energy generated by residential buildings with a target of 100 MW nationally. As a result, the policy on DPV in Thailand Thailand: was counted as both an ‘adopted’ and ‘implemented’ measure at the same time for this reporting quarter. Note that this DPV policy was previously reported as ‘proposed’ in FY18Q1 and was subsequently further proposed to a higher level committee, namely the National Energy Policy Committee (NEPC), to adopt and implement as shown in this quarter.

 For Q4 o Net Metering for RE in Philippines (1 proposed) - On 29 July, 2019, the Philippines Department of Energy sent a letter to CPA, confirming their use of the Distributed Photovoltaic Economic and Technical Impact Analysis proposed by CPA in developing a draft policy related to the Net Metering for RE in Philippines through its Renewable Energy Management Bureau (REMB).

o Energy Storage system (0.5 proposed) and solar rooftop (0.5 proposed) – The Electricity and Renewable Energy Authority in Vietnam has no objection to the content of the two reports proposed by VLEEP and CPA, confirming it through a letter sent on 9 July 2019.

o For Solar Pilot Auction in Laos (1 proposed) – The contents of solar pilot auction action plan and other supporting documents developed by CPA were used by Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion (IREP) and later proposed to the Ministry of energy and Mines for the establishment of the working committee that acts as key mechanism in promoting and developing the Solar Pilot Auction’s Policy in Lao PDR.

Key challenge- Delays in some activities were due to MEM internal reorganization in Laos, causing transferring Solar auction pilot work from DEPP to IREP, slow progress due to MEM staff adjusting to the reorganization and delays in holding the auction design workshop as staff had to restart capacity building with a new team.

Indicator 2 - Amount of investment Achievement rate for indicator 2 is 198.92%, and for indicator 11 is 198.96% mobilized (in USD) for clean energy as However, these two indicators are the same and share targets proportionately; thus, the achievement rate for these two indicators together is 198.93 supported by USG assistance (EG.12-4) %. Below are details of amount mobilized in FY19: Thailand:  For Q2 - B. Grimm and Vietnamese local partner TTVN) closed a USD $283 million deal for a 257 MW solar farm in Vietnam and by six Thai Union Indicator 11 - Amount of investment factories, 7.6 MW of rooftop solar projects valued at USD $10.02 million; mobilized (in USD) for climate change  For Q3 - Big C Thailand closed a USD 4.8 million deal for a 3.6 MW solar rooftop program; adaptation as supported by USG assistance (EG.11-4)  For Q4 - investment mobilized of USD $0.5 million refers to a grant from USTDA to Blue Solar Co. Ltd, to conduct a feasibility study for the company’s solar+ storage project, under the SPP Hybrid program in Thailand. The project would consist of a configuration of 36 MW of solar and a 54 MWh battery energy storage system with expected commercial operation by December 31, 2021. In addition, for 0.10 MW of solar system, another USD 0.1 million (USD100,000) was invested, and the system was installed and commissioned by Amata City Bien Hoa Industrial Estate in Dong Nai Province in this reporting period.

Indicator 3 - Clean energy generation Achievement rate is 147.41% capacity supported by USG assistance that has achieved financial closure  For Q2 - B. Grimm-TTVN solar farm in Vietnam is 257 MW, and 6 Thai Union factories for rooftops is 7.6 MW. (EG.12-5)  For Q3 - third phase of Big C’s solar rooftop program is 3.6 MW.  For Q4- Amata City Bien Hoa industrial Estate’s solar DPV is 0.10 MW.

Indicator 4 - Greenhouse gas (GHG) Achievement rate is 64.03% emissions, estimated in metric tons of CO2 equivalent, reduced, sequestered, or Overall, GHG reported is calculated from a combined capacity of 2.58 MW from 3 Big C stores (Pathum Thani, Omyai, Tha Tako), 6 Thai Union factories avoided through clean energy activities with combined capacity of 7.6 MW and B. Grimm Power with capacity of 257 MW and number of days from the COD to the end of FY 19. supported by USG assistance (EG.12-6)

 For Q1: A total of 396.81 tCO2e was reduced from 2 Big C stores (Pathum Thani and Omyai) with capacity of 1,988.73 MW, which operated 92 days

in this quarter (Total 384.46 tCO2e). In addition, another store is in Tha Tako (Nakorn Sawan) which has installed capacity of 0.587.52 MW and has

been operating 10 days, from December 22-31 (Total 12.35 tCO2e).

 For Q2: 1,060.45 tCO2e was reduced from 1) combined capacity of 3 Big C stores (Pathum Thani, Omyai, Tha Tako) of 2.58 MW which operated for

90 days in this quarter (Total 526.37 tCO2e) and 2) Six Thai Union factories with combined capacity of 7.6 MW which operated for 31 days this

quarter, from the end of February (Total 534.08 tCO2e). Remark: in the numbers reported in the Second Quarterly Report for both 3 Big C stores

and 6 Thai Unions have been updated. Previously, they were reported as 517.81 tCO2e and 525.80 tCO2e, respectively.

 For Q3: A total of 12,519.92 tCO2e was reduced from 1) rooftop solar installations at 3 Big C stores of 2.58 MW which operated for 91 days in this

quarter (Total 532.22 tCO2e), 2) six Thai Union factories with combined capacity of 7.6 MW which operated for 91 days in this quarter (Total

1,567.79 tCO2e) and 3) B. Grimm Power with capacity of 257 MW which operated for 20 days, beginning June 10, 2019 (Total 10,419.91 tCO2e).

Remark: The numbers in the Third Quarterly Report for 3 Big C stores, B. Grimm and Thai Union were reported as 517.81 tCO2e, 11,651.8 tCO2e

and 1,550.50 tCO2e, respectively, but these have been updated as above.  For Q4: A total of 50,060.74 tCO2e was reduced from 1) rooftop solar installations at 3 Big C stores of 2.58 MW which operated for 92 days in this quarter (Total 538.07 tCO2e), 2) Six Thai Union factories with combined capacity of 7.6 MW which operated for 92 days in this quarter (Total 1,585.01 tCO2e), 3) B. Grimm Power with capacity of 257 MW which operated for 92 days in this quarter (Total 47,931.58 tCO2e) and 4) Amata City Bien Hoa Industrial Estate in Vietnam with capacity of 0.10 MW (Total 6.08 tCO2e) which operated for 30 days in this quarter.

Indicator 5 -Projected GHG emissions Achievement rate is 48.85% reduced or avoided through 2030 from adopted laws, policies, regulations, or Overall, projected GHG reported is calculated from solar plants installed by Big C stores, Thai Union in Thailand, B. Grimm Power in Vietnam, Amata in technologies related to clean energy as Vietnam plus the 100 MW DPV policy adopted in Thailand. supported by USG assistance (EG.12-7)  For Q1: A total of 83,904.40 tCO2e was projected to be reduced from Big C stores;

 For Q2: A total of 68,085.5 tCO2e was projected to be reduced from Thai Union. Remark: For the Second Quarterly Report for Thai Union, it was

projected a 73,290.11 tCO2e reduction, but this has been revised above.

 For Q3: A total of 3,266,817.30 tCO2e was projected to be reduced from B. Grimm in Vietnam (2,370,955.30 tCO2e) and DPV policy adopted in

Thailand (895,862 tCO2e). Remark: The Second Quarterly Report projected a 2,332,364.3 tCO2e reduction, which has been revised above.

 For Q4: A total of 922.6 tCO2e was projected to be reduced from Amata City Bien Hoa Industrial Estate in Vietnam

Indicator 6 - Number of renewable Achievement rate is 0% energy zones (REZ) designated and/or Although achievement against indicators may not be accomplished yet, qualitative achievements include: under development (Custom)  In relation to IRRP work in Lao PDR, the demand forecast was completed and the supply model will be completed early in the next quarter.  Candidate RE zones were identified and included in the IRRP supply planning. The approach to be used for determining commercial interest in the candidate zones was agreed upon with Lao PDR counterparts. Indicator 7 – Number of grid-connected  A vulnerability assessment (VA) of the Lao power sector and resilience action plan for Lao PDR were completed by the VA advisory group, a Forum renewable energy targets established on the Vulnerability Assessment and a Resilience Action Plan workshop, and a stakeholder workshop to unveil the action plan, agencies' and/or improved (Custom) commitments to implement the plan and identify potential funding to support long-term implementation was conducted.

 The Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer tools on technical potential and cost of energy mapping were presented to RE policy makers and private sector actors in a workshop on Evidence-based Policy-Making Process on Renewable Energy in Laos and at an RE Sub-sector network workshop for ASEAN Member States conducted by ACE. Key challenge - Due to a delay in receiving incremental funding, building the LEAP supply model and conducting IRRP analysis was postponed. Therefore, the timeline for completing the IRRP and designating RE zones was pushed out by approximately 4-5 months. Designation of RE zones and development of new RE targets is expected in Year 4,and will be discussed at a December RE zones meeting and a January IRRP “Pathways” workshop. Indicator 8 - Clean energy generation Achievement rate is 530.57% capacity that has achieved commercial operation as supported by USG The overall capacity achieving COD was from: assistance (Custom)  For Q1: Tha Tako (Nakornsawan), one Big C store, has achieved commercial operation in this quarter with a capacity of 0.58752 MW. Thailand:  For Q2: The 6 Thai Union factories with a combined installed capacity of 7.6 MW achieved commercial operation in February 2019.

 For Q3: On June 10, B. Grimm Power achieved its Commercial Operation Date (COD) for its 257 MW solar project in Phu Yen Province, Vietnam.  For Q4: Amata City Bien Hoa Industrial Estate in Dong Nai Province has achieved commercial operation in this quarter with a capacity of 0.10 MW of solar system in this reporting period.

Indicator 9 - Number of people trained in Achievement rate is 223.33% clean energy supported by USG assistance (EG.12-1) In each quarter, the following training was conducted:  For Q1: Capacity Building and Consultative Sessions for Auction Design Process Workshop in Lao PDR, Dec 7, 2018. (14 male participants;  For Q2: A total of 58 participants attended the IRRP Energy Supply Workshop held in Lao PDR from January 7-11, 2019 (total of 17 participants with 1 woman) and Fundamentals of Financing Solar PV Projects in Vietnam, for the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) on January 18, 2019 (total of 41 participants with 16 women). Remark: the Second Quarterly Report for the IRRP workshop reported 19 participants with 1 woman, however the correct numbers are reported above. We have also included numbers from the Fundamentals workshop which was not included in the Q2 report.  For Q3: A total number of participants reached in this quarter is 129. These participants attended two workshop sessions which included i) project finance and financial modeling for solar PV projects, as part of the training workshop on Fundamentals of Financing Solar PV Projects in Vietnam on May 8, 2019 (75 participants, of which 25 were women) and ii) financing wind power projects in Vietnam on June 11, 2019, as part of the Finance Workshop (54 participants, of which 17 were women) Indicator 12 – Number of people using climate change information or Achievement rate is 16.66% implementing risk-reduction actions to improve resilience to climate change as A survey was used as the data collection tool, and was prepared in Laotian and English through a google form, accessible by a smartphone application. supported by USG assistance (EG.11-6) The survey was sent out in quarter 4 to 43 people and their response will be followed and analyzed to report against this indicator in the next quarter. For quarter 4, 2 IREP members have confirmed their use of the information and implementation of risk-reduction actions plan.

Key challenge – The questionnaire survey development to obtain and report data under this indicator was delayed until Q4 until the hiring of a permanent replacement MEL staff person. As a result, follow up and reporting will be included in the Quarter 1 FY20 report.

2. ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS

2.1 Progress Narrative

Key Achievements

The information in section 2.1 provides a brief summary of key program activities during FY19. More detail on activities under each objective follows in section 2.2.

OBJECTIVE 1: HIGH RENEWABLE ENERGY SCENARIOS INCLUDED IN ENERGY PLANNING

In FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia continued to support Lao PDR in developing a long-term Integrated Resource and Resilience Plan (IRRP) to meet multiple planning objectives, including ensuring plans are robust given various natural and man-made risks to the power sector. Program staff and experts identified risks during the completion of a power sector vulnerability assessment (VA) and developed a resilience action plan to address those risks. Program staff completed the IRRP demand and supply models, with the last step of developing integrated scenarios planned for FY20. The supply model includes selected areas of concentrated RE resources (including RE zones that require transmission upgrades). Program staff also continued to work with the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), in partnership with the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), to provide data to be incorporated into the Southeast Asia (SE Asia) RE Data Explorer and its new Cost of Energy Mapping tool, and to present it to planners and policy makers as a tool for integrating renewable energy into power sector plans. Program staff, in partnership with ACE and the Heads of ASEAN Power Utilities and Authorities (HAPUA), launched the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study (AIMS) III, which will enable Southeast Asian countries to understand the opportunity for developing RE resources and facilitating greater power trade to enable reaching and exceeding the ASEAN 23% RE target.

Highlights of the year include the following:

 Integrated Resource and Resilience capacity building in Lao PDR: o At the end of FY19Q4, designated members of the Supply Working Group (SWG) began a week-long study visit to the headquarters of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in Boston to complete Phase C on supply planning. The three SWG members will work with SEI to finalize the supply model and input spatial, cost, and performance information for transmission resources into the Integrated Resource and Resilience Planning (IRRP) model using the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) software. o During previous quarters, program staff and partner SEI completed the baseline demand model and finalized normative scenarios and began the IRRP Phase C supply planning including constructing and optimizing the electricity supply model for Lao PDR’s IRRP. Existing and planned transmission interconnections were incorporated into the supply model and final generation clusters and candidate RE zones were selected for incorporating into the IRRP supply planning and for moving forward to gauge commercial interest.  Assessing vulnerabilities of Lao PDR’s power sector and developing a resilience action plan:

o In FY19Q4, VA experts, in collaboration with NREL, finalized the combined report on the VA and resilience action plans, including documentation of the stakeholder engagement process. NREL staff are currently reviewing the report. o Throughout the year, VA experts and NREL, with the support of program staff, conducted a stakeholder engagement process to develop a VA of Lao PDR’s power sector and draft a resilience action plan to address the identified vulnerabilities. Stakeholders included representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), Électricité du Laos (EDL), and other relevant organizations. Program staff held a forum in FY19Q3 to unveil the action plan, gain government agencies’ commitments to implement the plan, and identify potential funding to support long-term implementation.  Revising AIMS III to improve connectivity in Southeast Asia: o The AIMS III Inception Meeting, attended by representatives from ASEAN member state ministries, utilities, and regulators, occurred in Bogor, Indonesia from July 24-25, and focused on the timeline, work plan, and process for conducting the study, as well as selecting scenarios, assumptions, and boundaries of the study. o The data template circulated following the preliminary meeting in FY19Q3 was further explained to attendees at the Inception Meeting, and the process for collecting data was agreed upon. Subcontractor ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) and their subcontractor GE Consulting prepared a gap analysis for data required for the study. o The first step in conducting AIMS III is preparing an RE resource assessment, which began shortly after the Inception Meeting, with an outline submitted by ACE in FY19Q4 and the full assessment to be completed early in FY20Q1. o In FY19Q3, ACE organized the AIMS III Preliminary Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, attended by the HAPUA Secretariat and HAPUA working groups, where the study scope, working team structure, key assumptions, and data requirements were discussed in preparation for the Inception Meeting.  Developing the Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer and promoting the platform to Southeast Asian countries: o In FY19Q4, ACE and program planning staff prepared for a mid-October webinar on the SE Asia RE Data Explorer targeting all Southeast Asian regulators and utilities. o Prior quarters focused on collecting historical energy statistics and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) data for RE technologies and working with NREL to review a Southeast Asia LCOE report. In FY19Q3, program staff and subcontractor ACE presented the new SE Asia Data Explorer platform and LCOE tool in Lao PDR and Thailand, and at a Renewable Energy Sub-Sector Network (RE-SSN) side meeting. All presentations included exploring how the technical and economic potential analyses could be used in power sector planning. ACE also co-presented the tool and LCOE analysis with NREL at the Asia Clean Energy Forum in Manila in June during a session for the private sector on facilitating RE investment.

OBJECTIVE 2: IMPROVED ENABLING POLICY, REGULATORY, AND TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY DEPLOYMENTS

FY19 saw significant progress as the program leveraged its strong partnerships with government

2 counterparts to accelerate progress on many of the activities started in FY18. Work on the solar pilot auction in Lao PDR met several milestones, including the establishment of the Working Committee for the solar pilot auction, comprised of government representatives, and a technical sub-group, as well as the drafting of the auction announcement package.

Program staff continued support for the Philippines Department of Energy (PDOE) with the finalization of the analysis of DPV impacts on utility customer economics, utility revenues and rates, and the distribution system, and provided technical input into the draft Department Circular (DC) on enhancing the net-metering policy. In Vietnam, USAID Clean Power Asia leveraged experience conducting DPV impact analyses in Thailand and the Philippines to support the USAID Vietnam Low Emission Energy Program (V-LEEP) in producing an international review of DPV compensation mechanisms and customer economic analysis for Vietnam. In addition, program staff branched out in terms of technology to support USAID V-LEEP on a study of energy storage systems (ESS) applications in Vietnam on how storage technologies may be applied to address the issue of grid congestion and curtailment of solar PV.

Highlights of the year include the following:

 Supporting solar policy and a solar pilot auction in Lao PDR: o In FY19Q4, program staff, in collaboration with partners the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), successfully submitted the complete draft auction announcement package to the Working Committee (WC) for their review. The package contains the auction announcement and its annexes including supporting regulations, standards, guidelines, and Project Development Agreement (PDA) and Concession Agreement (CA) template. Afterwards program staff held a WC meeting on September 30 to discuss and obtain feedback from the WC on the documents submitted as part of the auction announcement package. Comments and feedback will be incorporated into the final package to be submitted in FY20Q1 for approval by the Government of Lao PDR, expected in FY20Q2. However, this is subject to progress in acquiring land for a government-sited auction. o In previous quarters, program staff supported the establishment of the Solar pilot auction WC, consisting of high-level representatives from several departments under MEM, EDL, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the Ministry of Finance, and the Prime Minister’s Office. o Following the establishment of the WC, the program organized the first Consultation and Capacity Building Workshop for the WC in FY19Q1 to present trends and international best practices on solar auctions. Topics covered in the workshop also included background information on solar auction programs in other countries as well as details of auction requirements. Program staff presented an auction roadmap and required documents for the auction, to solicit feedback and gain insights from the WC in the context of Lao PDR.  Supporting DPV economic and technical studies and policy review in Southeast Asia countries: o In collaboration with NREL, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), HNEI, and the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator (CEIA), program staff provided technical input to PDOE on a DC, Promulgating Policies to Enhance the Net-Metering Program

for Renewable Energy, in FY19Q4 and will provide experts to participate in three public consultation events in the Philippines in FY20Q1. This technical input was based on the technical report prepared in previous quarters. o In FY19Q1, program staff, in collaboration with NREL, LBNL, and subcontractor Chulalongkorn University, organized a workshop entitled Presenting Preliminary DPV Impact Analysis Results for the Philippines in Manila to present the preliminary results of the distributed photovoltaics (DPV) impact analyses and obtain stakeholder feedback on the assumptions and policy implications of the analyses. This workshop continued support for revising the DPV net metering policy and regulation in the Philippines that began in FY18. o Following the DPV workshop in Manila, USAID Clean Power Asia submitted to PDOE and published the final report Distributed Photovoltaic Economic and Technical Impact Analysis in the Philippines) consisting of the three main DPV analyses (i.e., customer economic impacts, utility revenue and rate impacts, and technical impacts on distribution systems). These analyses enabled evidence-based policy-making by evaluating the economic and technical implications of DPV to address the concerns of stakeholders, in order to improve the net-metering program framework in the Philippines. o In collaboration with USAID V-LEEP and NREL, program staff conducted an international review of solar rooftop programs in other jurisdictions for applicability to Vietnam, a customer economic analysis, a utility technical analysis, as well as the potential DPV impact on each stakeholder as part of USAID V-LEEP’s Technical Report: Rooftop Solar PV Study, submitted to the Electricity and Renewable Energy Agency (EREA). o In addition to technical reports, the program continued its efforts in promoting regional knowledge exchange about DPV policies through the development of a DPV collateral piece entitled Distributed PV Policies and Trends in Southeast Asia in FY19Q4, and the co-organization of workshops on DPV policies at regional events in FY19Q3. Program staff, in collaboration with NREL, co-organized a session entitled The future of rooftop PV: Prospects for self-consumption and peer-to-peer energy trading, in the deep-dive workshop Next-gen Utilities for a Smart Energy Future at the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) in Manila. Program staff also delivered a presentation entitled Rooftop PV challenges and opportunities for South and Southeast Asia, to set the scene for the session.  Supporting analysis of energy storage systems for utility scale solar PV policy in Vietnam: o In FY19Q3, program staff and the program’s solar consultant, in collaboration with USAID V-LEEP, NREL, and subcontractor Chulalongkorn University, provided the final draft report Technical Report: Energy Storage System Study to EREA to support policy considerations to incentivize co-location of battery ESS with solar PV under a new draft decision to further promote solar PV development in Vietnam after the application under Decision 11 expired.  Improving supporting regulations for VRE integration in Lao PDR: o In FY19Q4, USAID Clean Power Asia engaged subcontractor Chulalongkorn University, while working closely with the Lao PDR Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion (IREP), in developing five standard terms of reference (TOR) for conducting RE

feasibility studies (FS): i) pre-FS for solar projects participating in the solar pilot auction; ii) final FS for solar projects participating in the solar pilot auction; iii) FS for general solar projects (not limited to the solar pilot auction); iv) FS for wind projects; and v) FS for biomass projects. Program staff submitted to the WC drafts of the first two standard TORs as annexes to the draft auction announcement, with the rest submitted as drafts to IREP for review. o Program staff supported the WC to establish a technical sub-group comprised of technical staff from IREP and EDL. This technical sub-group worked closely with program staff and partners GGGI and HNEI to develop the technical standards and technical connection requirements for the solar pilot auction, submitted to the WC as annexes to the draft auction announcement in FY19Q4.

