Despite the wider of spread growth and more advanced technology seen in the next years, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said that about 9 percent, or 63 million people within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will still lack electricity and access to electricity by 2030.

The PIDS research paper released last week, titled “Energy Market Integration and Energy Poverty in Asean,” stated that there are “more than 127 million people [who] lack access to electricity while at least 228 million still rely on traditional biomass for cooking and lack access to modern cooking facilities” in Southeast Asia.