Firms must reinvent project development to win green transition
They must ask what the client needs, rather than just selling pre-packaged solutions.
Industrial decarbonisation can be achieved by innovating not just in technology, but in project development, business models, and the overall approach of energy firms.
“Firms must ask what the client needs to decarbonise, rather than just selling pre-packaged solutions,” Andre Susanto, Chief Technology Officer at Quantum Power Asia, told the Asian Power Summit 2025 held in Singapore.
Susanto added that decarbonisation can no longer be seen as merely an environmental need but must be treated as a financial mandate that directly cuts operational costs and reduces energy consumption.
“Energy firms can act as consultants to significantly improve a client's operational efficiency, resulting in up to a 20% reduction in energy consumption even before any new power sources are implemented,” Susanto said.
In certain projects, such as an industrial park he cited, the entire nickel value chain—including the mine, smelter, power plant, and grid—is owned by a single Chinese company that sells the output only to itself.
“This lack of external procurement removes the incentive for them to decarbonise,”.
Further, Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage is crucial for sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, but projects, such as a bilateral government-to-government (G2G) agreement between Indonesia and Singapore, move slowly, sometimes taking years with little practical progress.
“This leaves many opportunities being overlooked, such as thermosolar photovoltaics for preheating and steam generation, which is a major energy user in Southeast Asia,” he said.
Susanto said decarbonisation strategies must also focus on remote area electrification and industrial process optimisation.
“In Indonesia, there are gigawatts of potential in electrifying remote villages and isolated grids, often in mining locations,” he said.
He added that beyond adding renewables to mining operations, there is a strong opportunity to electrify heavy equipment, a trend that is already being pursued by major manufacturing firms.
A solutions-based decarbonisation model, where stakeholders come in to assess a client's specific needs, offers a comprehensive solution that includes a portfolio of different technologies and provides the funding to implement it at scale, Susanto concluded.
