asia

Frost & Sullivan expects the data centre and telecom sectors in Southeast Asia will cause a surge in demand for power infrastructure services.

The market researchers say the ASEAN critical power infrastructure services market had earned revenues of US$257.1 million in 2014 and estimates this to reach US$374.4 million in 2018.

According to Frost & Sullivan, services such as power quality audits and installation currently account for a significant proportion of market revenues for three-phase UPS systems, while in the case of single-phase systems warranty extensions is a large part of the total revenues.

“As data centres are increasingly using scalable and modular power solutions, the periodic involvement of technicians and service personnel to upgrade power supply capacity across the network will be particularly required," said Frost & Sullivan Energy & Environmental Senior Research Analyst Amit Kumar Singh.

However, to keep costs down Frost & Sullivan predicts companies to be unwilling to outsource power infrastructure services, and that small independent service providers will lose business to large system integrators and UPS manufacturers.

"Critical power infrastructure original equipment manufacturers will have an edge over other service providers in the ASEAN region, as customers prefer to associate with them for all post-delivery needs," Singh said.

Trading firm Marubeni has secured the exclusive distribution rights to EnerG2’s carbon materials for energy storage devices in Asia.

EnerG2’s carbon materials are used for rechargeable lead-acid batteries, electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs or ultracapacitors) and lithium-ion batteries. A developed carbon technology platform enables the company to design and manufacture customised carbon and silicon-carbon nano-composite materials.

The Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI) is to start producing lithium-ion battery prototypes for electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage by 2015.

"There are only a handful of lithium-ion battery manufacturers on a global level. We're currently conducting research on producing a prototype for the local market and possibly export,” said MAI chief executive officer Madani Sahari.

The price of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems (ESS) have fallen by a third in the past year, according to a report by Korea’s Electronic Times.

It reports the price of mid-to-large lithium-ion secondary battery cells dropped from $500-600/kWh last year to $350/kWh. In South Korea, said to be less competitive than the global market, batteries are traded at $400-500/kWh.