OBJECTIVE 3: INCREASED DEPLOYMENT OF GRID-CONNECTED RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS

In FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia continued to support the private sector to mobilize investments for grid-connected renewable energy projects in Thailand, Lao PDR, and Vietnam. USAID Clean Power Asia’s Year 3 targets for this objective were to achieve $150 million USD of investment mobilized and 182 MW of installed capacity reaching financial closure. In the course of the year, the program exceeded its annual targets and facilitated investment mobilization and financial close of US$298.3 million and 268.2 MW respectively, from DPV in Thailand and utility-scale solar in Vietnam.

Highlights of the year include the following:

 Increase deployment of DPV in Thailand: o In FY19Q3, Big C closed the third phase of its solar rooftop program, adding another 3.6 MW to the portfolio, and bringing the total capacity of Big C that has achieved financial closure with support from USAID Clean Power Asia to 30.6 MW. o Following program staff’s advice to Thai Union Group on potential financing options for its rooftop solar projects in Year 2, the company completed the first six projects with a total capacity of 7.6 MW at various locations across Thailand in Year 3.  Support Lao PDR in piloting a solar PV farm through an auction: o In FY19Q4, program staff issued a request for proposal (RFP) and engaged a legal firm for the drafting of a set of standard legal documents for the auction and reviewed the first drafts. The documents include the project development agreement (PDA), concession agreement (CA), and power purchase agreement (PPA). Program staff also participated in meetings of the Working Committee to discuss the reference price and the draft legal documents. o In FY19Q4, program staff refined the methodology for determining the reference price and provided an initial estimate, subject to finalization once the auction design is completed. The team also discussed this initial reference price with the Working Committee overseeing the auction.  Increase deployment of solar and wind farms in Vietnam: o In FY19Q4, program staff facilitated discussions and negotiations between a Singapore-based solar investment platform, a Thailand-based international investor, and a Thai bank with regards to the investment and financing for two solar projects in

Vietnam. This led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the platform and the investor for a potential partnership and co-investment in the projects, and an indicative term sheet from the bank for long-term debt financing for the projects. o Investment mobilization staff successfully supported B.Grimm Power in identifying and finalizing a suitable financing structure for its 257 MW solar farm in Vietnam. Program staff explored various financing options with a variety of developers, investors, and lenders and supported the company in making a final decision on the preferred financing structure, allowing project construction to move forward up to the total planned capacity. In FY19Q3, the project finished construction and started commercial operation, ahead of the June 30 deadline to receive the feed-in tariff of USD 0.0935 per kWh. o USAID Clean Power Asia published Bankability Guidelines for Utility-Scale Solar Projects in Vietnam, as well as an accompanying financial model on the program’s website. The guidelines and financial model were used in a training workshop for two local Vietnamese banks, in cooperation with USAID V-LEEP. o Program staff presented at two training workshops facilitated by USAID V-LEEP on Fundamentals of Financing Solar PV Projects in Vietnam for the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV). At each workshop, investment mobilization staff delivered a session on project finance and cash flow analysis for solar PV projects, including a case study and financial modeling exercise. Nearly 120 participants attended the training workshops. o In FY19Q3, USAID Clean Power Asia co-sponsored a Finance Workshop during the Vietnam Wind Power 2019 Conference, organized by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). During the workshop investment mobilization staff conducted a training session on financing wind power projects in Vietnam for more than 50 workshop participants.  Increase deployment of distributed PV in Vietnam: o USAID Clean Power Asia worked in partnership with the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator (CEIA) to jointly support companies to implement DPV at commercial and industrial facilities. Among others, the partnership supported Amata, Heineken, and Unilever to conduct competitive procurement processes for solar rooftop projects. Subsequently, in FY19Q4, Amata installed an initial 104 kW system at its office premises, while Heineken selected the vendor in FY19Q4 for the first 3 MW project at one of its facilities.  Regional workshop to promote investment through the SE Asia RE Data Explorer platform: o In coordination with the Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN), NREL, and ADB’s Environment Thematic Group, USAID Clean Power Asia organized a deep-dive workshop on utility-scale solar and wind during the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) in Manila in FY19Q3. More than 200 participants attended the workshop, which included the launch of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer, as well as a panel discussion and case studies discussing challenges and opportunities in developing renewable projects in Asia. Program staff published a report of the workshop on the program website.

2.2 Implementation Status

Further details on the key program activities during the reporting period as highlighted in Section 2.1 above is provided here.

OBJECTIVE 1: HIGH RENEWABLE ENERGY SCENARIOS INCLUDED IN ENERGY PLANNING

In FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia continued to support Lao PDR in developing a long-term Integrated Resource and Resilience Plan (IRRP) to meet multiple planning objectives. The IRRP will enable Lao PDR to integrate their domestic and export power sector plans and to develop a long-term strategy for diversifying their power sector resources beyond hydropower and ensure plans are robust given various natural and man-made risks to the power sector, leading to revised targets. The IRRP will also provide a roadmap for how Lao PDR can fulfill its intention to build an economy based on the power sector, both through key exports and substituting electricity for expensive fuel imports for transportation and industry. In FY19, program staff and subcontractor SEI supported Lao PDR to complete their IRRP demand model (Phase B) and launch work on constructing the supply model (Phase C). Funding issues which caused a pause to several activities including IRRP implementation, necessitated shifting the schedule for completing Phases C and D (integration) by three months, including moving the launch of the SWG study tour from the beginning to the last day of FY19Q4. Program staff, in cooperation with NREL, also supported Lao PDR in conducting a power sector VA and developing a resilience action plan to address the vulnerabilities and risks identified during the VA. A final workshop in FY19Q3 focused on gaining government agencies’ commitments to implement the plan and identified potential funding.

Program staff also continued to work with subcontractor ACE to provide technical and cost data to NREL for incorporation into a new SE Asia RE Data Explorer platform which added three countries and augmented data for several others, with global data and data provided by ASEAN member states through ACE. Together with ACE, program staff presented the beta version of SE Asia RE Data Explorer, including its new Cost of Energy Mapping tool, to energy planners and policy makers in Lao PDR and Thailand and to the ASEAN RE-SSN at a side meeting. Program staff then launched the tool in June 2019, presented by ACE and NREL at a deep-dive workshop targeted to the private sector during the Asia Clean Energy Forum in Manila. Program staff and ACE will continue to raise awareness of this tool and its uses in power sector planning in FY20.

In partnership with HAPUA, together with subcontractor ACE, program staff initiated implementation of the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study (AIMS) III. Phase I of this study will prepare a resource assessment, capacity expansion plan, and conduct production cost modeling, while Phase II will include a grid analysis. The expected outcome is a region-wide plan for increasing the RE share of future power supply in Southeast Asia, identification of opportunities for power trade in the region, and a plan for the ASEAN Power Grid, i.e., transmission infrastructure required to support that trade. An Inception Meeting in FY19Q4 with the Technical Advisory Committee (led by the HAPUA Secretariat); representatives experts from ASEAN member state utilities, policymakers, planners, and regulators; and the Modeling Working Group (led by GE Consulting) finalized agreements on most aspects of the study including the overall approach, tools to be used for analysis, data requirements, and planned scenarios. Phases I and II will be completed in FY20.

Pending approval of the work plan in FY20Q1, USAID Clean Power Asia expects to complete the Lao PDR IRRP analyses, and begin supporting Lao PDR to implement the policy and flexibility resilience actions included in the action plan, complete the AIMS III Phase 1 RE Resource Assessment, and begin the capacity expansion planning. Program staff also plan to further promote the use of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer through an additional side meeting and webinars as well as linking its outputs to energy planning in preparing the ASEAN Energy Outlook 6 and AIMS III.

Sub-task 1.1.1: Developing capacity on Integrated Resource and Resilience Planning in Lao PDR

Program staff and SEI completed the IRRP demand model and completed the baseline supply model (including incorporating RE zones and generation clusters), and shifted the timeline for completing the IRRP from the end of FY19 to FY20Q2 due to the three-month pause on activities supporting the IRRP because of funding delays.

Activity 1: Complete LEAP demand model (Phase B)

Program staff completed the second phase of the IRRP capacity building program in early FY19, with program staff and subcontractor SEI building on the outcomes of the study visit at the end of FY18 to complete the demand model together with the Demand Working Group (DWG). This included development of a baseline demand scenario and a bottom up assessment of demand, as well as developing load curves for all electricity demand

Members of the Demand and Supply Working Groups and loaded these into the model for use in supply participated in workshop in Vientiane on energy supply modeling. The DWG agreed on 10 normative concepts and modeling. (Photo credit: Pitoon Junthip/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) scenarios that posit future states and explore the implications defined for the demand model. These scenarios address issues outside of electricity planners’ control and how those issues may reflect future demand. Examples of normative scenarios include climate and non-climate hazards, demographic changes, and the rate of adoption of certain technologies. During the 2018 study visit, SEI and the DWG identified a set of such scenarios to consider in the demand modeling. They defined each scenario by a theme or subject (e.g., extreme temperatures, gross domestic product growth). Following the study visit, program staff and energy planners completed development of the normative scenarios by specifying a set of possible future states corresponding to the themes and the likelihood of each state being realized. The same process will be used in developing normative scenarios for the supply modeling in FY20Q2

The IRRP core team consists of both the DWG and the Supply Working Group (SWG). Program staff and subcontractor SEI also assessed the IRRP core team’s capacity, documenting positive changes attributed to capacity building efforts of the activity clustering around topics covered in Phase B focused on the demand model. All participants indicated their technical skills in demand modeling had improved. A workshop for the entire IRRP core team, following the demand planning study tour for

8 the DWG, provided the opportunity for the DWG to present results from the study tour and consolidated learning from the study visit.

During the IRRP capacity building workshop held from in FY19Q2 in Vientiane, program staff and SEI summarized the results of the LEAP demand model and conceptualized for MEM how the results could be used as input to prepare their five-year power development plan (PDP) requested by the Minister of Energy and Mines during the workshop week. MEM subsequently compared the LEAP demand model with demand forecasts produced by other organizations such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), World Bank, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to inform their 5-year PDP demand projections.

Activity 2: Complete LEAP supply model and analysis (Phase C)

In the last week of FY19Q4, the nominated SWG team traveled to Boston for a week-long study tour to SEI’s headquarters to finalize development of the Lao PDR power supply model and input spatial, cost, and performance information for transmission resources, including incorporating identified RE zones (REZ) and generation clusters in the IRRP model using LEAP. SEI also introduced their new tool, the Next Energy Modeling System for Optimization (NEMO), an open source tool based on the Julia programming language. The new tool was firstly introduced as a beta version, which is expected to link with LEAP on optimizing capacity-expansion modeling with transmission limits and to improve the results of modeling and precisely reflect the reality of how generation could be limited by existing and planned transmission lines and identifying potential transmission bottlenecks when promoting new variable renewable energy (VRE), e.g., solar and wind, generation.

After returning to Lao PDR, SWG participants are expected to brief the rest of the SWG members (as well as the DWG) on outcomes of the training and progress in developing the IRRP model, helping to solidify what they have learned about modeling methods, scenario design, and analytic practice. Feedback from the IRRP core team to the study tour participants and SEI will inform follow-up steps with the SWG through the balance of the capacity-building program.

In FY19Q4, SEI incorporated selected issues on power sector climate vulnerabilities and presented their methodology for quantifying the issues, and how to incorporate then into the analysis scenarios. These scenarios represent impacts from the “medium-high” likelihood hazards and “medium-high” consequence vulnerabilities, as well as mitigation of these impacts by high priority resilience solutions that address the vulnerabilities and hazards.

Phase C of the IRRP capacity building program began in FY19Q1, with the construction of a baseline supply scenario in LEAP based on data supplied by the SWG. Nine members of the DWG and SWG and additional MEM technical staff attended a workshop in FY19Q2 on Energy Supply Concepts and Modeling in Vientiane. At this workshop, SEI presented the theory and practice of energy supply optimization modeling, along with the applicability of LEAP’s optimization features to the IRRP analysis. Participants also performed a hands-on exercise on optimization modeling using the LEAP platform. Workshop attendees developed models that incorporated all existing and planned power plants in Lao PDR (including technical and cost attributes) and a basic representation of the electricity

9 grid. Additional work on the model was to take place in FY19Q2, but was delayed until FY19Q3 because of the pause in IRRP activities due to delayed funding.

Following that workshop, and after the pause on activities ended, SEI developed a geographic information systems (GIS) platform based on transmission line data provided by EDL, which is an input to NEMO. Program staff and SEI also re-engaged with JICA to update them on progress and request feedback on transmission inputs for the IRRP model (particularly regarding new transmission required for candidate renewable energy zones).

More detailed transmission modeling began during FY19Q3, with SEI refining its approach to incorporate existing and planned transmission lines and interconnections as transmission options in the IRRP supply-side model. SEI then incorporated the GIS-formatted database of existing and planned transmission lines from EDL including locations of distribution substations and other technical information, and refined the transmission options based on information from the medium-term transmission planning process led by JICA. This information is vital to extend the electricity generation- only IRRP modeling to include transmission capacities and constraints, especially in evaluating the RE zones (see 1.2.1).

Activity 3: Conduct IRRP integration studies to assist MEM in completing the PDP and RE target

This activity will begin in FY20Q1, delayed from FY19Q4 because of the pause on implementing activities due to funding delays. In the activity’s final phase, Phase D: Least-Regrets Pathways, the IRRP core team and SEI will conduct integrated modeling of demand and supply resources to identify low- regrets power development pathways. Model runs will be evaluated based on their satisfaction of IRRP objectives under the range of normative scenarios formulated in Phases B and C. One or more preferred pathways will be identified, and program staff and SEI will support MEM and EDL as they use the results to develop a draft PDP. Modeling results will also be used to update Lao PDR’s renewable electricity targets.

In FY20Q1, SEI will develop normative scenarios for high-risk climate and non-climate hazards to be confirmed by the IRRP core team (i.e., the DWG and SWG). SEI will characterize the scenarios by the name of the hazard, a set of possible future states related to the hazard, the likelihood of each state occurring, and the anticipated cost and energy impacts of each state (i.e., the impact of extreme temperature on demand).

Sub-task 1.1.2: Assessing vulnerabilities of Lao PDR’s power sector and developing a resilience action plan

Activity 1: Lao PDR vulnerability assessment advisory group meeting and stakeholder workshop #2

Building on the initial VA stakeholder workshop in FY18, program staff convened a meeting on November 14, 2018 with the VA Advisory Group, consisting of MEM, EDL, and EDL-Gen representatives, followed by a workshop on Engaging Stakeholders in Developing a Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector held in FY19Q1 to finalize VA results and develop a resilience action plan for power sector. There were 25 participants (19 men/6 women) at the workshop

10 representing various government agencies including MEM, EDL, EDL-Gen, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Science and Technology, Central Bank of Lao PDR, and the Lao Women’s Union. The workshop drew on stakeholders’ expertise to verify VA results, finalize highest priority vulnerabilities, develop a list of resilience actions to address those vulnerabilities, prioritize resilience actions using criteria tailor- made for the Lao PDR power sector, and develop resilience action profiles for those actions.

USAID Clean Power Asia’s VA experts, together with NREL representatives who co-facilitated the workshop, then finalized the VA report and prepared a draft resilience action plan. Program staff completed this activity in FY19Q1, and then finalized the draft resilience action plan based on input from the meeting and workshop under Activity 2.

Activity 2: Lao PDR vulnerability assessment advisory group meeting and stakeholder workshop #3

USAID Clean Power Asia VA experts and staff1 worked with NREL to draft a resilience action plan. Abt and NREL experts finalized the resilience action plan for the Lao PDR power sector in Q3 based on a review of the draft Power Sector Resilience Action Plan for Lao PDR with the VA Advisory group. USAID Clean Power Asia submitted the completed plan, incorporating the considerations of the VA Advisory group to USAID the end of FY19Q3.

Participants are engaged at a stakeholder workshop on In FY19Q3, program staff together with Abt VA developing a resilience action plan for the Lao PDR power sector. (Photo credit: Pitoon Junthip/Abt Associates/USAID experts and NREL power sector resilience experts, Clean Power Asia) held an event entitled Forum on the Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector, attended by 36 representatives (30 men/6 women) from various relevant government agencies and international donors. Dr. Daovong Phonekeo, Permanent Secretary of MEM, delivered opening remarks. Attendees participated in two panel discussions, including one on resilience action plan implementation where representatives from MEM, including Dr. Daovang, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, and the state-owned utility EDL, discussed the most urgent resilience activities and challenges in implementing the action plan. The second panel discussion centered on resilience action plan funding opportunities where USAID, GGGI, and representatives from the Bank of Lao PDR and Lao Holding State Enterprise discussed funding opportunities and challenges in implementing the action plan. In its FY20 work plan, USAID Clean Power Asia has proposed collaborating with NREL to select and support implementation of key policies identified in the resilience action plan.

Activity 3: Support NREL to integrate Lao PDR vulnerability assessment, resilience action plan, and lessons learned into the Resilient Energy Platform

1 For a photo of the team supporting the VA and resilience action plan, see https://resilient-energy.org/where-we-work

As a regional program, USAID Clean Power Asia is focused on bringing lessons learned from the pilot VA and resilience action planning in Lao PDR to the rest of the region. To facilitate this knowledge exchange, USAID Clean Power Asia designed activities for VA experts to contribute to NREL’s development of a Resilient Energy Platform. The goal of the platform is to provide information that allows power sector stakeholders to perform USAID Clean Power Asia COP Dana Kenney leads a discussion during a panel session at the Forum on the Vulnerability Assessment and power system vulnerability assessments, Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector held in May in Vientiane. (Photo credit: Maythiwan Kiatgrajai/Abt Associates/USAID identify resilience solutions, and make Clean Power Asia) informed decisions about which policies, technologies, and investments will best enhance power sector resilience in their own contexts.

During FY19Q4, program staff supported Yevang Nihavue, a member of the Lao PDR VA Advisory Group, to co-present a webinar2 with NREL titled Resilient Energy Platform and Power Sector Resilience Planning in Lao PDR. This webinar was held to launch the Resilient Energy Platform, and was targeted to government agencies (energy planners and policymakers), utilities, academic institutions and the private sector, with 50 individuals participating from 20 countries, including donors and international organizations.

