Southeast Asia's demand for energy continues to outpace the rest of the world – but fossil fuels still remain the primary source of energy. A rapid decarbonization of the region's energy and transport systems is critical to fight climate change.
This is the goal of SHIFT Asia, the first digital carbon platform in Asia bringing together private and public stakeholders to advance green mobility and power sector infrastructure.
SHIFT Asia de-risks investments in critical infrastructure that supports the convergence of electric mobility, renewable energy and a stable electricity grid. It does this by monitoring and monetizing the avoided GHG emissions that are achieved by using electric vehicles, and applies these funds to catalyze funding into key assets, such as shared EV batteries, which involve charging stations and swapping infrastructure.
Using e-bikes with swappable batteries charged with solar power can drive the transformation to healthier cities while fighting climate change. Such “ batteries on wheels" create an overlap between e-mobility, solar energy storage and a more flexible power grid – convergence. The accelerating demand for climate-friendly e-bikes will drastically increase the capacity of the power grid to handle a higher share of renewable energy and trigger decarbonization in Southeast Asia, where motorcycles are the main form of transportation in most cities.
The mission of SHIFT Asia is to reduce carbon emissions from transport and energy in Southeast Asia by supporting cross-sector collaboration and catalyzing investments into critical assets that enable the convergence of renewable energy and low-carbon mobility.
The technologies for convergence are already available: advancements in batteries, vehicles, and digital technologies allow for the integration of electric vehicles ( dubbed “batteries on wheels" or “smartphones on wheels") onto the electric power grid.
Smart (dis)charging of the vehicle's battery provides the local energy grid with the flexibility to manage a higher share of variable renewable energy. In other words, batteries are charged during the day with surplus solar power (and when electricity demand is low), and discharged during the evening power peak, when there is more electricity demand than supply. This approach lowers the carbon footprint of both the transport and energy sector.
However, the implementation of such convergence activities are primarily hindered by a slow adoption of electric vehicles, which is caused primarily by the high-costs these vehicles -of which a large share is from high battery prices-, a lack of (public) battery charging infrastructure, as well as lack of user experience and government incentives.
SHIFT Asia aims to remove the barriers to electric vehicle adoption in Southeast Asia by using carbon finance as additional cash flow for investments that support the critical assets or infrastructure that enable convergence.
SHIFT Asia's vision is an interconnected system of zero-emission battery electric vehicles and charging infrastructure that allows an abundant supply of renewable energy to enter the grid and substitute the need for fossil fueled power plants.
The SHIFT Asia platform has an incubating and accelerating effect on this convergence. Our ability to mobilize early investments in batteries and charging infrastructure lowers the barriers to adopt EVs. Consequently an increase of EVs on the road, creates benefits for all partners:
Participation in the SHIFT Asia platform is interesting for investors in clean energy technologies and implementation partners in Southeast Asia who want to deploy and operate the renewable energy and mobility assets in the broadest sense: battery/EV manufacturers, charge point operators, fleet operators, real estate owners, energy service companies, industrial and commercial complexes and many more.
SHIFT Asia is currently active in Thailand and focuses primarily on two and three-wheeled vehicles.
SWAG EV and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL)
SHIFT Asia supported SWAG EV, the Thailand-based, Singaporean manufacturer of electric motorbikes in attracting a multi-million dollar investment into shared batteries, backed by carbon finance payments. The investment into shared batteries allows SWAG EV to support their customers with a battery-as-a-service membership model. This model decreases the upfront costs to their customers and allows the seamless use of batteries to accommodate their mobility needs.
CyFai
The award-winning, Thailand-based start-up CyFai joined the SHIFT Asia platform to connect with multiple manufacturers and service providers. This led to the first solar-connected battery swapping stations and multi-brand showroom for electric motorbikes in Thailand. SHIFT Asia helped connect CyFai to potential location hosts, charge point operators, solar operators and EV manufacturers. The showroom will be located at a transport hub near the Chao Phraya river, where recently the first electric river boats were launched for public service. CyFai offers rental services, essential to increase user awareness on the joy of riding electric!
SHIFT Asia helps interested partners and businesses in the mobility, logistics, energy and finance sectors with all the activities required to successfully monetize the emission savings from your activities. We support you with your activity design and monitoring plan, all the way to TGO registration, issuance and sales of the carbon credits and resulting payments to you and your investors.
SHIFT also helps assess the feasibility of early stage business ideas & business models and can support efforts to attract the necessary finance to grow it. If you think your business can play a role in the convergence of energy and mobility in Southeast Asia, please contact our team.
Get in touch with our team for more information on SHIFT Asia or to pitch your e-mobility project to us.
For media inquiries, please contact Isabel Hagbrink, Director of Communications, - i.hagbrink@southpole.com.
For more information, contact Daniel Scheerooren today at shift@southpole.com
