At the ESG Symposium 2026 in Bangkok, held on October 7, small modular reactors formally entered ASEAN’s energy agenda. The event — organized by SCG together with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and partners from multiple sectors — marked a shift from statements of intent to concrete regional action, with SMRs identified as a technology to be studied and developed over the next decade.
The symposium focused on three main pillars: energy transition, just transition, and climate adaptation. On the energy front, discussions centered on grid capacity and flexibility, the revision of generation development plans, and — looking further ahead — emerging sources such as SMRs and biofuels. Cooperation through the ASEAN Power Grid was highlighted as a key lever for enabling the region to manage clean energy resources more efficiently across member states.
Dr. Areeporn Asawinpongphan, an energy policy researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), called for an energy system that balances supply security, cost competitiveness, and decarbonization goals. A complex but necessary combination for a region where electricity demand is growing rapidly and fossil fuel dependency remains high. The technical debate stressed that SMRs require at least ten years of preparation before they can become operational — meaning that starting feasibility studies today is already planning for 2035.
The governance model proposed by the symposium is the so-called 4P framework — Public, Private, People Partnership — linking national policies, the private sector, and local communities. Thammasak Sethaudom, President and CEO of SCG, noted that tangible progress had been made across all three thematic pillars over the past year, and that the challenge now lies in scaling up what has already been tested. The stated goal is to replicate solutions developed in Thailand across other ASEAN contexts — from Malaysia to Vietnam — where starting conditions differ but the underlying pressures are similar.
The broader picture emerging from Bangkok is that of a region moving beyond treating next-generation nuclear as a matter of principle and beginning to assess it as a technical option to incorporate into the energy mix. SMRs will not replace renewables, but they can provide the baseload generation continuity that solar and wind alone cannot guarantee. If the ten ASEAN member states manage to coordinate their energy policies through the shared Power Grid, the path toward regional decarbonization becomes viable without relying exclusively on technology imports from outside the region.