In previous quarters, Abt VA experts contributed to the development of the Resilient Energy Platform by providing critical input, including case studies, assessments, and other documents on how to assess power system vulnerabilities, and on improving power sector resilience through advanced energy technology and practices, including clean energy. Experts also contributed to the design and use of worksheets for the resilience action planning process described below in Activity 4. A two-page document titled Planning a Resilient Power Sector3 was translated into Lao and shared with the Permanent Secretary for publishing in the MEM newsletter.

Abt VA experts and program staff consolidated the VA report and resilience action plan into a combined final report, adding detail on the process of developing the VA and resilience action plan. This consolidated report will include a summary of the full methodology being documented by USAID Clean Power Asia’s VA experts, with input from NREL. NREL’s management is currently reviewing the draft report, and is expected to be published in FY20Q1.

Activity 4: Support NREL to develop guidelines for VA and resilience actions in Lao and other countries’ power sectors

NREL developed a Power Sector Resilience Planning Guidebook4 to support interested energy planners and policymakers on in-depth power sector planning. The guidebook includes a holistic

2 https://resilient-energy.org/training-and-resources/webinars/resilient-energy-platform-and-power-sector-resilience- planning-in-lao-pdr-1 3 https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73618.pdf 4 https://resilient-energy.org/guidebook

12 process to engage stakeholders, identify vulnerabilities, and implement critical actions. NREL incorporated the lessons learned and outputs from the VA and resilience action planning process co- implemented by program staff and experts and NREL experts in Lao PDR during FY18 and FY19 into the guidebook.

Sub-task 1.1.3: Promoting regional knowledge-sharing to advance RE investment

Activity 1: Lao PDR shares experiences with Cambodia and Myanmar in developing IRRP and conducting VA

The first activity planned between Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar during Year 3 was to focus on sharing Lao PDR’s lessons learned in developing an IRRP and conducting a VA in a manner and an appropriate time to influence, and benefit, their power planning processes. USAID Clean Power Asia planned to cooperate with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which will be assisting Électricité du Cambodge (EDC) in updating their PDP.

Originally planned for December 2018, ADB requested that the workshop be held in early March as the PDP team had not yet formed. Due to a lack of available program funding, senior management made a decision to postpone this travel, while concurrently EDC delayed the launch of Cambodia’s PDP until July 2019. Program staff will revisit opportunities to collaborate with ADB in the Lower Mekong region during the FY20 work planning process.

Activity 2: Co-learning with Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar on technical potential and economic potential analysis

Program staff originally planned a second workshop for April or May, where Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar representatives would together learn how to use the new SE Asia RE Data Explorer and cost of energy mapping tool. Since completion of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer moved from January to April 2019, program staff are now exploring holding an in-depth co-learning event on the SE Asia RE Data Explorer for these countries either alongside an ACE or HAPUA working group side meeting (see sub- task 1.1.5) or a side meeting alongside an AIMS III technical meeting (see sub-task 1.1.4). The event selected will depend on the target audience. No side meetings occurred between the Senior Officials Meeting on Energy (SOME) in June and the ASEAN Ministers of Energy Meeting (AMEM) in September, so this activity will continue into FY20.

Sub-task 1.1.4: Revising ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study (AIMS III) to improve connectivity in Southeast Asia

Phase 1: Analyzing the ASEAN Power Grid system using the appropriate analytical tools to maximize VRE integration for individual Southeast Asian countries and the region

The schedule for Phase 1 originally planned by HAPUA was to complete the study with Activity 1 in FY19Q2 and hold the meeting on the draft final report (Activity 6) in August 2019. Because the consultant’s original proposal for methodologies and modeling tools did not fulfill the requirement to conduct a RE resource assessment and develop a capacity-expansion model, ACE delayed the start of

AIMS III implementation. Conducting capacity-expansion modeling and production-cost simulation requires high quality data (e.g., hourly data of wind and solar production), which is not currently available for all Southeast Asian countries. For the proposed modeling tools, the consultant had proposed to use GE-MAPs to conduct production-cost modeling, but did not propose a tool for conducting capacity-expansion modeling. As a result, program staff worked with ACE to improve the proposal which resulted in a delay in selecting the consultant.

Activity 1: Conducting an RE resource assessment

Following the Inception Meeting in FY19Q4, the AIMS III Modeling Working Group (MWG) began the study by conducting the RE resource assessment. The purpose of this assessment is to apply and build on data from the new SE Asia RE Data Explorer platform to identify potential wind speeds and solar resource intensity, expected capacity factors, production estimates, and production profiles for defined development areas within each of the Southeast Asia countries by 2025 using turbine and solar technology appropriate for each area. This will include assessing LCOE for wind and solar technology for the period 2019-2040, and developing hourly production time resolution that will provide inputs for capacity expansion modeling and production cost simulation. Following completion of the assessment, expected in FY20Q1, the modeling team will begin the capacity expansion and production cost analyses.

Activity 2: Finalize approach to capacity expansion planning

USAID Clean Power Asia subcontractor ACE and their subcontractor GE Energy Consulting proposed using PLEXOS5 for capacity-expansion modeling (supported by experts from GE in the U.S.) and GE- MAPS6 for production-cost modeling (conducted by GE Consulting India). The consultants proposed these models, and ACE and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) accepted them for AIMS III during the Inception Meeting because the models are widely used in energy modeling and well-recognized in the region. As noted above under Activity 1, work on the capacity expansion planning will begin once mandatory data has been collected and the RE resource assessment has been completed, expected in FY20Q1.

Activity 3: Preliminary Meeting with the selected consultant and team

ACE convened the AIMS III Preliminary Meeting in FY19Q3 in Da Nang, Vietnam, to discuss how to determine the scope and boundary of the study, study scenarios, working team structure, key assumptions, and confirming a list of data requirements. There were 21 participants (19 men/2 women), including members of the Technical Advisory Committee, representatives from the HAPUA Secretariat, HAPUA Working Groups #1-5, ACE, and GE Consulting. The scope agreed to includes four main components for implementation of AIMS III Phase 1: an RE resource assessment, capacity- expansion modeling, production-cost simulation, and a socio-economic-environment analysis.

5 Energy Exemplar® developed a suite of optimization-based energy market simulation software including PLEXOS®, which expresses common themes and requirements in an ‘extensible object model’ (a consistent set of building blocks with features that can easily be extended as needed in the future). The simulation engine then reads the user’s data and settings to develop a solution method for the exact problem the user defined. 6 GE-Multi Area Production Simulation Software program (MAPS)

The agreed-upon scope includes four main components of implementation of AIMS II I Phase 1: i) RE resource assessment (by using existing data available in SE Asia RE Data Explorer estimating wind and solar technical potential for each country); ii) capacity- expansion modeling (by using PLEXOS software); iii) production-cost ACE convened the AIMS III Preliminary Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam in May 2019, the first important step in increasing cross-border energy trading in simulation (by using GE-MAPS); and iv) ASEAN member states. (Photo credit: Pitoon Junthip/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) socio-economic-environment analysis.

ACE originally proposed to have three energy scenarios under AIMS III Phase 1: i) Base case scenario, based on the current PDPs and energy policy of each country; ii) optimized case, based on how to optimize each energy system based on the current RE targets in each PDP; and iii) achieving ASEAN targets under RE-Map (suggested scenario by IRENA), which is a 23% RE share of primary energy by 2025 which includes a 10-12% VRE share of total power generation. However, program staff proposed a fourth higher RE scenario, iv) more than the 10-12% of VRE by 2020.

The proposed working team structure includes the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), led by the HAPUA Secretariat and representatives from the HAPUA working groups 1-5; the Modeling Working Group (MWG), led by GE; and a Technical Review Committee (TRC), which is an independent peer review group.

GE covered key assumptions and data requirements and agreed with the TAC on a data requirement template that was to be circulated to relevant entities in each Southeast Asian country. GE also committed to complete a conduct data gap analysis of each main component of Phase 1 in FY19Q4.

Activity 4: Inception Meeting: Data collection, assumptions, scenarios, and methodology

In FY19Q4, program staff launched Phase 1 of AIMS III at the Inception Meeting held July 24-25 in Bogor, Indonesia, attended by 33 ASEAN member state representatives (25 men/8 women) including the TAC and the MWG. The TAC consists of HAPUA, ACE, and USAID/USAID Clean Power Asia. The MWG consists of ACE and second-tier subcontractor GE (with GE’s third-tier subcontractors AWS Truepower and TetraTech), as well as representatives from utilities and regulators in SE Asia. At this meeting, attendees discussed the methodology, processes, and work plan for the study and discussed data needs to be collected from national experts identified to participate in the modeling group.

Data is required for the RE resource assessment, the capacity expansion modeling, and the production cost simulations. The TAC, together with utility and government experts who attended the Preliminary and Inception Meetings, reviewed the data template in FY19Q3 and decided at the Inception Meeting how to handle data security concerns. The data requirement template consists of data categorized based on the priority level:

 Green: Mandatory, the minimum level to run the AIMS model;  Orange: Additional Priority 1, data to improve the accuracy of the analysis;  Yellow: Additional Priority, additional data for analysis.

The expected dates of submission for each level of data were July 2019, August 2019, and October 2019, respectively.

During the Inception Meeting, GE Consulting presented the proposed scenarios to be analyzed for the capacity expansion planning which were previously agreed to at the Preliminary Meeting:

i. Base Case Scenario: This scenario will include the existing and planned power plants and transmission lines according to individual PDPs and aggregate all of Southeast Asia’s PDPs as a regional PDP. ii. Co-optimized RE Scenario: This scenario aims to analyze impacts/savings due to a high share of variable renewable energy (VRE) based on potential candidate plants. iii. Regional RE Target Scenario: This scenario will consider the share of VRE based on the regional target, namely as a region-wide renewable energy target of achieving 23% of the total primary energy supply by 2025 (share of VRE approximately about 9-10%). iv. High VRE Scenario: This scenario will explore an opportunity to integrate a higher share of VRE into the model compared to the regional target, and see the impacts and benefits that will happened in the individual and regional level.

The TAC agreed to the first three scenarios, but needed further discussion of the fourth scenario with the HAPUA Secretariat and ACE. The discussion focused on how to determine an appropriate share of VRE in the fourth scenario that could be relevant to the context and readiness of Southeast Asian countries, and how to harmonize this with the scenarios in the ASEAN Energy Outlook 6.

After the Inception Meeting, GE completed a gap analysis for the required data that has been shared to date/made available for AIMS III implementation. ACE sent an official request to the 10 ASEAN member state ministries and utilities. ACE also collected data from existing publications and datasets, including those shared with GE for previous projects in Southeast Asia. Though most of the data was to be provided in FY19, data is still missing completely from some countries and only a portion of the data required has been received from the other countries. The modeling group estimates that only 8% of the mandatory data for the RE resource assessment and the capacity expansion modeling has been provided. However, through completing planned non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and mining other sources, the modeling could begin. The HAPUA Secretary-in-Charge has agreed to engage with the country governments and utilities to encourage them to share the required data, and ACE and HAPUA agreed that if the data is not provided by mid-October, alternative global and other data sources will be used as proxies.

Activity 5: Analysis of the ASEAN power grid system

The analysis of the ASEAN power grid system began after the Inception Meeting in FY19Q4. ACE, through its subcontractor GE Consulting, is developing models to analyze different options/pathways of generation and transmission capacity expansion and for integrating different levels of VRE into the

16 power system at both the country and regional level. The analyses will identify the need for additional installed generation and transmission line capacity for satisfying domestic demand and multilateral electricity trading. GE Consulting will conduct production cost modeling to analyze how much VRE can be integrated into the grid, and a socio-economic-environmental assessment will also be conducted as part of the study.

Activity 6: Meeting on the draft final report

This meeting, tentatively scheduled for March 2020, is intended for ministry and utility representatives of ASEAN member states to review the initial analysis and draft report. Originally intended to be held in FY19Q4 (August 2019), the meeting will occur later due to the delay in the start of the AIMS III.

Activity 7: Finalization Meeting

This meeting, contingent upon incorporating feedback on the draft final report and originally planned for September 2019, is now expected to take place in June 2020 when Phase 1 and 2 have been completed (Phase 2 is expected to be implemented concurrently with Phase 1, but cannot begin until there are some results from the capacity expansion modeling and production cost simulation).

Phase 2 includes grid analysis (e.g., transmission system analysis and stability analysis) and Phase 3 includes identifying the technical and regulatory barriers and challenges for cross-border and multilateral electricity trading. A revised selection memo for Phase 2 has been received from ACE and is currently under review by USAID Clean Power Asia.

Several aspects of the Phase 3 work may have already been conducted or are planned through support of other donors such as Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and ongoing work being conducted by IEA. USAID Clean Power Asia will conduct due diligence with these and other relevant organizations before finalizing the Phase 3 activities to be supported.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is conducting a regional RE integration study (by using a production-cost modeling analysis) supported by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) focusing on a sub-set of Southeast Asian countries. USAID Clean Power Asia will work with IEA and ACE to ensure there is no duplication of effort.

Sub-task 1.1.5: Develop ASEAN RE Data Explorer and promote platform to Southeast Asian countries

Activity 1: Work with ACE to obtain feedback on the beta version of ASEAN RE Data Explorer

ASEAN has adopted a target of deploying 23% of total energy production from RE by 2025. Energy planners’ ability to visualize the location of RE resources and map the associated LCOE by source is extremely valuable to facilitate incorporation of increased RE resources into power sector plans and promote RE investment. In FY18, NREL completed the RE Data Explorer tool for all 10 ASEAN member states which provides a common platform to enable visualization of economic potential analysis. The

17 cost of energy mapping tool, currently under development, will provide for the additional capability to analyze the LCOE using RE Data Explorer. USAID Clean Power Asia and ACE are supporting this analysis by providing regional data and expertise (details are provided below).

During previous quarters, staff and subcontractor ACE and its sub-sector networking groups that provided data gave feedback to NREL on the SE Asia DEDE officials participate in a workshop to test the beta version of the ASEAN RE Data Explorer. (Photo credit: Pitoon RE Data Explorer platform beta version Junthip/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) functionality, and in particular the functionality and data used for the cost of energy mapping tool, via a region-wide event organized by ACE and side- meetings with stakeholders in Lao PDR and Thailand.

Program staff and subcontractor ACE convened the workshop Presenting and Testing the Beta Version of ASEAN RE Data Explorer in FY19Q1 in Vientiane attended by six representatives (5 men/1 woman) from the RE-SSN. The full-day workshop agenda included presenting the beta version of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer, including RE resource and complementary datasets, the technical potential tool, and the LCOE mapping tool; vetting the data and assumptions used and; obtaining feedback from participants.

Program staff also arranged a side-meeting with energy planners in Vientiane in FY19Q1 which included six representatives (5 men/1 woman) from the Department of Energy Policy and Planning (DEPP), EDL, and EDL-Gen to present the tool and functionalities for technical potential analysis and LCOE. Supported by ACE and NREL, program staff also collaborated with the Thailand Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (DEDE) to hold an in-house workshop with representatives from DEDE and EGAT, Presenting and Testing the Beta Version of ASEAN RE Data Explorer, at DEDE offices in Bangkok. There were 14 representatives from DEDE and eight representatives from EGAT for a total of 22 participants (7 women/15 men). As in Lao PDR, the full- day workshop agenda included presenting the beta version of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer, including RE resource and complementary datasets, the technical potential tool, and the LCOE mapping tool; vetting the data and assumptions used and; obtaining feedback from participants.

Program staff completed this activity at the end of FY19Q1, and finalized the SE Asia RE Data Explorer based on the feedback provided on the beta version.

Activity 2: Present the completed SE Asia RE Data Explorer at ACE/HAPUA meetings/activities

USAID Clean Power Asia RE planning staff gave the first presentation on the completed SE Asia RE Data Explorer at an ACE/HAPUA meeting on May 23, 2019 in Da Nang, Vietnam during the 26th ASEAN RE- SSN meetings entitled Workshop on Evidence Based Policy Making Process on Renewable Energy. The session was attended by 13 RE-SSN members (10 men/3 women) and focused on presenting the completed SE Asia RE Data Explorer Technical Potential Analysis functionality and the LCOE Mapping

Tool, and explored an opportunity to apply this tool in the regional context for RE analysis and planning. Program staff originally planned a second side meeting and one or more webinars in FY19, but due to the delay in completing the SE Asia RE Data Explorer and the LCOE mapping tool, these additional activities could not be scheduled and have been included in the FY20 work plan.

Activity 3: Linking ASEAN RE Data Explorer with capacity expansion and integrated energy planning models

During FY19Q4, ACE agreed to work with program staff to develop a case study using outputs from the RE Data Explorer in the LEAP software to be used for building the model and conducting the analysis for developing the ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO) 6. NREL has completed its application programming interface (API) and thus it is ready for use in the AEO6 which must be completed by December 2019. At the invitation of the new ACE Executive Director, USAID Clean Power Asia staff met with ACE and GIZ (which is separately funding SEI to build ACE’s capacity to use LEAP in preparing AEO 6) on the details of ensuring the assumptions between the assumptions for AEO6 are the same as in AIMS III, and also discussed inking RE Data Explorer outputs with LEAP. Program staff will follow up in FY20 to prepare a case study of using the RE Data Explorer outputs in the LEAP modeling. Though it will not use the API, the AIMS III study RE resource assessment will incorporate and use data from the RE Data Explorer as appropriate.

In previous quarters, program staff completed an assessment of the potential applications and data used for a linked LEAP-RE Data Explorer tool which defined how the data and outputs from RE Data Explorer can be used in LEAP for energy planning, followed by technical specifications, all of which staff documented in a memo. Program staff updated this memo in Q4 and submitted it to USAID. NREL also prepared guidelines for using their new API which staff summarized and submitted to USAID.

Sub-task 1.2.1: Promoting inclusion of RE zones in transmission plans in Lao PDR

During FY19Q4, staff continued researching information about potential projects already in discussion with the government, including existing projects, signed MOUs of conducting pre-feasibility studies, and those under construction as this was the basis MEM decided to use for gauging commercial interest. Previous quarters focused on agreeing with MEM on the roles of MEM as lead entity and other institutions (Activity 1), the scope and vision statement (Activity 2), and detailed process design for implementing REZs (Activity 3). The SWG and DWG agreed with the proposed roles of MEM, and scope, vision statement, and detailed process design for implementing REZs as described under each activity.

During the year, staff and subcontractor SEI held multiple conversations with JICA to discuss collaboration on the REZ process implementation and its integration into the IRRP process. JICA agreed to cooperate with SEI on the transmission analysis by sharing demand forecasts, data, and outputs of their analysis as documented in their Study on Power Network System Master Plan in Lao PDR. JICA attended the last IRRP/RE zones workshop in Lao PDR in FY19Q2 which focused on finalizing candidate RE zones to include in the IRRP supply modeling.

Activity 1: Identify lead entity and determination of other institutions

Program staff completed this activity in FY19Q1. MEM agreed with the organizational structure for the REZ process implementation which consists of three entities: MEM as the lead, the IRRP SWG and DWG as the Technical Advisory Committee, and the SWG as the zone Identification, transmission, and generation modeling working group. The role of MEM as the lead entity is to convene relevant parties and ensure the process will meet the project vision. The roles of the SWG and DWG as a Technical Advisory Committee are to guide and review the outputs of the working group to ensure the technical validity and relevance of the integrated clean energy transmission and generation planning analysis efforts. The role of the identification, transmission and generation modeling working group is to identify and validate candidate REZs and conduct modeling of transmission system expansion and upgrade options.

Activity 2. Develop REZ vision statement

Program staff worked with MEM to complete this activity in FY19Q1. The scope of the REZ process agreed to with MEM includes implementing a nationwide REZ transmission planning process covering RE resources, e.g., solar, wind, and others as appropriate. The vision statement developed is as follows:

The Ministry of Energy and Mines in collaboration with USAID Clean Power Asia shall:

 Conduct a study on REZ throughout the country in areas in which RE resources and suitable land areas are sufficient to develop generating capacity from RE technologies; nevertheless, the study areas either require the building of new transmission infrastructure or significant transmission upgrades. The study will consist of, but will not be limited to, technical RE potential analysis, economic feasibility analysis, and developing supply curves of each area;  Implement a REZ transmission planning process along with the IRRP supply analysis to consider designating REZs based on the IRRP ‘least regrets’ pathways analysis.  Designate REZs to be included in the final transmission plan in the national power development plan (NPDP), if they are included in one of the “least-regrets” pathways selected during the final IRRP pathways workshop and there is commercial interest in investing in developing the resources.

