Southeast Asia has set a series of long-term decarbonisation pledges, including net-zero and neutrality targets by 2050. Renewable deployment is growing, yet progress continues to lag the scale implied by these commitments, and energy systems across ASEAN still reflect deep structural reliance on thermal generation. At the same time, financing needs are rising sharply as countries attempt to shift their power mix while managing regulatory uncertainty, uneven permitting regimes, grid constraints and currency exposure. The Asian Development Bank estimates that meeting Southeast Asia’s transition ambitions will require $210 billion in annual investment, but private investors remain cautious, particularly at the early stage of projects. Development finance institutions (DFIs) are therefore being pushed to intervene earlier in the project life cycle, absorb a greater share of risk and create conditions necessary for commercial capital to enter at scale. It is against this backdrop that the British International Investment (BII), the United Kingdom’s DFI, is expanding its strategy in Southeast Asia, drawing on lessons from India and deepening its presence in Singapore as a regional mobilisation hub. BII’s commitments in Southeast Asia now total GBP 308 million ($395.8 million), advancing toward a stated target of £500 million ($642.5 million) in climate finance deployment across the region by 2026. The firm also expects to deliver more than 1.8 GW of clean energy capacity and avoidance of 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions. Platform-building in India guiding Southeast Asian expansion BII’s approach in Southeast Asia marks a shift from traditional asset-by-asset financing toward a more catalytic model that emphasises platform building, patient blended capital and mobilisation of institutional investors. The firm aims not only to fund projects but support the evolution of climate finance structures. At a recent media roundtable, Srini Nagarajan, BII’s managing director and head of Asia, highlighted platform building as a core driver of the firm’s strategy. This platform model brings scale, operating leverage, focuses on returns and creates clearer entry points for institutional co-investors. A prominent example is BII’s work in India through Ayana Renewable Power, launched in 2018 with $100 million and a newly assembled management team. Over the years, Ayana mobilised nearly $1 billion in additional investment, scaled from zero to approximately 4.1GW of renewable capacity and ultimately achieved an exit valued at around $2.3 billion — is a significant transaction in the Asia-Pacific region, widely reported as one of India’s largest-ever renewable energy deals as per Nagarajan. Beyond power generation, BII has applied a similar co-investment framework in India across electric-vehicle infrastructure, transmission assets and battery manufacturing and recycling, using early capital to assemble pipelines that attract follow-on investors as assets mature. The institution sees these cross-sector experiences as reinforcing the portability of the platform model as it adapts the approach for Southeast Asia’s more fragmented markets. Through the Sustainable Asia Renewable Assets (SARA) initiative—co-developed with Dutch development bank FMO, and UK sustainable infrastructure investment manager SUSI—BII is seeking to replicate aspects of the Ayana strategy. SARA aims to create a 500 MW greenfield portfolio across the region and recently completed the acquisition of a 39.4 MW wind project in Vietnam. The project is expected to generate 110.9 GWh of clean electricity annually and avoid more than 55,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. BII’s strategy also involves the deployment of patient capital to de-risk projects and demonstrate their viability. BII now invests across the full capital spectrum in Southeast Asia—through equity positions, fund commitments, debt financing and concessional components—allowing it to tailor risk-sharing structures to local conditions. Its investment in the SUSI Asia Energy Transition Fund supports a diversified pipeline of renewable, efficiency and storage projects across the region amounting to over 800 MW. In Indonesia, BII is providing equity investment to expand Xurya, a rooftop-solar platform targeting 600 MW of installed capacity by 2028 while creating more than 6,000 green jobs. In Vietnam, its first direct debt investment through VPBank is intended to unlock new financing channels for SMEs and climate-related projects. In addition, BII is expanding development- and construction-stage financing partnerships. Through a joint development and construction facility with Singapore-based Pentagreen Capital, BII and Pentagreen together committed $80 million to ib vogt, a global utility-scale solar and energy-storage developer, for solar and hybrid solar-storage projects across multiple Southeast Asian markets. One of the first assets to benefit is the 99 MWp Tantangan Solar Power Plant in the Philippines, which is expected to supply more than 150 GWh of electricity annually—enough to power around 82,000 households—and offset roughly 66,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year. Climate-finance innovation as part of a wider global shift As development finance institutions globally scale up climate-related commitments, BII’s Southeast Asia strategy reflects a deliberate emphasis on earlier-stage engagement and market building. Rather than focusing solely on financing individual, later-stage assets, the institution is positioning itself to deploy capital upstream—where development, regulatory and construction risks remain elevated but where intervention can have an outsized catalytic effect. BII is also increasingly incorporating digital and data-driven tools into its energy investments, building on experience gained in other markets. Initiatives such as India’s national smart-metering programme, highlighted by Holger Rothenbusch, BII’s managing director and head of infrastructure and climate, have demonstrated how artificial intelligence (AI) can improve billing accuracy, distribution efficiency and renewable integration. He noted that many BII-backed projects now incorporate AI to enhance operational performance. A further distinguishing feature of BII’s regional approach is its expanded presence in Singapore, designed to position the institution closer to both capital and regulators—allowing it to structure investment vehicles that attract global investors from capital centers like London and New York into Southeast Asian pipelines. This role is reinforced by Singapore’s function as a convening hub for transition finance initiatives, including the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P), developed with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which aims to support marginally bankable transition assets across ASEAN. As Leslie Maasdorp, BII’s chief executive officer, noted, BII’s next stage “is not just making investments but using our capital in ways that bring other investors” with the firm. “Given Singapore’s financial depth, this is the right place to drive that agenda,” he said. Early signs of traction The breadth of BII’s activities across Southeast Asia is reflected in its growing portfolio across Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and regional platforms, spanning utility-scale renewables, rooftop solar and on-lending through local financial institutions. Collectively, these investments support SME growth, accelerate renewable deployment and demonstrate how development-stage capital can unlock scale in markets where commercial participation has historically lagged. BII’s evolving approach reflects not only a deepening commitment to Southeast Asia but an understanding that the region’s transition hinges as much on market design as on capital deployment. If executed effectively, the approach could move ASEAN from a slower-moving renewables region to an engine of climate-aligned growth.
