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 In the early 90’s, the European Commission and the ASEAN Authorities agreed to establish the EC-ASEAN COGEN Programme, an economic co-operation programme aiming at transferring clean and efficient biomass energy technologies from Europe to ASEAN. Indeed, the rapid growth of the ASEAN region was calling for modern, more efficient energy technologies to increase ASEAN industry competitiveness. While Europe had developed efficient biomass energy technologies since the mid 70’s, most ASEAN industries were still utilising conventional energy plants using fossil fuels or sometimes, biomass fuels in a very inefficient way.
The long term objectives of the programme were:
- increasing Euro-ASEAN economic exchanges;
- reducing ASEAN dependence on oil for energy requirements;
- reducing the environmental load from the energy and waste sectors.
The immediate objectives were:
- increasing the awareness of European technologies in the ASEAN market
- increasing the awareness of EU suppliers of the ASEAN market opportunities and capabilities.
Concrete results were already achieved within the first phase of the programme (COGEN 1), thanks to the close collaboration between the Management Unit based at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, the ASEAN Country Co-ordinating Teams and the Europe-based consultants. Seven Full Scale Demonstration Projects (FSDPs) were selected and implemented in the wood and rice industries. Their capacities, however, were rather limited, the maximum being 2.5 MWe.
COGEN 2 was launched in 1995 and aimed at further demonstrating the technical reliability, economic viability and environmental friendliness of European technologies within the ASEAN wood and agro-industries. Nine other FSDPs were implemented in the rice, palm oil, wood and rubber industries. Their maximum capacity was up to 10 MWe.
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