The vision statement is guiding the approach to analyzing REZs and including them in the transmission planning portion of the IRRP and the JICA medium-term transmission plan.

Activity 3. Develop a REZ process design document

Program staff completed the REZ process design in FY19Q1. The process designed by USAID Clean Power Asia consists of the following six steps:

1) Process design and vision statement which covers two activities: review and discuss scope, vision statement, and roles of MEM (Activity 1 and 2); and discuss and develop a detailed process design for implementing REZs (Activity 3). Expected outputs are a REZ scope, vision

statement, organizational structure, and process design. This is led by the Technical Advisory Committee supported by USAID Clean Power Asia, SEI, and JICA. 2) RE resource assessment covers two activities: re-evaluate technical potential analysis for candidate REZs (Activity 4) and conduct economic analysis (Activity 5). Expected outputs are revised candidate REZs and supply curves for each study area. This is led by the Technical Advisory Committee, with support from USAID Clean Power Asia, SEI, and JICA. 3) Candidate zones selection covers two activities: gauge commercial interest in candidate zones and discuss and review final candidate zones (Activity 6). The expected output is final selection of candidate zones. This is also led by the Technical Advisory Committee supported by USAID Clean Power Asia. 4) Transmission options development consists of adding transmission data for the REZs to the IRRP supply model (Activity 7). The expected output is completing the transmission analysis. This step is led by the Zone Identification, transmission and generation modeling working group, supported by USAID Clean Power Asia, SEI and possibly JICA. 5) Final transmission plan designation consists of conducting a detailed assessment of each candidate zone (Activity 8). The expected output is a completed assessment of transmission needs to develop each zone. This is led by the Zone Identification, transmission and generation modeling group, supported by USAID Clean Power Asia, SEI and possibly JICA. 6) Designate candidate zones as REZs which will be considered at the Pathways workshop planned for FY19Q4 (Activity 9). The expected output is a determination whether REZs will be designated. This step is led by both the Lead Entity and Technical Advisory Committee supported by USAID Clean Power Asia, SEI and possibly JICA.

The process design continues to guide the consideration of REZs and aligns with the subsequent activities listed below.

Activity 4. Re-evaluate technical potential analysis for candidate RE zones

Program staff completed this activity in FY19Q2. The IRRP capacity building plan describes RE “study areas” as regions in the country that merit further consideration as possible RE zones (REZ), based on an assessment of their technical resource potential. To complete this activity, USAID Clean Power Asia subcontractor SEI conducted a GIS-based analysis of solar photovoltaic, wind, and small hydropower (appropriate for generation capacities of not Program staff held a second stakeholder consultation on RE study areas and candidate RE zones in January in Vientiane. (Photo credit: more than 30 MW) potential across Lao PDR by Pitoon Junthip/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) assembling a variety of publicly available data sources. The assessment quantified the remaining potential of wind, solar, and small hydro after applying a number of exclusion criteria, e.g., protected area and high-slope areas.

During FY19Q2, USAID Clean Power Asia staff and SEI conducted a second stakeholder consultation on RE study areas and candidate REZs during the Lao PDR IRRP Mission #4: RE Zones Update in Vientiane, attended by 20 representatives (2 women/18 men) from MEM, EDL, EDL-Gen, and the Ministry of Agriculture. The purpose of the workshop was to convene stakeholders to provide feedback on a revised analysis of potential REZs in Lao PDR based on improved GIS transmission data, and use this input to decide on a final set of generation clusters and candidate REZs in order to prepare gauging commercial interest in the next step. During the stakeholder consultation, attendees decided on which study areas to include in supply modeling. The results of the supply modeling and the integration analyses, together with the determination of commercial interest in the study areas, will guide a discussion about designating one or more RE zones for transmission development.

Following the consultative workshop, SEI continued to improve estimates of resource potential. To respond to USAID Clean Power Asia staff concerns that the resulting study areas did not sufficiently capture resource potential in parts of the country not currently accessed by transmission lines, SEI divided two existing study areas into two, separating portions of these study areas not served by transmission. At the conclusion of the Energy Supply Modeling and Concepts Workshop; stakeholders agreed to proceed with the remainder of the IRRP analysis incorporating the ten candidate REZs and generation clusters. These 10 areas will become renewable energy supply options in the IRRP model.

Activity 5. Conduct economic analysis for each study area

In FY19Q3, based on the electricity supply curves and development adjustment factors presented at the RE zones workshop in FY19Q2, program staff further refined the economic analysis of the RE zones. As a result, four candidate REZs and five generation clusters were identified. Economic analysis to date has been based on an assessment of the LCOE for resources in these candidate zones. Program staff agreed with the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) on tariffs to use in calculating the Levelized Avoided Cost of Energy (LACE). The LACE was used to estimate the benefits (potential private or public sector revenue) from developing power plants in these zones to compare to the potential costs.

Activity 6: Gauge commercial interest in candidate zones

During FY19Q4, staff continued researching information about potential projects already in discussion with the government, including existing signed MOUs, as this was the basis MEM decided to use for gauging commercial interest. In FY19Q3, with the members of the Demand and Supply Working Groups, including an expert from JICA, technical staff again presented the results of selected REZ candidates and generation cluster areas, presented best practices on approaches and criteria for determining commercial interest that were used in Texas, and discussed a plan to gauge commercial interest in Lao PDR. At the end of the meeting, participants agreed to gauge commercial interest in the selected areas by using existing information based on the MOUs where the private sector expressed an interest in developing wind and solar projects with MEM. USAID Clean Power Asia planning began working with MEM to collect the MOUs and continue to assist them with the review and analysis of this information, with this step expected to be completed in FY20Q1.

Activity 7 and 8: Transmission options development and final transmission plan designation

These activities will be conducted during the supply planning phase (Phase C) of the IRRP process in FY20Q1. In this activity, the “generation-only” analysis will be expanded to include a simplified representation of the transmission network. This task will be performed in a two-step process: first by defining scenarios (including equipment locations, costs, and performance) for the baseline transmission system, potential augmentation of the system to improve connectivity and export capacity, and interconnection of candidate REZs; and second by implementing these transmission scenarios in the model by connecting major sub-grids in a variety of potential configurations.

Activity 7 is expected to begin in FY20Q1 following completion of the generation options analysis of Phase C Supply Modeling, which has been delayed as described under Sub-task 1.1.1. Activity 8 will be coordinated with JICA’s development of the transmission masterplan for Lao PDR, following completion of Activity 7.

Activity 9: Designate candidate zones as RE zones

This activity will begin with consideration of RE zones in Phase D of the IRRP, i.e., the integration analysis (as well as on determination of commercial interest) to be completed in FY19Q4. Designating RE zones will be considered at the pathways workshop now planned for FY20Q2. This activity was delayed due to the delay in conducting the IRRP capacity building, as described under sub-task 1.1.1. As a result, the final integration workshop at which candidate zones will be designated as RE zones is now expected in the first or second quarters of FY20 due to a 3-6 month delay in most IRRP activities.

OBJECTIVE 2: IMPROVED ENABLING POLICY, REGULATORY, AND TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY DEPLOYMENT

In FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia built on the activities already started in Lao PDR; namely, the solar pilot auction and related regulations. The work in Lao PDR progressed from the conceptualization stage closer towards implementation, with many key decisions being reached and auction design elements being finalized. Program staff also drafted a number of supporting regulations to serve not only projects in the solar pilot auction, but also other RE projects, which would help boost the deployment of RE beyond the pilot auction.

Program staff also supported the development and/or revision of DPV policies in the region. Having previously conducted impact analyses of DPV in Thailand, USAID Clean Power Asia again collaborated with partners in FY19 to produce similar impact analyses for the Philippines and Vietnam, whose governments are both considering improvements to their policies. In the Philippines, program staff additionally provided technical input to a draft Department Circular on enhancement of net-metering program and helped to organize public consultation events on the new policy.

The singular novel activity engaged in this year was a study on the applications of utility-scale energy storage systems to alleviate curtailment and congestion issues with solar PV in Vietnam. USAID Clean Power Asia RE policy staff supported USAID-VLEEP in this endeavor, which was requested by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This activity served as a foundation for potential future support for other countries in the region that may be interested in deploying energy storage systems.

Sub-task 2.1.1: Provide support for solar policy and solar auction in Lao PDR

Following the cooperative framework agreement established with MEM, program staff continued to work closely with MEM to support the first solar pilot auction in Lao PDR. Program staff focused on developing policies guiding the auction, providing market and regulatory analysis as well as capacity building on the international practice and fundamental auction design for MEM staff in Year 2. Workshop participants listen to opening remarks at a consultation and capacity building workshop for the solar pilot In Year 3, MEM, with IREP as the official focal auction in Vientiane. (Photo credit: Thanawat Keereepart/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) point for a solar pilot auction project, officially established the solar pilot auction Working Committee (WC) to design the auction and develop the auction announcement and related documents in order to prepare for implementation plan for the solar pilot auction. Program staff also worked closely with partners GGGI on the support for site selection assessment and technical standards for solar projects and HNEI on technical connection requirements to support the solar pilot auction in Lao PDR. After several subsequent WC meetings, program staff submitted the first draft of the auction announcement package to the WC and organized the third WC meeting in FY19Q4 to solicit feedback to finalize the auction announcement and related documents.

Activity 1: Conduct requirements analysis for solar auction design in Lao PDR

Program staff supported IREP in preparing documents, including an overall roadmap or action plan guiding the auction, and design requirements to be proposed for the establishment of the Working Committee (WC) for the solar pilot auction. The WC for a solar pilot auction was officially established in Q1. The WC is chaired by Mr. Chanto Milattanapheng, Director General of IREP, and consists of high-level representatives from other departments under MEM, EDL, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the Ministry of Finance, and the Prime Minister’s Office.

In FY19Q1, program staff organized the first Consultation and Capacity Building Workshop for the WC to provide capacity building for the WC on solar auction practice and present a solar pilot auction requirements, auction roadmap as well as list of required documents for the auction to solicit feedback and gain their insights in the context of Lao PDR. As a result of the workshop, program staff worked closely with IREP on analyzing solar pilot auction requirements to finalize list of documents for the auction announcement package.

Activity 2: Develop and finalize solar auction design in Lao PDR

During FY19, program staff and partners HNEI and GGGI worked with the WC to refine the details of the auction design. Follow-up WC meetings were held in FY19Q2 and FY19Q3, with meetings between program staff and some WC members interspersed throughout. One element of the auction design

24 which is yet to be finalized is the siting of the auction. Initially, the WC expressed favor for land being acquired by developers for their projects in two provinces: Savannakhet and Khammouane. However, in FY19Q4, IREP and GGGI engaged in discussions with provincial government officials, the outcome of which was an expressed preference for government- provided land. Under this arrangement, the provincial government together with IREP Program staff held a follow-up meeting with the Lao solar pilot would allocate the land and designate the land auction Working Committee in January in Vientiane. (Photo credit: Maythiwan Kiatgrajai/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) price for projects participating in the auction (to avoid land price speculation). IREP presented this option to the WC at the WC follow-up meeting in FY19Q4, and received WC approval. As a result, IREP plans to conduct another land survey trip with provincial government officials and finalize the land allocation and price in FY201Q1.

Activity 3: Support for obtaining approval and deployment of solar pilot auction in Lao PDR

After numerous meetings and consultations with the WC and technical sub-group, program staff, in collaboration with HNEI and GGGI, submitted the complete draft auction announcement package to the WC in FY19Q4. The package contains the auction announcement, or request for proposal (RFP); technical standards developed by GGGI; interconnection standards developed by HNEI; templates for the power purchase agreement (PPA), power development agreement (PDA), and concession agreement (CA), and standard TORs for conducting pre- and final feasibility studies as well as various other annexes. Program staff traveled to Vientiane to conduct a WC follow-up meeting in FY19Q4, to go over the draft auction package with the WC and, in particular, to discuss the templates for agreements and obtain feedback from the WC. Comments from the WC Program staff led a Working Committee follow-up meeting on the Lao PDR solar pilot auction in June in Vientiane. (Photo credit: Thanawat committee members will be Keereepart/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) incorporated in refining the auction announcement package.

Looking forward, IREP will work closely with provincial authorities in selected regions for approval of sites to be allocated for solar project development under a solar pilot auction in FY20Q1. After finalizing site selection and resolving the government-provided land requirements in FY19Q1, the auction announcement package is expected to be finalized in FY20Q1 for the WC to propose for approval to the Government of Lao PDR for the implementation of the solar pilot auction in FY20Q2. After the approval of implementation of the solar pilot auction, program staff will work closely with

IREP and the auctioneer (in case the GOL decides to appoint one) to facilitate the implementation of the auction throughout FY20.

Activities under this sub-task are expected to result in the proposal, adoption, and implementation of related solar auction announcement regulations for the solar pilot auction in Lao PDR, which will have a direct impact on Indicator 1 (Number of laws, policies, regulations, or standards addressing clean energy formally proposed, adopted, or implemented as supported by USG assistance) and Indicator 5 (Projected GHG emissions reduced or avoided through 2030 from adopted laws, policies, regulations, or technologies related to clean energy as supported by USG assistance) through an increase in projected GHG emissions reduction from solar projects developed under the pilot auction.

Sub-task 2.1.2: Support study of DPV economic and technical impacts and policies in Southeast Asia countries

The deployment of DPV has become increasingly more economical and viable in Southeast Asian countries. In addition to rapidly declining costs of solar PV, the attractiveness of DPV investments increases as a result of having the supporting policies on compensation mechanisms such as net metering or net billing in place or revised to increase DPV adoption.

Since Year 1, USAID Clean Power Asia program staff have collaborated with partners to provide technical assistance in assessing the DPV impacts on customer economics, utility revenues and rates, and technical impacts on the distribution systems. These analyses are very important for policymakers to address key stakeholders’ concerns and influence their decisions to improve the policies more confidently with these evidence-based analyses. Realizing the importance of these analyses in the case of Thailand in Year 1, program staff continued to provide technical assistance on DPV economic and technical impacts to PDOE in Year 2. In addition, other USAID programs, USAID V-LEEP and USAID Indonesia Clean Energy Development (ICED) II, also conducted similar analysis for DPV to assist the Governments of Vietnam and Indonesia, respectively. Through the partnership with other USAID programs, program staff utilized experience in Thailand and the Philippines in helping USAID V-LEEP and USAID ICED II to frame the scope of technical assistance on DPV.

In Year 3, program staff completed the technical report on the economic and technical impacts of DPV for the Philippines begun in Year 2, and extended technical assistance to PDOE by providing technical input and supporting the public consultation events for the draft Department Circular on enhancing the net-metering policy. In partnership with USAID VLEEP and NREL, program staff also provided a review of international experience of solar rooftop programs from other jurisdictions and supported customer economic analysis for solar rooftop investment in Vietnam and proposed recommendations on compensation mechanisms.

Activities supporting a revision of a net metering policy in the Philippines

In Year 3, USAID Clean Power Asia continued to partner with two U.S. labs, NREL and LBNL, as well as subcontractor Chulalongkorn University, to finalize the three analyses of the DPV economic and technical impact study for the Philippines: customer economics, utility revenue and rate impacts, and technical impacts on distribution systems. Program staff and the solar consultant, together with

26 partners NREL, HNEI, and CEIA, provided technical input on the following three policy considerations based on these analyses: i) proposed revision of the existing individual size 100 kW cap, ii) different compensation mechanism enumerated and suggested policy for simplifying and streamlining net-metering interconnection and iii) the permitting USAID Clean Power Asia’s solar consultant Sopitsuda Tongsopit process. Program staff closely coordinated leads a discussion at a workshop in Manila to present with PDOE to review the draft DC and plan the preliminary DPV impact analysis results. (Photo credit: Thanawat Keereepart/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) agenda for three public consultation events to be held in FY20Q1.

Following the first workshop on scoping a DPV impact analysis for the Philippines in FY18, in FY19Q1, program staff and the PDOE organized a second workshop in Manila, Presenting Preliminary DPV Impact Analysis Results for the Philippines, to present preliminary results of the analysis and solicit feedback from stakeholders in order to finalize the study. There were 36 participants (26 men/10 women) from distribution utilities, the energy regulator, the Philippines Solar and Storage Energy Alliance, and policymakers who provided the feedback at the workshop. As a result of the workshop, the analysis team gained additional insights, data, and clarifications on assumptions about the Philippines’ context (e.g., the current market status, policy objectives for promoting DPV, as well as the rate making process and tariff structure) from key stakeholders, particularly from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Manila Electric Company (Meralco), and the Visayan Electric Company (VECO). ERC, which had been through an ongoing process to revise the rules of net-metering policies, stressed the importance of the three DPV analyses conducted by the analysis team in policy consideration to improve the rules of the existing net-metering program to balance the extent of incentives provided for DPV investment while minimizing any potential negative impacts on other ratepayers and the distribution system.

Arranged by Director Mylene C. Capongcol of the PDOE, program staff and the analysis team also had a great opportunity to participate in a meeting with Senator Sherwin Gatchalian and his team at the Office of the Senate of the Philippines in FY19Q1 to share preliminary results and provide policy considerations on the proposed Senate Bill No.1719, which is known as the Solar Rooftop Adoption Act of Program staff meet with Senator Sherwin Gatchalian at the Office of 2017. The Senator and his team expressed the Senate of the Philippines to share preliminary DPV impact analysis strong interest in the analyses, especially results. (Photo credit: Thanawat Keereepart/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) the rate impacts and comparisons of alternate compensation mechanisms. The team provided policy considerations in

27 response to concerns about rate increases associated with removing the capacity limit of 100kW in the Philippines.

In FY19Q2, program staff finalized the report Distributed Photovoltaic Economic and Technical Impact Analysis in the Philippines and submitted the final report to the PDOE, and published it on the program website and partners’ (e.g., NREL and LBNL) websites. Building on the results of the study, the PDOE initiated a plan to issue a Department Circular, Promulgating Policies to Enhance the Net- Metering Program for Renewable Energy, and further requested USAID Clean Power Asia to provide technical input for the circular and experts to participate in the public consultation events.

Looking forward, USAID Clean Power Asia and its partners (NREL, HNEI, and CEIA) will participate in three public consultation events in the Philippines and assist PDOE in revision of the draft net- metering DC to incorporate feedback from stakeholders in FY20Q1.

Activities supporting a revision of a net metering scheme in Vietnam

In Year 3, program staff and the solar consultant partnered with USAID V-LEEP in preparing USAID V- LEEP’s report Technical Report: Rooftop Solar PV Study in response to the request of EREA of MOIT to propose a revised support mechanism for promoting DPV in Vietnam.

In FY19Q4, USAID V-LEEP received a letter of no objection and acknowledgement of the Technical Report: Rooftop Solar PV Study from EREA to support the implementation of rooftop solar promotion program in Vietnam expected to be announced as a new draft decision with new regional feed-in tariffs (FIT) for solar to replace Decision 11 (which allowed the sale of solar generation from both solar farms and DPV to the state-owned utility, EVN, at the FIT rate of 9.35 cent/kWh to reach COD by June 2019).

In addition to activities supporting DPV policy in the Philippines and Vietnam, program staff prepared DPV collateral in FY19Q4 to highlight the program’s technical work on DPV for Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam as well as summarizing the DPV policy trends and challenges in Southeast Asia.

In FY19Q1, program staff conducted and finalized an international review of DPV programs in other jurisdictions and summarized the building blocks applicable for the DPV program in Vietnam (Chapter 1: International Review of Solar Rooftop Program) for USAID V-LEEP to submit to EREA. Meanwhile, the program also provided to USAID V-LEEP a data collection template for a customer economic analysis to be conducted by program staff in collaboration with NREL.

