Three months into the conflict, the immediate response has been far less clean.
As a knee-jerk reaction to bridge the gap and prevent black-outs, China, India and the Philippines bought Russian oil as soon as the embargo was lifted, and restarted retired coal plants.
“It’s a survival-first energy policy leading to a short-term return to coal. I call it a dirty detour,” Pérez says.
Others turned to nuclear – a low-carbon but politically contentious option. Japan switched idle nuclear reactors back online, China and India expanded capacity and Taiwan reversed its nuclear phase-out policy.
In the long term, however, he sees the war accelerating a drive for energy independence via renewables, with countries turning to offshore wind, utility-scale solar, battery energy storage and electric vehicles.
He believes China is likely to emerge as the biggest winner.
Not only has it managed to weather the energy shock with its ample oil reserves covering 100 days and access to Russian and Iranian oil, but its decade-long capital investment in renewable energy is now delivering results in a matter of months.
“China used to be criticised for having built 1,200GW of solar and wind – derided as overcapacity and unnecessary. But obviously it is now an insurance against shocks in the Strait of Hormuz. Its front-loaded capex of the last decade is a shock absorber,” Pérez says.
Also to China’s advantage, the country has a fast-growing and highly developed EV market, accounting for 65% of global sales.
“USD 100 oil is the best advertisement for EVs,” Pérez says. “Nothing accelerates the adoption of an alternative fuel more than a sustained oil price shock. This is the most effective marketing campaign the global EV industry has ever received, for free.”
In China, the EV penetration of new car sales rose to 62% this year from 52% in late 2025, with exports by BYD, Geely-Zeekr, Xpeng, Nio and Chery more than doubling year-on-year in April 2026.
Equally important, China leads in battery storage. It recently unveiled a three-year plan to build 180GWh of capacity by 2027, using lithium-ion systems to balance power supply, store energy and provide ancillary services.
Chinese battery companies, including CATL, BYD and Eve Energy, have 70% of global cell supply. But advances in batteries aren't confined to China - they are emerging right across the region.
Japan, Korea and other countries are also building battery capacity, and their efforts mean that Asia Pacific now accounts for 70% of global battery energy storage system (BESS) market in 2026.
Looking further ahead, Pérez believes the oil crisis will serve to bring forward an ambitious project to interconnect the power grid networks of ASEAN countries by 2045, enabling cross-border power trading, incorporating more renewables and improving energy security in what is a rapidly growing region.
For example, he says, Singapore is fast-tracking its plan to draw renewable hydropower from Laos through cross-border high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections, while also exploring access to offshore wind from Vietnam via a subsea cable.
“Asia Pacific is proving to be the ultimate proof of concept for the energy transition,” Pérez says.
“Energy security is now equivalent to national security. For Asia Pacific, the dependence on volatile Middle East should no longer be an option and everyone is moving towards renewables and battery storage. The war is defining energy independence of this region for the next decade.”