Singapore Plans to Import Energy from Asia Pacific Countries

Constrained by limited land for low-carbon power production, Singapore plans to achieve its decarbonisation targets through energy imports from the Asia Pacific countries to meet its energy demand.

As part of the plans, the city-state’s is planning to issue 30-year import licenses to renewable energy developers, CEO of Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) Puah Kok Keong said at the Singapore International Energy Week held last week.

According to him, the electricity import scheme requires substantial upfront investments, such as building large solar farms and energy storage systems, which can cost billions of dollars. The longer import license period is intended to reduce policy uncertainty, allowing companies ample time to recover their investments.

In fact, EMA has granted conditional approval to Sun Cable Assets Pte Ltd to import 1.75 GW of low-carbon electricity from Australia into Singapore, in line with the Singapore’s long-term strategy to decarbonise its energy supply.

The imported electricity is expected to harness solar power from Australia’s Northern Territory and transmitted to Singapore via new subsea cables over a distance of approximately 4,300 km. EMA is seeking to import around 6 GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035.

The approval awarded to Sun Cable recognises that the project can be technically and commercially viable based on the proposal and information submitted thus far. It will provide Sun Cable with the support to continue to develop the project to meet its proposed commercial operation date, which is expected to be after 2035.It may be recalled that EMA has so far granted 2 GW of conditional licences for electricity imports from Indonesia, as well as 3.6 GW of Conditional Approvals for electricity imports comprising 1.4 GW from Indonesia, 1 GW from Cambodia and 1.2 GW from Vietnam.

If realised, these projects will collectively tap on a diverse mix of solar energy, hydropower and wind power. They will also contribute to the realisation of the ASEAN Power Grid. EMA is leaving no stone unturned to achieve net zero ambitions by 2050.

ASEAN Power Grid

In fact, the ASEAN countries have decided to have ASEAN Power Grid (APG), under ASEAN Vision 2020. APG has the potential to address green energy shortages and which can also create between 2000 and 900 jobs, attract investments, reduce pollution, providing significant social, economic, besides ensuring environmental benefits to the region.

Net Zero World Initiative, which took up a research project between the US Department of Energy and Singapore, said that the ASEAN Grid involves an annual research and development investment of $2 billion and a cumulative investment of $1.4 trillion in power infrastructure.

Once the regional power grid interconnections are in place, the economic benefits are immense as the region’s GDP is project to grow between 0.8% and 4.6%.

Presently, most of the Southeast Asian countries, depend on coal-fired power, and the ASEAN Grid could enhance low-carbon energy usage through multinational grid connections, thereby reducing air pollution. The research also suggests that air pollution could be halved, resulting in 15,000 fewer deaths annually due to pollution-related causes.

As of today, six bilateral interconnections have been in operations, linking Singapore and Peninsula Malaysia, Thailand and Peninsula Malaysia, and via Thailand to Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. Six APG projects are under construction with a schedule of completion in 2017.