Following the data collection process and agreed-upon analysis framework with USAID V-LEEP, program staff, in collaboration with NREL, conducted customer economic analyses of solar rooftop investments in Vietnam under three compensation mechanisms (i.e., net metering, net billing, and buy-all/sell-all) and qualitatively analyzed the potential impact of each compensation scheme on key stakeholders in FY19Q2. The customer economics of solar rooftop investment and the analysis of impacts on each key stakeholder in Vietnam were part of the technical study Chapter 4: Proposal on the Model/Design of the New Support Mechanism for Solar Rooftop Projects in Vietnam.

Looking forward to Year 4, program staff will continue to utilize country-level and regional efforts to promote DPV adoptions in the region through webinars and workshop on DPV.

Activities under this sub-task are expected to result in proposed policies for the revision of net- metering schemes in the Philippines and Vietnam, which will have a direct impact on Indicator 1 (Number of laws, policies, regulations, or standards addressing clean energy formally proposed, adopted, or implemented as supported by USG assistance) and Indicator 5 (Projected GHG emissions reduced or avoided through 2030 from adopted laws, policies, regulations, or technologies related to clean energy as supported by USG assistance) through an increase in projected GHG emissions reduction from higher DPV adoption.

Sub-task 2.1.3: Accelerate RE policy development in Vietnam (in cooperation with USAID V-LEEP)

Curtailment risks and grid integration limitations remain the primary challenges for the growth of solar PV in Vietnam despite an attractive FIT program announced under Decision 11 which provides incentives for solar PV development. With expiration of the current FIT in June 2019, EREA of MOIT expressed interest in addressing the technical challenges through the application of energy storage systems (ESS) and potential incorporation of additional incentives for ESS in a new decision expected to replace Decision 11. Accordingly, MOIT requested USAID V-LEEP to conduct an analysis for utility- scale solar PV energy storage systems (the ESS analysis) as input to a new decision for solar PV incentives.

Through a collaboration with USAID V-LEEP, program staff, NREL, and subcontractor Chulalongkorn University identified the scope of the ESS analysis for MOIT in FY19Q1. After several rounds of technical discussion, the scope of the ESS analysis mainly focused on the rationale for ESS applications and viable incentives for solar PV plus ESS implementation. While USAID Clean Power Asia contributed to the technical analysis of ESS applications in addressing grid congestion and quantifiable benefits at the system level, NREL incorporated input from technical analysis to conduct economic analysis for ESS applications and provided policy recommendations on potential compensation schemes for ESS solar PV projects. In addition, Tesla supported the ESS analysis by providing the configurations and use cases that are already commercially available.

In FY19Q2, program staff collaborated with partners on data collection, the methodology framework, and analysis scenarios for both the technical and economic analyses. Program staff continued to work closely with Chulalongkorn University and NREL to conduct a technical analysis through simulations and optimizations of the distribution model constructed from collected data to complete the analysis during FY19Q3.

USAID V-LEEP consolidated all ESS chapters and submitted the final draft Technical Report: Energy Storage System Study7 to EREA in FY19Q3. The study assessed the application of a battery ESS on current grid congestion and curtailment issues in the selected representative provinces of Ninh Thuan

7 The Technical Report: Energy Storage System Study contains 4 chapters with USAID V-LEEP responsible for Chapter 1 – 3 and USAID Clean Power Asia and NREL were responsible for Chapter 4 Techno-Economic Assessment of Battery Energy Storage Systems in Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan which comprised the technical (conducted by USAID Clean Power Asia program staff and Chula) and economic (conducted by NREL) analysis.

29 and Binh Thuan with many existing and upcoming solar projects in the pipeline. EREA anticipated using the results from the study to consider whether and how to incentivize co-location of battery ESSs with solar PV during their consideration of the appropriate FIT for solar plus ESS projects under a new draft decision to further promote solar PV development in Vietnam after the expiration of Decision 11.

Looking forward, program staff will work closely with USAID V-LEEP to incorporate feedback on the study received during FY19Q4 and follow up on the impact of the ESS study on a new draft decision replacing Decision 11 for solar PV development. In addition, the program will leverage the expertise and experience in Vietnam and provide lessons learned and knowledge sharing to other Southeast Asian countries through a regional energy storage workshop in FY20Q1.

Activities under this sub-task are expected to result in proposed incentives for solar plus ESS projects under a new draft decision for solar PV development in Vietnam. However, from the recommendations indicated in the study, EREA decided that further analysis on ESS application is required to ensure proper incentives are determined, and the FIT incentives listed in the initial draft decision were removed. Therefore, this activity will have a direct impact on Indicator 1 (Number of laws, policies, regulations, or standards addressing clean energy formally proposed, adopted, or implemented as supported by USG assistance).

Sub-task 2.2.1: Improve supporting regulations for VRE integration in Lao PDR

In parallel with the solar pilot auction in Lao PDR (under sub-task 2.1.1), program staff have been working with partners GGGI and HNEI on improving the regulatory environment to encourage greater and safer interconnection of VRE. This includes developing grid connection regulations (led by HNEI), technical standards (led by GGGI), and standard TORs for conducting RE feasibility studies (led by USAID Clean Power Asia). The technical standards and technical connection requirements have been developed as part of the solar pilot auction announcement package. The standard TORs for conducting feasibility studies are applicable to VRE projects beyond the pilot auction, namely large solar PV and wind farms and biomass, which will be key in scaling up investment in VRE.

Activity 1: Support the development of RE grid connection regulations in Lao PDR

In FY19Q4, program staff included the draft grid connection regulations for the solar pilot auction as Annex 16 of the draft auction announcement package, submitted to the WC for review ahead of the WC meeting on September 30, 2019. The WC reviewed and provided feedback on the draft auction package and annexes during this meeting, in preparation for finalization and submission to the Government of Lao PDR for approval.

In FY19Q2, program staff submitted to EDL the scope and timeline for developing technical connection requirements for solar projects. Program staff and HNEI subsequently met with EDL to discuss existing regulations and request data, which HNEI used to produce a first draft of technical connection requirements for the solar pilot auction. Program staff submitted the first draft to the technical sub- group and EDL and, following a series of meetings to discuss missing parameters, submitted the revised draft at the beginning of FY19Q3.

Looking forward, USAID Clean Power Asia and HNEI will work closely with EDL and IREP on developing the technical connection requirements for other solar projects (large solar farm and solar rooftop) in FY20.

Activity 2: Support the development of RE technical standards

GGGI has taken the lead on developing technical standards for the solar pilot auction with input from program staff and HNEI. Following a call in FY19Q2 between the three partners to establish the scope for the technical standards, GGGI shared a draft set of standards with program staff and HNEI in FY19Q3. After incorporating feedback from policy staff and HNEI, program staff included the latest draft technical standards in the draft auction announcement package as Annex 15, and submitted to the WC at the end of FY19Q4 in September 2019.

Looking forward, USAID Clean Power Asia and potential partner(s) will work closely with EDL and IREP on developing the technical standards for wind and biomass starting in FY20.

Activity 3: Develop standard terms of reference for conducting RE feasibility studies

Program staff received a request from IREP to develop five standard TORs for conducting RE feasibility studies (FS): i) pre-FS for solar projects participating in the solar pilot auction; ii) FS for solar projects participating in the solar pilot auction; iii) FS for general solar projects (not limited to the solar pilot auction); iv) FS for wind projects; and v) FS for biomass projects. The first two standard TORs—pre-FS and FS for solar projects in the solar pilot auction—were the highest priority as they would be used by bidders to complete their proposals in the solar pilot auction.

USAID Clean Power Asia engaged subcontractor Chulalongkorn University, working closely with IREP, to develop the standard TORs for FS, leveraging international standards and existing standard TORs for hydropower projects in Lao PDR. Program staff submitted the draft standard TORs for solar projects— including pre-FS and FS for the solar pilot auction and FS for general solar projects—to IREP in FY19Q4, and then submitted to IREP draft standard TORs for wind and biomass projects shortly thereafter.

OBJECTIVE 3: INCREASED DEPLOYMENT OF GRID-CONNECTED RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS

Under this objective, USAID Clean Power Asia program staff support private sector investment mobilization of grid-connected RE in the current regulatory environment. The main obstacle to RE investment in the program’s target countries remains the lack of bankable project structures, largely due to regulatory restrictions in power markets dominated by state-owned utilities. The program supports private sector stakeholders through the provision of tools (e.g., guidelines and financial models), capacity building on RE project finance to developers, lenders and investors, support to RE procurement by corporate energy consumers, as well as transaction advisory services to developers, investors and lenders.

At the end of Year 3, USAID Clean Power Asia had a portfolio of 26 project opportunities, with a total size of 703 MW and value of $950 million. Based on “likelihood to close” estimates, these opportunities would convert into 129 MW and $168 million respectively. The portfolio covers DPV,

31 floating solar, utility-scale solar, biomass, and wind, and the program’s support ranges from facilitating long-term financing for utility-scale and rooftop solar and supporting RFPs for DPV projects, to facilitating partnerships between developers and investors.

Figure 1 shows the pipeline of supported projects by technology and country as of September 30, 2019, distinguishing between projects that have closed and projects under development. Figure 1: Total Pipeline Deal Value (MW) Figure 1: Investmentby Country mobilization and Technologyportfolio by sub-task (in MW)

400 76.5 350 300 250 200 257.0 150 15.1 100 Deal Deal Value(MW) 22.0 10.7 50 38.2 0.1 - Thailand Solar Lao PDR Solar Vietnam Solar & Vietnam Solar (3.1.1) (3.1.2) Wind (3.1.3) rooftop (3.1.4)

Closed Value (MW) Forecasted Value (MW)

Sub-task 3.1.1: Increase deployment of distributed PV in Thailand

Activity 1: Promote existing tools

In FY19Q4, USAID Clean Power Asia launched a paid outreach campaign to promote the program’s tools and offerings in Thailand (and Vietnam, see Sub-task 3.1.4) and expand the portfolio for its transaction advisory services. The outreach campaign used the 20-second teaser videos previously published on YouTube with Thai subtitles, shown as ads targeted to a select audience based on a set of criteria, including location, age, audience type, and topics of interest. So far, the ads have been viewed 44,170 times and led to meetings with two companies active in the Thai solar market that were previously unknown to program staff, but the program’s services were not in line with their needs. In FY20, the program will evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign so far and decide whether to continue.

In Year 2, program staff launched the Renewable Energy Guidelines on Solar PV Rooftop Implementation: Thailand, developed in collaboration with GIZ and available on the program website. Since then, the guidelines have been downloaded 509 times. During Year 3, program staff conducted a follow-up survey among downloaders of the guidelines to gauge the usefulness and application of the guidelines, which resulted in a total of 11 responses from a variety of entities.

Program staff initially planned a half-day event on DPV in Thailand to promote DPV and the program’s tools and services, but due to funding issues, postponed the event. Subsequently, in light of the absence of a net-metering policy and limited market opportunities for rooftop solar in Thailand, program staff reprogrammed the budget allocated to this event to co-sponsor the Finance Workshop at the Vietnam Wind Power 2019 Conference (see sub-task 3.1.3).

Activity 2: Support commercial and industrial companies

USAID Clean Power Asia has been supporting Blue Solar Co. Ltd. in the evaluation of technology options and accessing financing for its hybrid solar + storage project. In 2017, the company won the right to develop the project under Thailand’s SPP Hybrid Firm auction that solicited proposals for RE projects delivering firm power during peak hours. Out of 17 winning bids, Blue Solar’s project is the only project combining solar and battery storage technology. The project committed to a firm capacity of 12 MW, to be delivered by a configuration of 36 MW of solar and 54 MWh of battery storage. The project must begin commercial operation by December 31, 2021. In FY19Q4, the company received a $553,000 grant from USTDA to conduct the feasibility study for the project, which will assess the technical, financial, and other key elements of the project and provide the necessary analysis, designs, and documentation required for financing and implementation. The study will also help Blue Solar to evaluate U.S. solar and energy storage technology options for the project. Going forward, program staff will continue to support the company in further development of the project.

In Year 3, the Thai regulatory environment for RE saw no changes and the market continued to be limited to onsite rooftop solar for self-consumption, without the ability to sell excess power to the grid. Program staff engaged with multiple companies in Thailand to promote its tools and services for rooftop solar, and identify opportunities to support these companies in their activities. These include both potential corporate buyers of DPV and solar service providers active in the DPV market. Program staff learned that the current solar rooftop market is highly competitive, with discounts of up to 40% on the retail tariff. Most major retailers with multiple stores and locations have already installed rooftop systems or concluded deals with solar service providers. Program staff provided support to several companies in exploring the potential for rooftop solar at their facilities, but due to procurement restrictions that preclude long-term PPAs with solar developers and other investment priorities for the companies, these projects did not move forward.

During Year 2, program staff worked closely with Big C and Thai Union to support them in the development of a portfolio of rooftop solar projects at their facilities. Big C implemented the first projects during Year 2, and in Year 3, the company completed the third phase of its solar rooftop program, adding four projects to the portfolio with a combined capacity of 3.6 MW. This brings the total capacity that has achieved financial closure and the amount of investment mobilized with support from USAID Clean Power Asia to 30.6 MW and $44.7 million respectively. With regards to Thai Union, during Year 3 the company completed the first six projects with a total capacity of 7.6 MW at various locations across Thailand.

In addition to rooftop solar, program staff explored the potential for floating solar in the commercial and industrial sector. There is a growing market for floating market at facilities with a pond or reservoir. Program staff engaged with Siam Cement Group (SCG), which markets pontoons for floating

33 solar. SCG has a pool of customers interested in a private PPA-based installation, but the company has no interest in pursuing such a business model. Therefore, investment mobilization staff facilitated interactions with a number of solar service providers that offer private PPAs for solar rooftop installations and, looking forward to FY20, will continue to support ongoing discussions in the hopes that a partnership with SCG can be facilitated, as well support the negotiations and structuring of projects under such a partnership.

Sub-task 3.1.2: Support Lao PDR in piloting a solar PV farm through an auction

Activity 1: Calculate the reference price

Finalization of the auction design is a necessary precondition for establishing the reference price. In FY19Q4, the investment mobilization team further refined the methodology and assumptions for calculating the reference price. Staff also participated in meetings of the Working Committee overseeing the design of the auction and proposed the initial reference price along with the assumptions used for the price calculation.

In addition, staff briefed the Working Committee on factors that strongly affect the bid prices to be expected in the auction. Besides project costs, these include country, sector, and project-specific risks. One of the major risks for this auction is off-taker risk, with EDL as the sole electricity buyer in Lao PDR. In contrast to neighboring countries and utilities, Lao PDR and EDL do not have a credit rating, so developers may have low confidence in EDL’s ability to pay for electricity delivered. This could result in high bidding tariffs to compensate for the risk of curtailment or non-payment or even a decision by bidders not to participate in the auction altogether.

The Working Committee indicated its understanding of the factors affecting the reference price and accepted the methodology proposed by program staff to determine the reference price. Once the auction design has been completed, the team will finalize the analysis and propose the final reference price to the Working Committee.

Activity 2: Produce a bankable standard PPA

In FY19Q4, program staff issued an RFP for the preparation of three standard legal documents that are part of the legally binding documentation required for the solar pilot auction design and implementation, including the project development agreement (PDA), concession agreement (CA), and power purchase agreement (PPA). USAID Clean Power Asia engaged the legal firm DFDL to undertake the drafting of these legal documents. Under the scope of work, the legal counsel is reviewing Lao PDR’s laws, regulations, and policies relevant to the solar auction to support the preparation of the three documents.

At the end of September, DFDL submitted the first drafts of the PDA and CA. Staff reviewed these and shared them with the Working Committee and received feedback during the WC meeting on September 30. Program staff will provide all the feedback to DFDL to be incorporated into the next drafts, due in FY20Q1.

Activity 3: Support the implementation of the solar auction

This activity has included preparation for implementation. However, the actual auction implementation cannot proceed until government approval of the auction. During FY19Q4, investment mobilization staff worked with RE policy staff in the development of the draft action announcement package, which describes the process and criteria for the auction, to be made available to potential bidders after the approval and launch of the auction.

Among other documentation, the package includes the bidding proposal template, bidding checklist, guidelines for pre-feasibility study and full feasibility study, price proposal template, and bid winner announcement template, as well as the three standard legal documents under Activity 2 (PDA, CA, PPA).

Sub-task 3.1.3: Increase deployment of solar and wind farms in Vietnam

Activity 1: Promote existing tools

Program staff finalized and published Bankability Guidelines for Utility-Scale Solar Projects in Vietnam and an accompanying financial model on the program’s website. The guidelines provide an overview of bankability aspects of solar projects in Vietnam, with the aim to support developers to improve the bankability of their projects, and assist lenders and investors in the evaluation of potential opportunities. The financial model is provided as a tool for evaluating utility-scale solar projects in Vietnam, allowing users to conduct a preliminary assessment of a project’s ability to service the debt and to analyze the most critical factors that impact profitability and bankability of a solar project. At the end of FY19Q4, the guidelines had been downloaded 214 times and program staff has received feedback from multiple developers and investors indicating the guidelines have been useful in understanding the market situation and opportunities.

Activity 2: Support developers, investors and banks

Program staff successfully supported B.Grimm Power in identifying and finalizing a financing structure for its 257 MW solar project in Vietnam, jointly developed with its local partner TTVN Group in Phu Yen province. The project is being financed with a combination of vendor finance and equity from both partners. With support from program staff, B.Grimm Power explored several possible alternatives to unlock the full amount of vendor financing for the entire project size. Discussions by program staff with several banks, RE developers, private equity funds, and investors allowed the partners to identify the most suitable financing structure, thus enabling the project to be built

35 according to the entire planned capacity of 257 MW and to be completed by the deadline of June 30, as set by the Vietnamese regulator. The project achieved a commercial operation date (COD) in FY19Q3, well ahead of the June 30 deadline to be eligible for the FIT of USD 0.0935 per kWh, and it is now supplying power to Vietnam Electricity (EVN) under a 20-year Investment mobilization program staff delivered training in January to PPA. a bank in Vietnam on the fundamentals of financing solar projects in the country. (Photo credit: Joost Siteur/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) Program staff participated in workshops for two local banks, entitled Fundamentals of Financing Solar PV Projects in Vietnam, facilitated by USAID V-LEEP, held in January for the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and in May for the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV). At each workshop, program staff delivered the afternoon session on project finance and financial modeling for solar PV projects. The sessions started with a presentation on project finance characteristics, cash flow analysis for utility-scale solar farms, and critical success factors in lending to solar projects, followed by a demonstration of a typical financial model used by banks to analyze cash flow projections for solar projects. Lastly, workshop participants worked on a case study and financial modeling exercise that allowed them to gain hands-on experience in analyzing a solar project. There were a total of 116 bank staff (41 women/75 men) who attended the workshops.

Program staff have been supporting a Singapore-based solar investment platform in the development and investment of two solar projects in Vietnam, with a combined capacity of 58 MW. The platform is seeking long-term financing and equity partners for the projects. Program staff facilitated discussions with a Thailand-based international investor and a Thai bank, who have expressed USAID Clean Power Asia investment mobilization staff attended a training session facilitated by USAID V-LEEP at a BIDV training center in Hanoi in May. initial interest to invest and finance (Photo credit: USAID V-LEEP) the projects, and this support led to the signing of an MOU between the platform and the investor for a potential partnership and co-investment in the projects. In addition, the bank issued an indicative term sheet for long-term debt financing for the projects. In FY20, program staff will continue to support the potential partners in due diligence and negotiations.

During Year 3, USAID Clean Power Asia placed a greater emphasis on wind power in Vietnam, considering the prospects for project development and regulatory changes launched at the end of 2018 which make investment in wind more attractive, such as the increased FIT and improvements in

36 the standard PPA. Investment mobilization staff engaged with multiple companies with an interest in developing wind projects in Vietnam, ranging from local developers seeking investors to international investors looking for project opportunities, and the program provided transaction advisory services to several of these. Among others, program staff supported a developer of a 155 MW wind farm in southern Vietnam in identifying a potential partner and investor for the project, and introduced the project to various investors.

