Asia Is Building the World’s Next $15 Trillion Energy Market | OilPrice.com
Alex Kimani
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By Alex Kimani – Oct 25, 2026, 6:00 PM CDT
- Asia will drive 70% of global energy demand growth through 2040, requiring $1 trillion in annual investment as industrial expansion and data centers boost consumption.
- Coal will remain dominant despite booming renewables, while falling solar and battery costs accelerate clean energy deployment across the region.
- Biofuels could replace up to $100 billion in annual fuel imports by 2040, with India and Indonesia expanding blending mandates to reduce oil dependence.
The global energy transition is increasingly becoming an Asian story, and Asia is unlikely to follow the path envisioned in Washington or Brussels. The region’s governments will have enormous influence over the future of coal, oil, natural gas, renewables and energy storage. What happens next in Asia will determine whether the transition actually reduces global fossil fuel consumption or simply adds vast amounts of renewable power to an energy system that keeps getting bigger.
Asia requires $1 trillion annually in energy investments over the next 15 years to strengthen energy security, accelerate the transition to sustainable energy sources and meet growing regional demand, McKinsey has reported. According to the global management consulting firm, Asia will account for about 70% of global net energy demand growth through 2040, with the continent’s energy demand now expected to reach 370 million terajoules, good for a 15% increase from the forecast a year ago thanks to the proliferation of data centers, industrial expansion and cooling needs.
Coal is expected to remain the most dominant fuel in Asia’s energy mix longer than previously anticipated.
While coal use is expected to slowly decline in China due to rapid growth of renewable energy generation, growing electricity and industrial needs in India and Southeast Asia are projected to keep overall regional demand steady.
Coal-fired power continues to play a vital role in system adequacy and grid reliability as Southeast Asia experiences some of the world’s fastest-growing electricity demand. Coal represents about 47% of Asia’s total primary energy mix, while oil accounts for 25% and natural gas about 12%. Coal plays an even larger role in the power sector, supplying over 50% of Asia’s electricity mix, and an even higher 67% in South Asia, led by India. Asia’s thermal coal prices currently remain elevated due to reduced production in China as well as government-imposed supply quotas/disruptions in Indonesia, alongside gas-to-coal switching in Japan and South Korea.
In contrast, natural gas demand in Asia is projected to decelerate over the next 5 to 10 years as countries prioritize cheaper domestic coal and rapid renewable energy deployments for power generation. However, a long-term rebound in gas consumption is expected, primarily driven by the industrial sector as it transitions away from more carbon-intensive fuels like oil and coal for manufacturing and processing.
McKinsey reports that roughly $300 billion in annual investments will be required to fund wind and solar energy infrastructure, primarily concentrated across India and Southeast Asia as they accelerate their transition to renewable energy. Utility-scale solar PV is now the lowest-cost power source in the vast majority of Asian markets, driven by steep declines in capital and equipment costs.
While cheap domestic coal continues to delay the economic tipping point for renewables in specific countries like India, renewable energy costs across the broader Asia-Pacific region have dropped roughly 13% below conventional coal, with projections that they will be a third cheaper by 2030. Solar officially overtook gas as Asia’s third-largest power source in the 12 months leading up to April 2026, while China generated less than 50% of its electricity from coal for the first time ever in the first half of 2026.
Similarly, onshore wind has reached cost parity or fallen below conventional fossil-fuel alternatives in key regional markets, supported by manufacturing scale and supply chain localization led by China. Meanwhile, battery energy storage systems (BESS) have recorded a 93% price decline over the past 15 years, making solar-plus-storage and wind-plus-storage increasingly viable alternatives to peaking gas plants.
Finally, McKinsey has projected that biofuels have the potential to replace $90 billion to $100 billion in fuel imports in Asia by 2040, which would drastically lower the region’s long-term energy dependence on imported oil. Recently, we reported that global biofuels output is projected to surge by nearly 70% by 2030 compared to 2025 levels as major producing countries raise their fuel-blending mandates in response to the energy crisis triggered by the Middle East conflict.
Having previously established an E20 (20% ethanol) petrol blend, India accelerated technical specifications in May 2026 to transition toward higher standards like E30. Government guidelines advise fuel retailers to prepare dispensing infrastructure so consumers can eventually select blends matching their specific vehicle engine engineering (as legacy vehicles built for E10 or pure petrol face compatibility and mileage challenges with higher blends).
Meanwhile, as the world’s largest palm oil producer, Indonesia has been even more aggressive with its biofuel mandates, rolling out B50, a 50% palm oil biodiesel blend, as it pushes to eliminate diesel imports. The program is expected to require 16.7 million to 18 million kiloliters of biodiesel annually, consuming roughly 15.2 million to 16.3 million metric tons of crude palm oil. The government estimates B50 could cut Indonesia’s fuel import bill by about $9.4 billion in 2026, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 44 million metric tons per year, or about 42% compared with conventional petroleum diesel.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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