The world stands at a critical juncture where energy transition, climate action, and gender equality must go hand in hand.

Women’s participation in the energy sector is not just about representation—it is about resilience, innovation, and sustainable impact. 

On International Women’s Day, the project “Clean, Affordable and Secure Energy for Southeast Asia” (CASE) spotlights four remarkable women whose expertise and dedication are shaping the future of energy. 

Their perspectives demonstrate the transformative power of women’s leadership in advancing meaningful change. 

Women and the energy transition.

While gender equality is widely recognised as a cornerstone of sustainable development, women remain under-represented in the energy sector. Globally, women account for only 32% of full-time jobs in renewable energy, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The gap is even more pronounced in ASEAN, where the ASEAN Climate Change and Energy Project (ACCEPT) estimates that women make up just 8% of the energy workforce. 

A truly just energy transition depends on ensuring equal access to opportunities. Yet women continue to face structural barriers to leadership, employment, and entrepreneurship across the sector. The shift toward cleaner and more sustainable energy systems is one of the defining challenges of our time. 

Governments, industries, and communities are working together to move the energy transition forward, a process that depends on innovation, collaboration, and people with diverse skills and perspectives. For Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, Undersecretary, Department of Energy (DOE), Philippines, increasing women’s participation in the energy sector is both a question of fairness and a practical necessity. 

Meeting today’s energy challenges requires making full use of available talent. Creating more opportunities for women strengthens the sector’s ability to innovate, address complex problems, and adapt to changing energy needs. 

Undersecretary Guevara also stresses that women’s participation matters beyond workforce numbers. A just energy transition must take into account economic, social, and environmental considerations, and this requires leadership that reflects different perspectives and experiences. 

“Many women balance multiple responsibilities in their lives, from family to professional roles. These experiences can help ensure that energy policies and programmes remain connected to people’s everyday realities while supporting national development goals.” 

Greater representation helps ensure that energy policies address not only technical and economic priorities, but also social inclusion and community wellbeing. Leadership that reflects these perspectives is essential for advancing the energy transition while safeguarding food security, environmental sustainability and inclusiveness.

Innovation Through Inclusion 

Maythiwan Kiatgrajai, Senior Energy Advisor for CASE at GIZ Thailand, observes that greater inclusion introduces “different eyes” to longstanding problems in the energy sector. While discussions have traditionally centered on technical topics such as infrastructure and megawatts, women’s participation in the energy sector will shift attention towards how energy policies affect families and communities in practice. 

Drawing from her experience at CASE Thailand, she notes that innovation discussions within a predominantly female team extend beyond technology itself to focus on implementation and long-term impact. This includes considering how clean energy solutions can be made practical, accessible, and affordable for communities. Inclusive decision-making, she explains, allows policymakers and practitioners to develop a more holistic understanding of challenges, leading to smarter and more creative policies that better serve society as a whole. 

“By including women in the decision-making process, we get a much more complete picture. This leads to smarter, more creative policies that actually work for the whole of society.”

Her experience highlights a critical insight that technical solutions alone cannot drive a successful transition. Effective energy policies must account for social realities, and women’s leadership helps bridge the gap between technical topics and lived experience, ensuring that energy transitions are not only technologically sound but also socially responsive. 

Beyond Beneficiaries: Women as Drivers of Change 

Energy access and climate resilience cannot be achieved without recognising that women and men experience and use energy differently. Larasati Eka Wardhani, Energy Advisor at GIZ Indonesia/ASEAN and Gender Focal Point for CASE, stresses that universal energy access depends on understanding these differences, including the social realities that shape how energy is accessed and used in everyday life. 

She points out that women should not be seen only as beneficiaries of the energy transition. They are also decision-makers, innovators, and active contributors, shaping more inclusive and resilient energy systems. 

Women Driving a Just Energy Transition 

Women are the primary users and managers of energy within their households, shaping daily consumption patterns and guiding family members in adopting energy-saving and energy-efficient practices. Through these everyday actions, households become important starting points for accelerating a sustainable energy transition. The practices women promote at home can also extend beyond the household, influencing behaviours across communities and workplaces and strengthening collective progress toward more sustainable energy systems. 

“By consistently applying energy conservation and efficiency measures at home, women also cultivate sustainable behaviours that can be transferred to their professional environments, thereby reinforcing energy-efficient practices both at the household and workplace levels.”

Despite this influence, the energy sector—particularly electrical engineering—has traditionally been perceived as male-dominated. The technical nature of the work, along with expectations of frequent travel and demanding workloads, has reinforced social stereotypes that discourage women from pursuing careers or actively participating in the field. 

Le Thi Thoa, Manager for CASE Vietnam at GIZ, emphasises that to increase women’s participation in the energy sector, gender considerations must be systematically integrated into national energy strategies. Governments should establish clear and measurable gender targets to ensure women’s involvement is visible and quantifiable across policies, programmes, and implementation processes.

 Powering an Inclusive Energy Future 

As Southeast Asia advances its energy transition, the path forward must be both sustainable and inclusive. The experiences shared by these leading women show that gender equality is not a separate objective from climate and energy goals.

When women are equally represented in decision-making, innovation becomes more inclusive, policies become more grounded in social realities, and energy solutions become more accessible to the communities they are meant to serve. Empowering women across the energy sector is not simply about closing gaps. It is about strengthening the collective capacity to build energy systems that are resilient, equitable, and prepared for the future.