In partnership with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), USAID Clean Power Asia conducted a training session on financing wind power projects during the Finance Workshop on the first day of the Vietnam Wind Power 2019 Conference, held in Hanoi in FY19Q3. The program co-sponsored the Finance Workshop, which gathered experts to discuss how the industry could overcome project financing Participants at the Vietnam Wind Power 2019 Conference work together challenges in Vietnam’s wind market. The in a training session on financing wind power projects. (Photo credit: Joost Siteur/Abt Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) training session had 54 participants (37 men/17 women) and followed a format similar to the solar training workshops for local banks, including a presentation on project finance characteristics, cash flow analysis for wind power projects, and critical success factors in lending to wind projects, a demonstration of a financial model, followed by a case study and financial modeling exercise, in which participants assessed key risks of a potential wind project. Program staff also attended the main conference, attended by more than 200 participants. During the workshop and conference, program staff engaged with multiple developers, investors and lenders, and identified several opportunities to provide support to investment and financing activities.

Program staff also envisioned support to the development of projects under the pending pilot for the direct power purchase agreement (DPPA) mechanism in Vietnam. USAID V-LEEP and MOIT are finalizing the pilot, which was initially expected to be launched at the end of 2018. However, due to lengthy preparations for the final design of the mechanism, the approval and launch of the pilot has been delayed and is now expected to take place in FY20.

Sub-task 3.1.4: Increase deployment of distributed PV in Vietnam

Activity 1: Promote existing tools

Similar to the outreach campaign for DPV in Thailand (see sub-task 3.1.1), program staff launched a brief trial run of the outreach campaign for DPV investment opportunities in Vietnam, using the 20- second teaser video previously published on YouTube with Vietnamese subtitles. The outreach campaign intended to target manufacturing companies in Vietnam interested in DPV investments, based on a set of criteria, including location, age, audience type and topics of interest. In FY20, the program will launch another paid outreach campaign for Vietnam that will run longer and will then evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign and decide whether to repeat it.

Activity 2: Support commercial and industrial companies, investors, and banks

In Year 2, USAID Clean Power Asia formed a partnership with the USAID-supported Clean Energy Investment Accelerator (CEIA), jointly led by Allotrope Partners, WRI, and NREL, in order to support commercial businesses in the procurement process for solar PV rooftop projects in Vietnam. During Year 3, USAID Clean Power Asia and the CEIA jointly supported a number of businesses to implement DPV at commercial and industrial facilities, including Amata, Heineken, and Unilever.

With support from the partnership, Amata issued an RFP at the end of 2018 to solicit proposals for a solar system at its office premises at the Amata City Bien Hoa industrial estate in Dong Nai province. The company selected SolarBK for the 104 kW system, which was installed and commissioned in August. Heineken issued an RFP for an initial system at one of its facilities, and selected Macquarie Capital for the installation and operation of the 3 MW system, expecting the contract to be signed in FY20Q1. Unilever Vietnam also issued an RFP, and received proposals from both local and international developers. Subsequently, due to internal procurement requirements, Unilever sought a lease structure with a maximum of five years, but may consider 10-year arrangements. Due to staff changes at Unilever, the evaluation of the proposals and decision-making process was put on hold for several months.

During the course of the year, program staff learned that focusing on procurement for commercial and industrial facilities is an ineffective approach to support DPV development in Vietnam and achieve program targets, largely due to small project sizes and procurement criteria that complicate the process. Therefore, in FY20, USAID Clean Power Asia plans to spend less effort on DPV in Vietnam but program staff will follow up with the projects supported so far so as to track their progress.

Sub-task 3.1.5: Regional workshop to promote investment through the ASEAN RE Data Explorer platform

Under Objective 1, program staff have been collaborating with NREL and ACE to create the SE Asia RE Data Explorer platform to facilitate analysis of technical and economic potential and promote investment in RE power plants. In order to promote the tool among the private sector, program staff coordinated with NREL, USAID, and PFAN to identify the most appropriate venue for the launch of the tool, and decided on the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF), held in FY19Q3 at ADB’s headquarters in Manila.

The event was held during ACEF as a deep-dive workshop entitled Utility-Scale Renewables: Challenges in Developing Solar and Wind Energy Projects. Jointly organized with PFAN, ADB’s Environmental Thematic Group, NREL, and ACE, the workshop focused on challenges in the development of utility-scale wind energy and solar PV projects through a deep examination of the range of challenges faced by project developers, investors, and governments. There were a total of 202 participants (125 men/77 women) who attended the deep-dive workshop.

The workshop consisted of three main sessions, as follows:

1. Setting the scene - Opportunities and barriers: The session presented first-of-their-kind results of a spatial LCOE analysis across Southeast Asia and launched the Cost of Energy Mapping Tool within the Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer, which provides RE data, analytical tools, and technical assistance to developers, policymakers, and decision-makers in the region. This was followed by an audience poll and a presentation of a recent survey among private sector stakeholders, which both highlighted that policy and regulations are considered a major barrier in project development.

2. Stakeholder perspectives: This session consisted of two 45-minute panel discussions highlighting the perspectives, challenges, and lessons offered by four groups of stakeholders: (a) project developers; (b) investors and lenders (c) government and utilities; and (d) international donor agencies supporting renewable energy development in Asia. PFAN facilitated Dana Kenney, Chief of Party for USAID Clean Power Asia, moderates a panel discussion at an ACEF deep-dive workshop on challenges to a panel focused on private sector utility-scale solar and wind projects. (Photo credit: Joost Siteur/Abt perspectives on major challenges to Associates/USAID Clean Power Asia) project development, addressing financing, regulations, permitting, and land issues. Subsequently, USAID Clean Power Asia’s COP moderated a panel discussion with government, utility, and donor representatives, including panelists from the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), ADB’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Malaysia’s Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

3. Deep-dive case studies: In the afternoon, five case studies were presented that highlighted specific experiences in developing grid-connected renewable energy, covering wind power development in Bangladesh, utility-scale solar in Vietnam, environmental challenges such as the protection of migratory birds at wind farms, and the design and implementation of renewable energy auctions in Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

Jointly with PFAN and NREL, program staff produced a summary report of the workshop, documenting the main topics discussed and key takeaways, and published it to the program website.

2.3 Implementation Challenges

A highly technical regional development program will always present operational or implementation challenges. The FY18 annual report examined those challenges faced and overcome by Abt Associates and USAID Clean Power Asia. The USAID Clean Power Asia team remains highly motivated to achieve program objectives and to collaboratively dedicate themselves to resolving challenges before they become disruptive. During FY19, a new set of implementation challenges arose because of the delay in

39 receiving incremental funding and, to a lesser extent, the U.S. government shutdown in FY19Q2. The impact of these constraints was several activities falling behind the planned completion dates. Once the program received funding, program staff worked closely with USAID to mitigate these delays to the greatest extent possible in the final two quarters of the year.

During FY19, progress continued in two of the program’s target countries, Lao PDR and Vietnam, as well as for the DPV activity in the Philippines. Program staff and partners also launched major Southeast Asia-wide initiatives including AIMS III. However, a lapse in available funding, as well as the U.S. government shutdown over a month spanning FY19Q1 and Q2, caused program staff to work closely alongside USAID to pause and/or postpone several activities until additional funding became available.

Activities postponed due to the funding shortage were spread across the program, including the IRRP and RE zones (Task 1); solar pilot auction in Lao PDR (Tasks 2 and 3); launch of outreach supporting investment mobilization activities in Thailand and Vietnam (Task 3); finalizing a subcontract with ACE to support regional activities, including AIMS III (Task 1); and the launch of the REChampions program (Task 4). The U.S. government shutdown resulted in USAID staff being furloughed and therefore holding up approvals and guidance on program activities, especially for cooperating partner NREL. The main activities impacted were the Lao PDR resilience action plan and promotion of the RE Data Explorer tool for RE planning, including the new cost of energy mapping tool. For the DPV and ESS analyses in the Philippines and Vietnam, delays in obtaining the required data subsequently delayed finalization of the studies, though by only a few weeks.

In Lao PDR, while awaiting funding, program staff put on hold or proceeded more slowly than planned with several activities, including the IRRP supply planning, resilience action planning, and solar pilot auction design. However, program staff were able to gear up quickly to resume activities immediately at the beginning of FY19Q3. The IRRP supply planning (Phase C) began in earnest; RE planning staff held the final power sector resilience action planning stakeholder workshop; program staff and partners agreed upon the process for determining commercial interest in candidate RE zones and generation clusters; and stakeholders finalized decisions regarding the solar pilot auction design. However, because of fewer resources being devoted to these activities than planned during FY19Q2, all activities and deliverables were delayed by several months compared to the original plan.

Fortunately, except for slight delays in receiving government feedback on the policy and regulatory analyses in Vietnam and the Philippines (BESS and DPV in Vietnam; DPV in the Philippines), finalization of these analyses and associated deliverables were able to keep pace. Program staff completed all associated deliverables during FY19Q3.

Lastly, senior management had delayed the initialization of the Clean Energy Windows of Opportunity Fund (CEWOOF) since the beginning of the fiscal year. However, program staff developed the framework for CEWOOF during FY19Q3, which the COR approved, along with two activities approved for implementation, as described under CEWOOF.

Finalizing Program Framework Agreements for Lao PDR

During FY19, program staff developed a broad “program framework” that outlines the basic operational parameters of USAID Clean Power Asia in both Cambodia and Lao PDR. Collaboratively developed and refined with MEM, the framework provided an opportunity to formally agree on planned interventions and the respective ministries or bodies to be the counterpart and champion of USAID Clean Power Asia. The agreement outlined the basic operational parameters of USAID Clean Power Asia as well as the technical focus areas, which were collaboratively developed and refined with MEM. This provided an opportunity to formally agree on planned interventions.

Program staff drafted a summary of the Lao PDR specific activities in FY19 as well as the regional activities in which they will participate. Though all activities implemented in FY19 were agreed upon with Lao PDR during the work planning process, per the requirements in the approved framework agreement, program staff drafted for review a summary of the Lao PDR-specific activities this year, as well as the regional activities in which they will participate. Program staff shared this summary with USAID and MEM; since MEM had not specifically requested an update of the agreement, as well as other issues related to funding, the amendment was put on hold. Fortunately, the Lao government continues to engage in all assistance workstreams, including the power sector VA/resilience action plan, the IRRP and RE zones activity, and the solar pilot auction. Program staff will incorporate the FY19 activities when updating the framework in FY20.

Lao PDR Inter-Ministerial Working Committee Finalizing Auction Design and Preparing for Implementation

When IREP became the counterpart for the solar auction pilot in FY18, program staff held a design workshop immediately thereafter. It was clear during this workshop that many decisions would require the involvement of higher level representatives from MEM and other ministries. Following the completion of the draft design report, the Minister of Energy requested, and received approval, to establish an inter-ministerial working committee (WC) to finalize the design of the solar auction and oversee the implementation process. The establishment of this committee was a long process, and required program staff becoming thoroughly familiar with the requirements for official approval of the auction, and working out a draft timeline for the auction in great detail.

With the WC finally established in FY19Q1, IREP recognized the need to educate the WC on auctions in general and the specifics related to the Lao PDR auction. IREP also required following up with other agencies to clarify Lao-specific procedures that were required to finalize the design and implementation procedures. Program staff held several meetings with the WC during FY19, and at the last WC meeting in FY19Q4, they discussed the draft auction package, including implementation procedures, which will be submitted to the government for approval. At this meeting, the WC made a decision to go forward with a government-sited auction, requiring changes in the auction implementation package. This decision resulted from the thorough discussions over the year to clarify the impact of the auction design on potential bidders. A government-sited auction, where the government provides the land, requires completion of the site assessment. During the process of completing the site assessment, it became clear that meetings with provincial governments will be required to verify land available and to obtain Provincial governments’ approval to use the land for solar projects.

IREP had committed early in the process to implementing the auction no later than the first quarter of 2020. However, as of the end of FY19, the schedule envisions completing the auction implementation by FY20Q4.

Lao PDR Resilience Action Plan

Program staff held the resilience action plan stakeholder workshop in FY19Q1, with the draft resilience action plan completed by the end of December. Due to the U.S. government shutdown, USAID was not able to provide comments on the draft action plan and send the final draft sent to the VA Advisory Group until FY19Q2. This, combined with schedules of government counterparts and of NREL experts, necessitated moving the VA Advisory Group meeting from FY19Q2 to FY19Q3.

Lao PDR IRRP and RE Zones

Workshops held in FY19Q2 included an RE zones workshop focused on reviewing updated analyses, and a 4½ day capacity building workshop focused on reviewing the finalized demand model (Phase B of the IRRP capacity building activity) and the beginning of Phase C supply planning by developing the baseline supply model. Due to a delay in receiving incremental funding, Abt Associates asked subcontractor SEI to pause their work on Phase C. During this time, SEI had made commitments to other work; thus SEI was only able to restart the supply planning and RE Zones activities towards the end of FY19Q3. Therefore, the completion of the IRRP and RE zones work was postponed by four months, to FY20Q2.

Promotion of the Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer Platform and Cost of Energy Mapping Tool

Abt Associates and its subcontractor ACE gathered feedback on the beta version of the SE Asia RE Data Explorer Platform and the cost of energy mapping tool in FY19Q1 and shared it with NREL. Due to the U.S. government shutdown, NREL paused the finalization of the new tool, and received the required USAID guidance after the shutdown lifted in the beginning of FY19Q2. The expected date of finalizing the tool was moved to FY19Q3, with activities to promote its use at side meetings alongside planned ASEAN meetings compressed into a shorter time period due to the Senior Officials Meeting on Energy (SOME) meeting held in FY19Q4, i.e., from the original period of January to July to the revised period from May to July 2019.

2.4 Performance Management Plan Update

Program M&E System

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan

In August 2019, Abt Associates’ new DCOP joined the team. Shortly after the DCOP was on board, both the DCOP and COP completed a final review of the second MEL plan, incorporating input from previous conversations with USAID on MEL targets before sending it to Khun Supattira Rodboontham, Program Management and Operation Team Lead, Regional Environment Office, for her feedback. Khun Supattira provided further comments on the final draft. On September 3, USAID Clean Power

Asia submitted the revised MEL plan to the COR for approval. Abt Associates looks forward to receiving approval of the revised MEL plan, anticipated in FY20Q1. Anticipating its approval early in FY20Q1, Section 1.2, Summary of Results to Date, reports progress against anticipated revised targets and indicators.

Routine Program Monitoring, Reporting and Data Quality Assessment

The MEL Specialist regularly collected and stored data in the internal database, and regularly reviewed the database to assess data quality and completeness and shared updates with program staff during technical meetings. Consistent with internal procedures to assure Data Quality, the MEL Specialist and the DCOP verified and assessed the data soon after submittal. The MEL Specialist systematically stored all supporting documents on Abt’s network drive and backed up all data. Based on the data quality assessment, some data that was reported in past quarters was updated in this annual report.

Data Collection Tool

In relation to an achievement against indicator #12 (Number of people using climate change information or implementing risk-reduction actions to improve resilience to climate change as supported by USG assistance [EG.11-6]), staff from the Task 1 Team and the MEL Specialist designed an online survey using Google Forms to collect data for reporting progress against this indicator. The purpose of this survey was to track the number of people who have used information from the report, A Comprehensive Vulnerability Assessment of the Lao PDR Power Sector, and/or have implemented the Power Sector Resilience Action Plan for Lao PDR which are outputs from the two following workshops: 1) Workshop on Engaging Stakeholders in Developing a Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector (November 2018) and 2) Forum on the Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector (May 2019). The report tracks both numbers of people who have used the information and implemented the action plan, and also tracks type of information used, purpose of use of information, the type of action plan they have implemented and success stories, all of which will be organized and summarized in upcoming reports as and used for improving the program.

Learning

Per the learning component in the second MEL plan, the MEL Specialist developed a draft plan to collect relevant data to respond to the three learning questions. A more detailed plan is in progress, and, once completed, the data collection tool and collection protocol will be developed if appropriate, and data collection will be conducted for some of the program’s activities.

Reporting CPA contribution to Asia EDGE Accomplishments

In mid-August, RDMA requested that Abt Associates report on USAID Clean Power Asia’s contribution to Asia EDGE accomplishments in Year 1 which requires data between July 31, 2018 and July 31, 2019. Program indicators reported include 1) # of laws, policies, regulations or standards to enhance energy sector governance and/or address CE formally proposed, adopted or implemented as supported by USG assistance; 2) amount of investment mobilized in USD for energy projects as

43 supported by USG assistance; 3) Generation capacity installed as support by USG assistance; and 4) Generation capacity (MW) supported by USG assistance that has achieved financial closure.

2.5 Communications

At the beginning of FY19Q4, a new Communications Specialist joined USAID Clean Power Asia and has taken over all aspects of communications and outreach for the program, including regular weekly, biweekly, and monthly internal and external communications tasks. Throughout Year 3, program staff maintained the website which attracts an average of 1,000 visitors per month; distributed a monthly newsletter with almost 3,000 subscribers; produced a suite of collateral with infographics about program activities; published two success stories with a third currently in approval process; and utilized various outreach channels to share program successes with as wide an audience as possible.

Communication and outreach successes and milestones in FY19Q4 included continued use of the program website to deliver news and resources; exploring and continuing outreach efforts across multiple channels, including a paid outreach campaign on YouTube and a new REChampions Facebook group to promote sustainability in RE; and finalizing a FY19 success story with a photo shoot and video interview. Communications staff are also planning for production of materials for upcoming program events and updating program factsheets.

Website

The USAID Clean Power Asia program website is an easily accessible portal optimized for laptop, tablets, and mobile phones, and is used to communicate program messages and materials to a large and diverse audience. The website has been a valuable channel to disseminate program news and information and to host reports and other resources for download. Each of the four main task areas has a specific page on the website, where the text from the monthly REbrief newsletter is published each month so as to entice visitors to spend longer on the website and increase retention rates. For FY19, from October 2018 to September 2019, there have been almost 30,000 page views from nearly 8,700 users. More than half of users (53.8%) are women, and people aged 25-34 years are the most frequent users, followed by people aged 35-44 and 45-54, respectively.

The resources published on the USAID Clean Power Asia program website in FY19Q4 include: Regulatory Incentives to Promote RE Investment; Training Workshop on Cash Flow Analysis, Risk Assessment and Financial Modeling for Wind Power Projects; and Deep-Dive Workshop on Utility- Scale Renewables: Challenges in Developing Solar and Wind Energy Projects.

Outreach

Program outreach continued across various channels during this year, including the monthly e-newsletter REbrief, emailed to almost 3,000 subscribers on the last day of the month; a weekly news digest of the top energy and climate news from the week, emailed to 50 subscribers every Wednesday; and biweekly program updates to the RDMA Front Office.

The REbrief newsletter contains bite-sized news and views about renewable energy and program events, activities, and publications. Each edition contains a 100-word update on program tasks, as well as sections to highlight newly published materials to the website and a selection of the top stories published on the website during the month. Subscribers to the monthly newsletter increased by 61% from October 2018 to August 2019, to over 2,500 subscribers, with open rates increasing to 37.7% and click rates increasing to 4.7%. Both open and click rates continue to be higher than the industry average of 18% and 1.8%, respectively, and with unsubscribes continuing to run low.

A second effective outreach channel continues to be the weekly news digest of 8-10 curated energy and climate news articles, and the Communications Specialist continues to submit biweekly program updates to the RDMA Front Office every other Tuesday.

In FY19Q4, communications staff created an REChampions Facebook group as an additional communication channel to engage with leaders in renewable energy in order to strengthen collaboration in RE within the region. The Communications Specialist developed and delivered Certificates of Recognition to the inaugural group of 37 champions followed by relevant posts to continuously engage with the group. Future activities to engage with the REChampions are in discussion for the next fiscal year.

The Communications Specialist also explored opportunities to engage with journalists to raise program awareness to the public and U.S. and Thai officials celebrate their long history of development promote the program’s advisory services for cooperation at the 5th TICA Connect event at Central World in Bangkok. (Photo credit: Richard Nyberg/USAID Regional Development rooftop solar investment to government and Mission for Asia) private sector stakeholders. One successful media opportunity is an offer of free media space in the Thought Leaders column in Forbes Thailand, a monthly business magazine. Program staff developed an article about RE trends in the region including Thailand, USAID Clean Power Asia’s mission and vision, the role of the USAID Clean Power Asia program in promoting the uptake of RE across the region, and our financial advisory services for RE investment. Approval and clearance from USAID is pending, and the proposed article is to be published in Forbes Thailand’s December issue.

