Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong at the opening of the 14th Singapore International Energy Week on October 25 said that the country plans to import low-carbon electricity to fulfill 30% of the country’s electricity needs by 2035, equivalent to up to four gigawatts (GW), as reported by Lianhe Zaobao on the same day. Following that, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) will issue two requests for proposals (RFP) to buy various low-carbon electricity from multiple importers. The authority will launch the first RFP in November to acquire 1.2GW of electricity and implement it by 2027, while the second RFP for the rest 2.8GW is scheduled in the second quarter of 2022 and will start by 2035. EMA emphasized it would not accept any proposal that provides coal-fueled electricity.

Limited by the local resources and land, Singapore has to rely on electricity imports, generated from either traditional fuels or clean sources. Even though it has been developing rooftop and floating solar power on its own land, the country’s local solar energy could only supply 3% of its electricity by 2030. Singapore will begin its low-carbon electricity import plan with a small range of trials, in order to explore and solve technical and regulatory issues related to cross-border electricity trades and transmissions. The trials include importing 100-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fueled electricity from Malaysia and 100MW solar power electricity from Indonesia’s Pulau Bulan. Afterward, from 2022 to 2023, Singapore will also leverage existing routes to import 100MW hydropower electricity from Laos by the way of Thailand and Malaysia. In addition, Singapore’s state-owned power grid operator SP Group and France’s energy developer Electricite de France (EDF Group) reached a deal on October 11 to jointly develop a subsea transmission cable, supplying Singapore from Indonesia’s solar power. The solar energy plant in Indonesia is planned at an installation capacity of 1,000MW.

Sources:

https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/singapore/story20211025-1206703

https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/singapore/story20211026-1206904

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/singapore-plans-to-import-30-of-energy-from-low-carbon-sources-by-2035