Commentary

Once on the cusp of a renaissance, the nuclear industry now risks being sent back to the dark ages. This is the impression that emerges from much of the commentary in the months since the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

Sustainability factors such as water, land, GHG emissions, and fuel availability are slated to pose the greatest risks to power plants. These risks will not just impact plants on a physical and operational level, but they will also have significant financial implications. The risks will be applicable for all energy generation technologies – coal, hydro, wind, bio-mass, solar, nuclear.

Insurance Conditions for the Operational Power Sector Continue to Change After many years of falling insurance premiums due to fierce competition among insurers and ample capacity, it appears that there are winds of change coming to the operational Power sector in Asia. While the sector continues to grow at a rapid pace, with the pipeline of power generation projects at full capacity, access to very cheap insurance for project sponsors will be more difficult as claims events increase and insurers tighten their belts.

Before the Deluge “One customer, one product, one general price for 20 years”. You can book it. While it may be nostalgic to think of power in days past, the reality is that we are in the midst of a significant shift in our industry as starkly illustrated in the aftermath of the Japan Crisis (earthquake/tsunami/nuclear). Already, the clouds had been gathering even beforehand – despite the global economic downturn, fuel commodity prices such as for coal and oil were high and resilient and an economic turnaround would have likely resulted in even a greater price surge.

Shipping : Malaysia’s lifeline Shipping, which transports 90 per cent of global trade, holds economic and environmental advantage over other modes of transport. Hence, the reliance on ocean shipping is expected to rise with increasing trade volume. Seaborne transportation is a key facilitator of Malaysia’s trade-oriented economy. This is underlined by the fact that an estimated 95 percent of the country’s trade is carried via seaborne means. Malaysia contributed 12.44 mil. DWT (deadweight tonnage) or 1.07% to world merchant shipping tonnage, and in MISC, it has the world’s largest owner-operator of LNG tankers.

In 1990, Steven Covey published the very popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. With the publication of that book I am certain, Dr. Covey introduced the term “paradigm” into the popular business lexicon and it has been persistently used ever since. As a reminder, a paradigm is defined as a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject. However, what does that have to do with information security practices of enterprises and energy companies? Below you’ll see that the paradigm for system security is getting flipped on its head. The Old Paradigm: The Fortress Basically, there has been a standard practice if you will for many years where the “fortress” approach was the norm –- or paradigm -- for enterprise and energy company security. This applied to physical security and cyber security. The fortress concept included a strict perimeter – usually defined by gates, guards, and firewalls. In this approach, the assumption was that all the attackers were on the outside of the perimeter and that the strong perimeter would prevent the attacker from not only entering the walls but they could not access the crown jewels (aka data) because it was housed within layers of more security barriers that included more walls, more guards, and more firewalls and maybe a moat. The insider threat – that is the threat of an attacker from the inside of the perimeter – was viewed as very unlikely and not a “real” threat. Using this approach, when the attacks became stronger and bolder, the captains of the fortress added more walls, more guards and more firewalls with some extra intrusion detection systems (perhaps vats of boiling oil?) and security management tools. Frankly this was how I was trained as a security professional. But there are new ideas surfacing that turn this model upside down. The New Paradigm: Assume Security System Breach If you have been following the news these past few months there have been some large cyber security hacks resulting in huge breaches of data and personal information. For example, the Sony hack shut their gaming system down for a considerable time resulting in lost revenue and investigation/mitigation costs.

Energy providers are already facing challenges around energy security, price volatility and climate change concerns.

We are in a very dynamic and uncertain period as governments, corporations, and concerned citizens around the world are searching for a way forward on clean energy and climate change issues.

In only a few short years China has emerged as the world’s wind energy power house.

With the deployment of renewable energy technologies exponentially increasing annually, more resources are being allocated to all aspects of the energy sector. A multi-disciplinary approach is needed to identify what the major issues that networks will face over the next few decades in transitioning from fossil fuel based generation to cleaner, primarily renewable generation. The current belief by many is that future smart grids will provide the transmission, distribution and communication networks that will solve all the issues currently being raised by network operators.

The first quarter of 2011 has seen a Y/Y decline in demand for solar PV modules, exposing several privately held Chinese PV manufacturers to potentially massive issues of over-supply. This comes at a time when the PRC has declared an intention to move away from an export-driven to a domestic demand-led economy and access to cheap credit from state-owned banks, something that Chinese renewable companies have enjoyed over the last while, comes to an end. As a result the Chinese government will be looking closely at the Chinese solar industry to ensure it remains a world-leading manufacturer of solar PV and healthy contributor to GDP growth.

That climate change will have a significant impact on the power sector is a given. Whether it is via physical impacts due to climate events (think: flooding in the coal mining districts of Australia, affecting raw material supply to thermal power plants) or regulation around GHG emissions, the industry is facing new threats due to environmental factors. What is less clear – how, when and by how much will these risks impact companies in the power sector.

Understandably with each natural catastrophe, man-made or otherwise, the overwhelming case for renewable energy as a core constituent to our power needs becomes more apparent and more pressing.

Asia’s energy demand is extremely high. In many low- and middle-income countries, access to energy - sustainable or conventional - is seriously lacking. Even in a major emerging economy like India, energy is too scarce and expensive for much of the population. By financing energy projects in the private sector, development banks help provide more people with access to energy, boosting economic development and improving living standards. Energy is, after all, the quintessential engine of economic and social growth.

17 March 1991. Just 20 years ago, I set foot in Asia Pacific for the first time. Since then, major changes have occurred in the landscape of Asia-Pacific power markets. And I and my colleagues at The Lantau Group (TLG) have had the opportunity to witness and shape a lot of these changes and learn a great deal in the process.

In 1997, after 17 years in the UK energy industry, I joined an investment bank, I moved to Hong Kong, and I began to cover the Asian power sector. For anyone involved in the power industry, the insatiable demand for new capacity made Asia the most exciting region in the world. But, as I set about my new role in banking, little did I realize just how exciting this journey would become. And, 14 years later, how that excitement would still burn brightly - but be accompanied by a degree of frustration.