Events

Throughout the fiscal year, there were a number of successfully launched events. Some major events include USAID-TICA Connect in FY19Q1; the Lao PDR IRRP Mission #4: RE Zones Update in FY19Q2; a Forum on the Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Action Plan for the Lao PDR Power Sector; Training on Cash Flow Analysis, Risk Assessment, and Financial Modeling for Wind Power Projects in Vietnam; the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study III Preliminary Meeting; and a Deep-Dive Workshop at ACEF on Utility-Scale Renewables: Challenges in Developing Solar and Wind Energy Projects in FY19Q3.

For each event, communications staff provide a full suite of workshop materials, including participant nametags, name tent cards, agenda, backdrop, evaluation forms, sign-in sheets, and certificates of appreciation or participation, ensuring that all materials are error-free and conformed to proper USAID branding and marking. After an event, communications staff creates an event page on the website with a selection of photos and with all presentations for participants to download, and also follows up with all attendees with an email directing them to the event page and ensuring they had a fruitful experience and offering the opportunity to provide any additional feedback.

At the end of FY19Q4, communication staff are working with technical staff and RDMA communication staff in preparation for two upcoming major regional events in Bangkok, including Regional Storage Workshop from October 28-30, and the Asia EDGE Competitive Procurement Dialogue from November 18-20, 2019.

Videos

In order to extend the reach of videos published on YouTube since May 2018 that aimed to promote the USAID Clean Power Asia program and seek additional transaction advisory clients in Thailand and Vietnam for rooftop solar investment, communications staff launched a paid outreach campaign on YouTube in FY19Q4. Budget was allocated to the outreach campaign for Thailand and Vietnam, which targeted manufacturing companies in Thailand and Vietnam that might be interested in DPV investments, and reached a select audience based on a variety of criteria, including location, age, audience type, and topics of interest.

For the three-week campaign for Thailand (July 4-26, 2019), the video had 44,170 views with 209,640 impressions, which resulted in two new contacts for our transaction advisory services.

For the Vietnam campaign which ran for one day (July 29, 2019), the video had 88,389 views with 357,041 impressions. For audiences in both Thailand and Vietnam, views of the video teaser mostly came from mobile devices, followed by computers, and tablets respectively. Male audiences had more views than female audiences, and the greatest number of views came from people aged 25-34 years. Additional outreach campaigns will be conducted in the first quarter of FY20.

Success story

In this past year, program staff published a second success story entitled Lowering Electricity Costs and Saving the Planet: How the Sun is Working for Big C, which details the successful partnership between USAID and Big C Supercenter on the installation of DPV systems on 33 Big C stores in Thailand at the beginning of FY19Q1. In FY19Q2, USAID Clean Power Asia investment mobilization staff successfully supported B.Grimm Power in identifying and finalizing a financing structure for its 257 MW solar farm in Vietnam, which led to a FY19 success story. At the beginning of FY19Q3, program staff interviewed the CEO of B.Grimm Power, Mrs. Preeyanart Soontornwata, as a good example of how women can find success in the energy sector, which served as the foundation for the program’s third success story.

In FY19Q4, the third success story entitled Unleashing the Power of Women in Energy: A B.Grimm Power Success was successfully developed and approved by USAID and B.Grimm Power. USAID Clean Power Asia staff also supported coordination between USAID and B.Grimm Power for a photo shoot of B.Grimm liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants and a video interview with the CEO of B.Grimm Power in Bangkok to promote USAID’s energy work in Southeast Asia as part of the U.S. Government’s Asia EDGE initiative, a whole-of-government effort aimed at supporting sustainable and secure energy markets across the Indo-Pacific region and leveling the playing field for private sector firms.

3. INTEGRATION OF CROSSCUTTING ISSUES AND USAID FORWARD PRIORITIES

The following addresses cross-cutting issues housed predominantly under Task 4. This section of this report contains information and updates on these issues. As with the core program tasks, management and staff frequently discuss progress in these areas with USAID and report here on significant milestones or outputs, if any.

3.1 Gender Equality

In FY19Q3, USAID Clean Power Asia launched its REChampions initiative by sponsoring speakers and participants, predominantly women, to attend the annual ACEF conference in Manila, from June 17- 21, 2019. The objective of the REChampions program is to create a community of RE professionals in the region, spanning public and private sectors, who can advocate for RE in their respective organizations and countries. Another facet of REChampions is to promote gender equality, which is why program staff issued a request for expressions of interest to women across the region working in RE. From these expressions of interest, program staff selected qualified candidates for sponsorship, and also supported additional women developing member country officials nominated by ADB. During ACEF, in addition to attending forum events, the REChampions became acquainted and participated in a discussion on women in RE, facilitated by USAID Clean Power Asia staff. Going forward, program staff will continue to engage the REChampions in events, webinars, and other knowledge exchange

48 activities that will not only promote the USAID Clean Power Asia program but renewable energy as a whole.

Reviewing Gender Work

The DCOP and MEL Specialist have worked together to integrate gender perspectives into the program activities as possible. By doing that, they reviewed earlier studies and the gender plan initially developed in FY17 in order to incorporate the findings and put the plan into action in program activities. As to next steps, the detailed plan for gender inclusion will be integrated into program activities in Year 4 and Year 5 with inputs drawn from technical staff, DCOP and MEL Specialist.

3.2 Environmental Compliance

USAID Clean Power Asia has an approved Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plan (EMMP). To date, all program activities are compliant with the EMMP, and no activities have required unplanned actions or exceptions for review.

3.3 Global Climate Change

The world’s population in the last 60 years has grown from 2.5 billion people to 7 billion people today. By 2050, that figure will grow by an additional 2 billion people—mostly in developing countries— increasing the growing demand for the planet’s resources, including fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal. Fossil fuels provide most of the world’s power, and the emissions of CO2 they produce to generate electricity directly exacerbate global climate change; changes that affect all human beings but disproportionately harm the poor in developing and middle-income countries.

USAID Clean Power Asia contributes to USAID’s overall objective of reducing the impacts of global climate change, specifically addressing the over-reliance on limited natural resources as a source of power. With funding designated as both “clean energy” and “climate change adaptation,” the program assists governments of the Lower Mekong in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change by promoting renewable and clean energy sources. Integrating more wind and solar power into national grids means fewer fossil fuels are burned, and less harmful CO2 emissions are released into the environment. The program supports the Energy Connect pillar of the US-ASEAN partnership by helping ASEAN member states strengthen their power sector planning, improve policy and regulatory frameworks, and facilitate mobilization of investment in renewable energy, thereby contributing to USAID’s overall approach to reducing the negative impacts of global climate change.

As of FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia was responsible for reducing or avoiding nearly 64,240 metric tons of CO2 equivalent of projected greenhouse gas emissions from direct assistance provided to the private sector. Our work with governments in designing and adopting enabling policies is expected to reduce GHG emissions by 3,589,462.5 through 2030.

3.4 Policy and Governance Support

Tasks 1 and 2 of the program focuses on improved policy and regulatory environments and planning actions associated with governance. Significant activities in this area have been ongoing and coordinated with tasks leads and subsequent programming to include studies on competitive procurement and incentives; cooperation with Chulalongkorn University on evaluation of DPV self-consumption policies in Thailand and the Philippines as well as evaluating the net metering policy in Vietnam; and research into policy issues in Lao PDR and Vietnam that continue to shape the program assistance offered in Year 3.

Engagements on policy work include support for planning and effective governance includes capacity building and technical assistance on solar policy and implementation of Lao PDR’s first solar pilot auction, and enhanced support for regulations governing variable renewable energy integration in Lao PDR; supporting economic and technical studies of distributed PV deployment in Southeast Asian countries; and supporting analyses in Vietnam of energy storage systems for utility scale solar PV policies.

Details on the policy and governance activities are provided in sections on Objectives 1 and 2 and not duplicated here.

3.5 Local Capacity Development

USAID Clean Power Asia supports the development of the individual and institutional capacity of counterparts in all countries where the program is active and in almost every planned event in its annual work plan. Whether an activity meets the USAID definition of training or is labeled a ‘workshop’ or ‘seminar,’ each of these highly organized events is designed to impart knowledge and information to participants and to improve their skills through the introduction of tools and technology that may be integrated into their individual and organizational work. Participants in these activities engage with leading scientists, policymakers, and thought leaders in renewable energy to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to quickly adopt and adapt proven models to their work.

To derive benefit from years of research and practical implementation, without having to repeat that process independently, requires a significant uptake by individuals where activities are designed to increase knowledge and skills and challenge conventional or politically-driven thought. USAID Clean Power Asia consciously takes these and many other factors into account when planning activities, particularly capacity development. How those have individually been prepared and executed is detailed further in Section 2.2. The M&E section of this report presents the impact of these activities.

3.6 Public Private Partnership and Global Development Alliance Impacts

USAID Clean Power Asia leverages a diverse range of established partnerships in extending the program’s impact across the region. These partnerships enable the program to optimize resources while spreading best practices for promoting the adoption of renewable energy technologies.

In Lao PDR, program staff are cooperating with GGGI and HNEI to develop regulations needed to support the pilot solar auction as well as future development of wind, solar, small hydro and biomass projects. Complementing USAID Clean Power Asia work on the legal documents, GGGI and HNEI supported development of grid codes, technical connection requirements and technical standards. Partnerships with GGGI and HNEI are being expanded, beginning with cooperation on the Philippines net metering Decision Circular stakeholder workshops.

In Vietnam, USAID Clean Power Asia’s partnerships with USAID V-LEEP and CEIA aim to advance progress towards the program’s development goals, though to-date, activities of not resulted in measurable impacts. The program is assisting USAID V-LEEP in responding to a request from EREA in Vietnam to conduct a comparative analysis of DPV policy in different countries. USAID Clean Power Asia is also working closely with USAID V-LEEP on a study covering energy storage for solar farms. The program also coordinates with USAID V-LEEP to support the private sector in mobilizing investment for solar and wind projects, and will jointly convene a workshop for SHB on financing solar farms in January 2019. USAID Clean Power Asia will also seek USAID V-LEEP’s assistance to promote the bankability guidelines for solar farms in Vietnam.

In partnership with CEIA, USAID Clean Power Asia is supporting industrial and commercial enterprises in Vietnam to implement rooftop solar projects. The partnership augments the program’s ability to help these companies, through CEIA’s technical expertise from its partner NREL, and its on-the-ground support complementing the program’s part-time consultant in Ho Chi Minh City.

To continually enhance the efficiency and increase the effectiveness of the program, USAID Clean Power Asia is developing additional partnerships to incorporate new resources and toolkits into our portfolio. In the last quarter, staff engaged with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) in exploring partnership opportunities. Through this established partnership with the GWEC, USAID Clean Power Asia co-sponsored the Finance Workshop at the Vietnam Wind Power 2019 Conference held in FY19Q3 in Hanoi. The conference covered best-practices in financing wind power projects for a select audience of 54 participants, instructing on topics including project finance characteristics, cash flow analysis for wind power projects, critical success factors in lending to wind projects, and typical financial models used by banks to analyze cash flow projections for wind projects. Workshop participants also worked on a case study and financial modeling exercise analyzing key risks of a wind project, evaluating the impact of these risks on the project’s ability to repay the loan, and identify suitable finance structures.

Partnerships will also seek to expand on other existing collaborations, including work with Seoul-based GGGI which is supporting technical work on solar auctions in Lao PDR; and HNEI which is supporting our solar auction and VRE integration work in Lao PDR, and DPV policy review work in the Philippines, both addressed in greater depth in section 2.2 under Objective 2.

With the onboarding of a new Deputy Chief of Party in FYQ319, partnership activities are being expanded to new development partners, multilateral organizations, and priority foreign government implementation agencies. With engagement priorities guided by RDMA, these partnerships aim to accelerate progress towards our project goals and targets, while leveraging co-financing on events and activities to optimize the program's activities budget.

Newer partnerships and outreach with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and JICA are in progress regarding contributions to upcoming regional workshops co-organized with USAID Clean Power Asia. Stronger collaboration is also being pursued with ADB, PFAN, as well as the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Collaborations with other U.S. agencies is also being strengthened with USAID Clean Power Asia contributing expertise to a capacity building activity on Quality Infrastructure as part of the Lower Mekong Initiative in Hanoi in FY19Q3, held by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Trade and Development Administration (USTDA).

Clean Energy Windows of Opportunity Fund

In 2019, CEWOOF saw the implementation of its first two projects and a third project under development planned for initiation in FY19Q4.

The first project supported the launching of USAID Clean Power Asia’s REChampions initiative which sponsored speakers and participants, predominantly women, to attend the annual ACEF conference in Manila in FY19Q3. The objective of the REChampions program is to create a community of RE professionals in the region, spanning public and private sectors, who can advocate for RE in their respective organizations and countries. Inauguration of the program and distribution of certificates of recognition to program participants paved the path for the fruitful use of this platform next year.

The second project built on USAID Clean Power Asia’s existing work in the Philippines to support the government’s implementation of a Department Circular Promulgating Policies to Enhance the Net- Metering Program for Renewable Energy. The departmental circular was based on three USAID Clean Power Asia DPV analyses and stakeholder feedback from two workshops co-organized with PDOE, as part of an ongoing process to revise and improve the rules of net-metering policies. These policies enabled fine-tuning the balance between beneficial incentives offerings provided for DPV investment while minimizing any potential negative impacts on other ratepayers and the distribution system.

3.7 Science, Technology and Innovation Impacts

USAID Clean Power Asia continues to seek out cost-effective ways to introduce new technology solutions to program activities. During FY19Q1, the program further enhanced the use of its customer relationship management (CRM) system, which provides a formal framework for interacting with current and potential “customers” of USAID Clean Power Asia. The system tracks more than 2,100 connections and over 1,300 interactions (e.g., website downloads, meeting attendance), and data from the CRM system forms the basis of the monthly project pipeline deliverable and the audience for the monthly REbrief newsletter, and leveraging technology to scale up awareness of the program’s impacts.

USAID Clean Power Asia and ACE supported the creation of the RE Data Explorer tool providing regional data and expertise, including addressing data and functionality issues identified during workshops with the RE-SSN, Lao counterparts, and Thailand’s DEDE. The tool houses applications for

52 all 10 ASEAN member states, providing a common platform to enable visualization of economic potential analysis.

NREL took the lead in developing an API to link with energy planning tools like LEAP, completed in FY19Q4. As of this report, the linked LEAP-RE Data Explorer tool has been optimized to draw data from the data explorer plugging directly into energy scenario planning functionalities associated with LEAP. After completing the Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer and developing the functionality to analyze renewable energy technical potential and a Levelized Cost of Energy Mapping Tool, USAID Clean Power Asia program staff explored an opportunity to apply the tool across the region. RE planning staff collaborated with ACE to give a presentation on the completed Southeast Asia RE Data Explorer at an ACE/HAPUA meeting in FY19Q3 in Da Nang, Vietnam. The meeting focused on presenting the completed Technical Potential Analysis functionality and the Levelized Cost of Energy Mapping Tool and explored an opportunity to apply this tool in the regional context for RE analysis and planning.

4. STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT

USAID Clean Power Asia continues to nurture existing relationships with partners and collaborators, and foster new relationships with organizations and individuals for collaboration and mutually beneficial sharing and support.

In 2019, USAID Clean Power Asia continued its work with Lao PDR to develop the Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Action Plan. This project built on two stakeholder workshops, identifying and evaluating resilience actions and soliciting feedback from stakeholders. Stakeholder consultation further involved collaborative analysis in assessing the potential of a variety of recommended resilience actions. USAID Clean Power Asia finalized the plan with NREL resilience experts, with a VA Advisory Group meeting held in early April, which included high-level management and all key government Ministries and agencies. USAID and GGGI also shared the many programs available to support implementation of the Action Plan.

FY19Q4 also saw strengthened collaboration with the Global Wind Energy Council under our Task 3 lead. Work under GWEC has thus far materialized in a workshop with 54 participants in Hanoi in June 2019 and the launching of a new Southeast Asia Task Force that engages with governments and private sector stakeholders to assist in the growth of wind and other renewable energy in the region. One of the pillars will be capacity building, with a focus on empowering national associations in priority countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia). Building on the partnership established for the Vietnam conference, program staff is having discussions with GWEC on how to support this activity.

The full list of engaged stakeholders is expanding and includes donors and donor-funded activities or programs, government entities, private businesses, and associations of companies or parties related to RE. Engagement with these stakeholders serves several purposes, among them, avoiding duplication of effort, ascertaining how and where these stakeholders can help scale and replicate

53 program successes, and the ways in which the private sector can engage to not only mobilize investment in the sector but to partner with governments as they struggle to set or meet their RE targets. The program team continues to plan ways to meaningfully engage stakeholders across program activities, many of which are summarized in Section 2 of this report and not repeated here.

5. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES

The technical aspects of managing the USAID Clean Power Asia program are complex. Lower Mekong and ASEAN countries are incredibly diverse, cover a sizeable geographic area, and there are no one- size-fits-all solutions or approaches to the RE outcomes USAID hopes to achieve in the region. Activities were designed for scalable and replicable results; coordination with many actors in this space throughout the region has been well planned to avoid duplication of effort and wasted money.

The program met with a fiscal challenge in FY19Q2 with Abt Associates operating “at-risk”, and funding levels remaining below what was planned to support the approved work plan. To address the challenges of managing the program while simultaneously operating with reduced funds, management took actions related to staffing, consultants, subcontractors, and other expenses. Nevertheless, through the fiscal issue, USAID Clean Power Asia retained all existing staff by keeping all staff and subcontractors informed every step of the way.

In the second half of 2019, management focused on hiring vacant positions, a process which was delayed in the previous quarter by a lack of resources. New positions on-boarded included a new communications specialist, MEL specialist, and Deputy Chief of Party who joined in the last quarter of the year. Due to the program’s fiscal instability, management has had difficulty attracting and retaining talent. Despite this, managing through challenges and some implementation delays saw USAID Clean Power Asia meet its intended objectives in its activities in Lao PDR, Vietnam, and regionally.

The last quarter of the year management has focused on onboarding the new staff and transferring duties taken on by other staff members (during the mid-year hiring delays) to the new staff, in particular those related to developing and managing partnerships, managing the MEL plan revision and implementation, and overseeing communications and outreach.

An organization chart as of September 30, 2019 can be found in Section 8 below.

6. LESSONS LEARNED

During FY19, management learned how to manage implementation in a time of funding challenges, including revamping aspects of the recruitment process, and continued to strengthen relationships with counterparts, including through country coordinators as well as through support of partner organizations, specifically NREL, HNEI and GGGI. However, as noted, collaboration with partners adds more complexity and levels of coordination that also require significant resources. The program entered a new phase of the relationship with ACE with the launch of AIMS III, and expanded partnering with ACE beyond activities included in their subcontract.

There are many lessons learned from technical support that can be shared across LM and Southeast Asian countries, including the IRRP and RE zones and solar pilot auction activities in Lao PDR and policy support for DPV and ESS. One issue that continues to present lessons learned for Abt Associates, USAID, and other implementing partners, is how USAID and their implementing partners engage and work with the Thai government.

Though program management continues to see opportunities to promote Thailand as a leader in the Lower Mekong (and to some degree within ASEAN), with Thailand’s successes and shortcomings informing other countries who are lagging in RE development planning, such as Lao PDR or Cambodia, the opportunities are not as great as expected. The offer to serve as a knowledge partner with ADB in organizing the Energy 4.0 conference provided an opportunity to engage further with the Thai government. Though USAID Clean Power Asia staff were scheduled to make a presentation entitled Trends in distributed generation and the emergence of the prosumer, this was prevented due to the U.S. government shutdown.

