The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has launched the Regional Connectivity Fund for Energy in Southeast Asia (RCF), the first multi-partner fund of its kind in the region, aimed at financing critical project preparation work for the ASEAN Power Grid, according to an ADB press release. Initial funding of approximately $25 million comes from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The ASEAN Power Grid is the regional bloc’s flagship initiative to achieve fully integrated electricity grid operations across Southeast Asia by 2045.
Energy demand in Southeast Asia is expected to triple by 2050, and nearly 700 million people stand to benefit from the more reliable, affordable, and renewable power the grid could deliver. The RCF is managed by ADB in collaboration with the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund (AIF) Board and ASEAN member states, and will fund feasibility studies, engineering design, financial structuring, and safeguards assessments to ensure projects are well-designed and bankable. It will also support policy advice, regulatory reform, and capacity building to strengthen the broader enabling environment for cross-border energy infrastructure. ADB President Masato Kanda called the launch “a decisive step toward turning regional ambition into action.”
The RCF sits within the AIF — Southeast Asia’s largest regionally owned infrastructure financing platform, established in 2011 to help close the region’s infrastructure investment gap. ADB has committed up to $10 billion over the next decade toward the ASEAN Power Grid and related investments, covering cross-border power connections, national grid upgrades, and renewable energy initiatives that will facilitate regional energy trading. In October, ADB also co-launched the ASEAN Power Grid Financing Initiative alongside the World Bank, the ASEAN Secretariat, and the ASEAN Centre for Energy.
The new fund builds on ADB’s broader push to deepen its role as ASEAN’s strategic financing and advisory partner. Beyond energy, the bank is developing regional initiatives spanning capital markets, AI readiness, the blue economy, and river basin resilience. For the power sector specifically, the RCF addresses a longstanding bottleneck: without solid project preparation work, even well-funded infrastructure ambitions struggle to move from planning tables to construction sites.
