Powering Singapore’s Green Goals: APIRA, PACE, and JOSH frameworks to reshape the cross-border energy infrastructure

On June 16, the AMEM council debated on the question of strengthening cross-border energy infrastructure. Photo: Keslyn Tan

UPDATED JUN 17, 2025, 07:49 PM

SINGAPORE — As technology is swiftly developing, the question of strengthening cross-border energy infrastructure has become a pressing issue of international debate. At the YMAX 2025 AMEM council meeting, the delegates have come together to discuss how to tackle this issue in order to ensure sustainability, regional integration and their own energy security. During the debate, three major frameworks have been brought up by the council — APIRA, JOSH, and PACE. 

The delegates have proposed the Asean Power Integration and Regulatory Authority framework, otherwise known as APIRA, which is led by the delegates of Indonesia, Russia, and Australia. 

The pillar of this framework is the Asean Sovereign Fund for Energy Investment (ASFEI arm), which is an autonomous council that bypasses bottleneck bureaucracies and investment misalignment between Asean countries pertaining to the Asean Power Grid, conforming to their working paper. It is created to align its investment priorities equitably, Asean counties channeling fiscal funds into the council equitably based on their PPP and GDP. The fund is an opt-in membership where Asean members will opt in and receive direct contraction aid on their part of the APG grid. Asean members that are not participating can still receive advice concerning their part on the grid completion from the ASFEI council. 

The framework, PACE, was created by the delegates of Vietnam, Myanmar and Indonesia. PACE stands for Planning, Automation, Cooperation and Efficiency is a framework to improve the efficiency of the ASEAN Power Grid (APG). 

The key components of the framework includes the Predictive Planning and Grid Modernisation, where the regional predictive modelling tools would be developed in order to support renewable energy and optimise surplus energy trade. Automated and Adaptive Grid Management, would be 

able to deploy automation in substations and thus adopt industry 4.0 technologies. Coordinated Regulatory Harmonisation, would establish an ASEAN Power Grid Committee where the committee would facilitate affordable energy imports and market integration. Energy Efficiency Loss Reduction Initiatives, upgrades the transmission lines and launches regional campaigns to discourage energy waste. 

The PACE framework would be able to help Singapore enhance its energy security as Singapore would be able to diversify its energy sources and reduce its reliance on imported gas. Furthermore, Singapore would be able to lower costs and increase efficiency. As the upgrades in neighbouring grids reduce transmission losses and operational costs for Singapore's electricity imports.

The JOSH framework is a regional digital platform where data such as hourly load, transmission capacity and more are collected and standardised across the Asean member states. This is in order to address the crucial issue of data fragmentation and facilitate strategic decision planning of the Asean Power Grid’s connections.

This is how JOSH’s 5-Step Process will work: 

Step 1: Data Collection. ASEAN Member States (AMS) are to collect raw national energy data, such as the hourly load, renewable integration rates, grid congestion rates, and transmission line capacity. 

Step 2: Data Processing and Anonymisation. Each AMS is to process and anonymise sensitive data into structured metadata while ensuring data privacy and security. 

Step 3: Metadata Upload to JOSH. The structured metadata is uploaded to JOSH’s federated digital platform. In order for data to be merged seamlessly, and to ensure cross-border visibility. 

Step 4: Simulations & Stress Testing. Using the metadata, JOSH would run regional energy stress tests, interconnection feasibility studies, and grid simulation models in order to predict power flows, risks, and or surplus zones. The results would then be reviewed by National energy agencies of each AMS and ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE). 

Step 5: Insight Sharing & Decision-Making. JOSH would then produce processed insights and share these insights regionally, in order to inform, guide, and support multilateral energy negotiations and policy formulation. 

The JOSH framework will have significant impacts on Singapore, especially considering our role as a key energy hub in Southeast Asia. JOSH enables the identification of opportunities which is important for Singapore to reach its net zero goals by 2050. Given that Singapore imports part of its electricity from Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, JOSH lets Singapore identify the most reliable and stable suppliers. Furthermore, JOSH works as a digital platform and joining theframework will further support our brand as the top Smart City of Asean. The JOSH framework helps Singapore strengthen its national planning and ensures our sustainability for the future.