Management investigated additional opportunities to engage with Thailand, through other donor or international organizations’ projects (namely IEA’s work with Thailand on a project to evaluate integration of solar and wind into select transmission grids in the region, and HNEI’s work with EGAT on modeling grid changes required to accommodate more DPV) to provide a more robust approach to building on Thailand’s progress to date and leadership on specific issues related to RE.

Managing resources during funding shortages

Though management conducted detailed planning for staffing resources to support FY19 activities, the delayed funding required some activities be taken on by full-time staff rather than consultants, increasing the burden on staff. In addition, due to not replacing or hiring new staff (four positions in total), continuing to meet milestones while operating with fewer resources than planned was challenging. Nevertheless, because planning was done with such precision, and the relationship of both staff and consultant resources to achieving our objectives was clear, management and task leads were able to make quick and decisive judgements on changes which would enable stretching funds 1- 2 months longer than originally anticipated.

Staffing needs

Management continued to use tools developed in the early years of the program for estimating resources required to ensure that task leads adequately plan for appropriate resources and that maximum impact can be achieved with those resources. This includes a more detailed planning tool for estimating resource requirements and a staff and consultants’ hiring spreadsheet that documents dates for all major milestones to bring a new staff member or consultant on board, leading to mobilization of those resources when needed. Though challenges with recruitment continued, especially during the time of delayed funding, at the end of FY19Q4 the program is now fully staffed except for one remaining position, expected to be filled in FY20Q1.

Important role of country coordinators and informal relationships with counterparts

The important role of country coordinators has been clear from the outset of the program and during FY19, program staff continued to rely on them to help deepen relationships with counterparts as well as to enhance communication with USAID missions given the fluid operating conditions in the field. In Lao PDR, the relationship with counterparts strengthened, due in no small part to our coordinator understanding when and how he requires the assistance of technical staff. In Vietnam, with the addition of policy-related activities, and the involvement of the country coordinator more in our Task 3 activities, relationships with USAID V-LEEP were strengthened and coordination increased.

Local and Regional Events and the role of ACE

Producing events across the region requires significant effort to identify the right participants, in that the nature of determining participants in the countries of focus is often that an invitation is sent to a high-level individual, who then distributes to appropriate management, who then selects individuals to participate. Overall issues related to trainings, events, and even scheduling of meetings with the time and other parameters imposed by counterparts, continued to improve due to the support of the country coordinators in Lao PDR and Vietnam.

During FY19, management also worked closely with ACE on scheduling and conducting regional events and meetings, including those supporting AIMS III, as well as side meetings or other events and webinars targeted to counterparts in Southeast Asian countries. The AIMS III meetings are organized in the same manner as other ASEAN events and the targeted participants are clear. ACE has also proven extremely helpful in identifying the appropriate individuals involved in planning and policy in the Southeast Asian countries for participating in events organized by USAID Clean Power Asia. In both scenarios, planning must begin at least three months ahead, beginning with engaging the appropriate ACE committee(s) and obtaining the chair’s input on the agenda, followed by invitations sent to focal points no less than six weeks prior to the event.

Cross-training and small teams

The program staff maintained in the Bangkok office by Abt was relatively small during most of FY19 as several positions remained vacant while awaiting funding. From a technical implementation standpoint, each program task has a minimum of two staff dedicated to that task, in addition to having a program officer. With the departure of the DCOP and M&E manager during FY19Q1, the operational and technical needs of the program was challenging. Management made the decision to reassign functions to existing staff until positions were filled.

Collaborating with other partners

USAID Clean Power Asia has the privilege of collaborating with other USAID programs, other U.S. Government agencies, universities, and research institutes and other international organizations. As would be expected, cooperating with other entities requires careful planning and facilitation skills. It is sometimes challenging to synchronize travel schedules because different entities have different travel approval requirements. Successful collaboration requires having agreements in writing about roles, joint agreed roles and approaches to engaging with governments. Also, with regard to reports, each

USAID program and implementing partner has their own internal review process and each may have different requirements for deliverables in terms of due dates and reviews required. It is critical to understand these from the outset so schedules can be managed.

When working with governments through other USAID implementing partners as with USAID V-LEEP in Vietnam, it is important to understand the timeline of the government decisions the analyses are meant to influence. Unexpected policy announcements have required significant additional resources not anticipated for revising analyses. Thus, it is important to discuss expectations, limitations on resources available, and uncertainties with other partners to build these contingencies into resource planning.

Collaboration with multiple partners required extensive amounts of time and effort for USAID Clean Power Asia staff. This is true in any case as many outputs from one entity were inputs for another entity’s analysis and each organization had its own branding requirements as well as review and approval processes. However, the impact of waiting on additional resources made these relationships more complex than they would be otherwise. This continued through part of FY19Q3 as program staff finalized the analyses and reports. For example, in Vietnam, the DPV analysis and report included inputs from USAID V-LEEP, NREL, USAID Clean Power Asia staff, and subcontractor Chulalongkorn University. The ESS study was somewhat more complex, with inputs from the same three organizations; however an additional factor was that Chulalongkorn’s analysis outputs were inputs for NREL’s economic analysis. In Lao PDR, we knew from the beginning of the work plan year that we would need to devote significant effort to coordinating with the Lao government for tasks being supported by HNEI and GGGI, which proved to be true.

Technical Implementation lessons learned

Task 1: IRRP and RE zones In a discussion with NREL’s RE zones expert, program staff validated the approach being taken in the Lao PDR IRRP capacity building, i.e., looking at transmission needs in light of forecasted generation requirements as well as developing scenarios that meet a specific GW volume and simulating the most cost-effective transmission buildout to achieve that volume. It also became clear that an additional step is required in the RE zones process in Lao PDR, i.e., reviewing the profile of capacity that will connect to central substations, with the objective of developing realistic number of projects to be built that would be seeking interconnection at each substation, in addition to identifying technical potential. USAID Clean Power Asia incorporated feedback from NREL into the RE zones process going forward.

Task 1 and 2: RE zones and RE auctions During the FY19Q2 RE zones workshop, participants raised questions about the difference between the RE zones identification process and the solar auction, specifically regarding proximity to load centers. This provided an opportunity to clarify that RE zones are intended for accessing high quality resources that require new or upgraded transmission infrastructure, whereas the pilot solar auction has a different purpose – the pilot auction is specifically targeted to load centers for displacing imports.

The discussion during the RE zones workshop provided an opportunity to clarify that future auctions could be aligned with development of RE zones following this pilot auction, as Lao PDR scales up auctions for solar and other RE, as well as other power resources. Auction scale-up for investment in RE zones would focus on developing larger utility scale projects that would connect to the transmission system, based on the candidate zones identified in the preliminary transmission planning in the IRRP process. NREL noted that aligning RE projects and transmission plans with a plan for competitive procurement is an excellent way to ensure commercial interest in investing in the planned RE projects, and was under consideration for Mexico. USAID Clean Power Asia will continue to clarify with the IRRP core team and the auction Working Committee, and with MEM in general, during Year 4 work planning, how these two processes can be coordinated to maximize opportunities for investment in renewable energy in Lao PDR.

Task 2: Lao PDR solar pilot auction An auction for power is a complex process. Since this is the first auction in Lao PDR, it requires close coordination at every step with multiple ministries. Establishing relationships is key to ensuring the process moves forward according to schedule. Also, the amount of documentation required before the auction can be approved, and the level of support the government requires to complete that documentation, was greater than anticipated. USAID Clean Power Asia addressed this by developing close working relationships with the auction WC individual members and by working closely with IREP on all steps of the process.

Task 2: DPV, ESS and competitive procurement policies and regulations Sharing lessons learned and approaches to RE policy among Southeast Asian countries (as well as from developed countries, especially in the US and Europe) is valuable for policymakers. The support to the governments of both Vietnam and Philippines included reviews of best practices regarding DPV policy and regulation. In the Philippines, this review was shared in the initial workshop to launch the study. In Vietnam, the review was prepared as an initial chapter of a longer paper being drafted by VLEEP. Counterparts valued these reviews, as understanding how other countries approach DPV policy and regulation is extremely valuable to them. They also expressed interest in knowing more about international practice and lessons learned from other countries. USAID Clean Power Asia is planning webinars to share lessons learned related to DPV policies and regulations, and will develop other webinars as well.

Following on the ESS study in Vietnam and the experience in supporting the Lao PDR pilot auction, program staff are co-organizing regional events with USAID Washington’s energy team and NREL on ESS and competitive procurement, both planned for FY20Q1.

Task 3: Investment mobilization in Vietnam As our new investment mobilization team began meeting with developers and investors during FY19, it became apparent that many Thai-based developers are interested in investing in Vietnam's solar and wind projects, and many companies procuring DPV also operate in Vietnam and throughout the region (including Thai Union Foods). Opportunities to bring lessons learned from Thai banks to Vietnamese banks and engaging Thai developers interested in investing in solar or wind in Vietnam expanded throughout the year. To take advantage of this opportunity, USAID Clean Power Asia expanded its Thailand-based staff working on investment mobilization.

7. PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT QUARTER INCLUDING UPCOMING EVENTS

Activity Date Location

Lao PDR study tour to SEI Boston September 30-October 4, 2019 Boston, USA

RE Data Explorer Meeting with utilities and side meeting and TBD TBD webinar for policymakers Follow-up WC meeting #6 to finalize auction announcement October 2019 Vientiane package for Lao PDR pilot auction

Regional Energy Storage Bangkok, Thailand October 28-30, 2019 Workshop Venue: Novotel Ploenchit Meeting/webinar on scoping implementation of selected November 2019 TBD activities from Lao resilience action plan AIMS meeting: Modeling group and technical (peer) review November 2019 TBD committee Capacity building for Working Committee and IREP staff for solar November 2019 Vientiane pilot auction in Lao PDR Asia EDGE Competitive Bangkok, Thailand November 18-20, 2019 Procurement Dialogue Venue: Conrad Hotel

Lao PDR solar pilot auction Bangkok Working Committee capacity November 2019 Venue: TBD building

Workshop to co-present (with December 2019 Vientiane, Lao PDR JICA) REZs and transmission plan

Technical connection requirements meeting #2: Solar December 2019 Vientiane rooftop/large-scale solar in Lao PDR Guidelines for feasibility studies meeting #1: Final draft solar December 2019 Vientiane (general), first draft wind, biomass

Project finance workshop on wind December 2019 Vietnam

8. HOW IMPLEMENTING PARTNER HAS ADDRESSED COR COMMENTS FROM THE LAST QUARTERLY REPORT

On SEI’s role in developing additional software utilities for the IRRP capacity building in Lao PDR:

 COR: “Can you please elaborate on this?”  USAID Clean Power Asia: “We added extra text based on what SEI mentioned in their capability-building plan.”

On SEI’s method for including vulnerabilities, risk, and resilience actions into IRRP using LEAP:

 COR: “Has this already been shared with USAID? If not, be great to learn more of this method.”  USAID Clean Power Asia: “The method is described in a memo from SEI to Abt Associates in May of this year. The information in the memo and excel file (both attached) were summarized by us in a presentation on the VA and IRRP given at the May workshop. That PowerPoint is also attached – slides 7, 10 and 11 have the most detail about how the VA and resilience actions are integrated into the IRRP. The detailed methodology for incorporating the vulnerabilities and resilience actions into the demand forecast is described in the demand forecasting memo submitted last year. The incorporation of vulnerabilities and resilience actions in the supply and normative scenarios will be included in future updates from SEI which we will refer to in future quarterly reports.”

On co-learning between Lao PDR, Myanmar and Cambodia, as part of a side-meeting of ACE or HAPUA working group:

 COR: “What about AMEM and ASEAN Energy Business Forum on September 3-5, in Bangkok?”  USAID Clean Power Asia: “Yes, as we know from ACE, the AMEM and the ASEAN Energy Business Forum will be held during that time. However, the intended audience for presenting the tool, i.e. the next presentations, will be to the policy-makers and utilities and we reach those audiences through ACE and HAPUA working groups and committees. What we meant was that no meetings with these audiences are being held between June and September. Therefore, we edited the language.

We could have presented at the ASEAN Energy Business Forum as we did at ACEF; however AMEM would not be the appropriate audience. Also, agendas for ASEAN meetings are set at least 3 months ahead, so agendas for these meetings were set in early June, prior to finalization of the finalization of the new cost of energy mapping tool report. We certainly could have considered presenting it at the business forum if the tool had been completed on time.

The graphic below represents the USAID Clean Power Asia staff as of September 30, 2019.

USAID Clean Power Asia Activity Contract No. AID-486-C-16-00001 Quarterly Financial Report July to September 2019

The total amount currently obligated to date by USAID under the USAID Clean Power Asia activity is $13,345,591. The activity has spent a total of $8,392,358.64 for the period June 27, 2016 through September 30, 2019, representing expenditures of 51.34% of the total contract value and 62.88% of obligated funding to date. Abt Associates invoiced a total of $8,122,994.13 through August 2019. The September 2019 expenditures of $269,364.51 was invoiced to the client on October 11, 2019.

Price Schedule Summary as of September 2019

September Expended in Expended in Un-Liquidated Accruals Plus Previous Current Quarter Obligations Oct-Dec Quarters (Jul-Sep 2019) Projections* Activity Costs $7,351,867.12 $600,954.21 $3,257,265.33 $1,049,204.92 Clean Energy Windows $3,172.92 $36,728.26 $1,460,098.82 $43,361.89 of Opportunity Fund Total Costs $7,355,040.04 $637,682.47 $4,717,364.15 $1,092,566.81

Fixed Fee $367,752.0 $31,884.13 $235,868.21 $54,628.38

Total Costs Plus Fee $7,722,792.05 $699,566.59 $4,953,232.36 $1,147,195.19

* The September accruals FY19Q4 includes the expenses occurred plus unpaid accruals in September but not yet invoiced.

During FY19, USAID Clean Power Asia implemented regular technical activities as described in the Year 3 work plan. Support for the IRRP capacity building in Lao PDR continued with sponsoring three SWG members to participate in a second study tour on development of the IRRP supply model at SEI headquarters at the end of FY19Q4 from September 30-October 4, 2019. Technical assistance for the Lao PDR solar pilot auction continued throughout the year including meetings with the Working Committee, with the fourth meeting held from September 24-27, 2019, focused on reviewing the draft auction announcement and related annexes. AIMS III was launched in FY19Q3, with the Inception Meeting held in Bogor, Indonesia from July 24-25, 2019. Program staff traveled from July 30-August 1, 2019 in Lao PDR and Vietnam to conduct due diligence and discuss the scopes of work with planned subcontractors for various projects (transmission, ground-mounted solar, floating solar) under development by Convalt Energy.

Program staff attended an ACE-organized technical and contracts meeting in Jakarta from September 18-21 to agree on common assumptions and scenarios for AIMS III and the GIZ-supported ASEAN Energy Outlook 6 study and to discuss data gaps for the AIMS III RE resource assessment and capacity expansion modeling. At the Lower Mekong Initiative Qualify Infrastructure Training from September 23-26 in Hanoi, program staff made presentations on Stakeholder Consultation in Infrastructure and the Energy Transition and Competitive Procurement. Program staff completed the Lao PDR

Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Action Plan, the policy analysis for the Philippines net- metering, and the Vietnam DPV and energy storage studies in previous quarters.

Abt Associates did not invoice for any subcontractors’ billings in the current quarter, and in FY20Q1, we expect to invoice for a total of $444,544 of subcontractors’ billings received and approved in FY19Q4:

- ASEAN Centre for Energy: $379,803 for work completed on AIMS III and promoting the use of SE Asia RE Data Explorer in RE planning - Chulalongkorn University: $26,000 for work completed on the VN ESS storage study - Stockholm Environment Institute: $38,741 for work completed on the IRRP supply model

Program staff continued the implementation of the second of two approved CEWOOF activities, which is supporting the finalization of the Philippines net-metering policy including drafting of the Decision Circular and stakeholder consultations to be held at the beginning of FY20Q1.

Routine expenses included staff salaries and allowances, office rent and operating expenses. During this quarter, our Bangkok team consisted of three expatriates, one third-country national, and 13 full- time Thai nationals. In FY19Q4, a new Deputy Chief of Party, Communications Specialist, and RE Planning Assistant all began employment on the activity. Additional support staff include five consultants providing regional coordination and technical expertise on program activities. The program is almost fully staffed, with recruitment ongoing at the end of FY19Q4 to replace the Program Officer-Technical position, vacated when the individual serving in that position was hired in FY19Q4 to fill the RE Policy Specialist position.

ANNEX A: PROGRESS SUMMARY

Please see RDMA Indicators Tracking Table in the attached file (Annex 1 - RDMA ITT-FY19Q4.xlsx).

ANNEX A

ANNEX B: SUCCESS STORY

Unleashing the Power of Women in Energy: A B.Grimm Power Success

Mrs. Preeyanart Soontornwata is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of B.Grimm Power, one of the leading independent power producers in Thailand. She became CEO just before the Asian financial crisis of 1997 when the company was mainly an import company with interests in manufacturing and construction, and not a big player in power generation. Mrs. Preeyanart helped lead the company in a new direction when they brought their first power plant online in 1998, and under her leadership,

B.Grimm Power has experienced significant growth. Mrs. Preeyanart Soontornwata, CEO of B.Grimm Power, is a good example of how women can find success in the energy Currently, the company manages 45 plants generating sector. (Photo Credit: B.Grimm Power) 2,892 megawatts (MW) and expects to have at least 56 plants generating 3,245 MW by 2025.

With support from USAID’s Clean Power Asia program, B.Grimm Power launched a 257 MW solar project in Vietnam. Because the renewable energy (RE) market in Vietnam is relatively new, local developers often have a lack of financial experience and knowledge in getting RE projects implemented. USAID Clean Power Asia helped explore a number of financing options and identified a financing structure to support the development of the solar project with B.Grimm Power’s local partner, TTVN Group, to reach the project’s financial closure and a commercial operation date in June 2019, ahead of schedule.

Another successful B.Grimm Power solar project in Vietnam is Dau Tieng 1&2, the largest solar farm in Southeast Asia, with a 420 MW capacity which also reached commercial operation during June 2019. B.Grimm Power is also working in Lao PDR on several environmentally-friendly small-hydro projects, each less than 35 MW. The company is increasingly using solar rooftop panels in more projects in Thailand as well, including at the new ICONSIAM shopping center on the Chao Praya River in Bangkok.

B.Grimm Power is also a good example of how women can find success in the energy sector. USAID recognizes that development outcomes are strengthened when the unique knowledge and capacities of women are included, as women are a key part of the value chain across the entire energy sector – from producing and distributing household energy to leading the clean energy transformation.

“The most valuable part of B.Grimm Power comes from our employees. We value the diversity of our workforce and realize the importance of gender equality. We work together in a culture that welcomes different ideas and encourages knowledge sharing, which drives managerial and

ANNEX B operational excellence. All employees have the opportunity to use their skills and talent and receive a fair evaluation of their work performance,” Mrs. Preeyanart said.

When Mrs. Preeyanart talks about her greatest accomplishment and what gives her the most satisfaction, she says her success as a woman in the upper echelons of power in the energy industry is her life’s achievement. She says that one of the best parts of her job is being a role model for the women who work with her. Although she doesn’t have a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) background, her degrees in business and finance have propelled her to a position of power in a traditionally male-dominated field.

“I can be a role model, because I'm not an engineer,” she said. “I have a finance background, but it's not only [my] educational background that matters. To grow in your career, you really have to learn, you have to get along with others, and you have to gain trust from your colleagues, all while maintaining a good attitude. I never take credit alone and always say that is all because of my team,” she said.

B.Grimm Power continues to set the standard for independent power production in Southeast Asia, and will remain a corporate leader for gender empowerment across the region and sector.

USAID’s energy work in Southeast Asia is part of the U.S. Government’s Asia EDGE initiative, a whole- of-government effort aimed at supporting sustainable and secure energy markets across the Indo- Pacific region and leveling the playing field for private sector firms. Asia EDGE furthers the U.S. vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific to ensure peace, stability, and growing prosperity in the region. Under Asia EDGE, USAID plays a leading role helping its Indo-Pacific partners expand energy access, promote energy diversification and trade, and strengthen energy security across the region. Learn more at www.usaid.gov/energy.

ANNEX B