SINGAPORE - Singapore is preparing to weather the increasingly challenging global energy landscape marked by supply crunches and growing resource nationalism, said Minister for Energy, Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry) Tan See Leng on Oct 26.
To navigate these headwinds, the city-state is strengthening the diversity of its energy sources, and taking steps to ensure it has the infrastructure required to support them, he said at the opening of the Singapore International Energy Week conference at Marina Bay Sands.
And even as the Republic strives to ensure its energy security in the near-term with new fossil fuel partnerships, it will also step up its deployment of low-carbon options such as solar energy to meet future energy needs in a climate-friendly way, the minister said.
The Republic is also exploring emerging energy options that are not yet commercially viable, including nuclear and geothermal energy.
Tan, whose ministry was on Oct 1 renamed the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry to reflect the growing importance of energy for Singapore, was mapping out how Singapore will strengthen the energy sector. The ministry was previously known as the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Said Tan: “We must ensure our system resilience continues to be a source of confidence, harness energy to bolster our competitiveness, pursue low-carbon energy pathways, and deepen connectivity with our partners... While keeping costs in check.”
His remarks come two days after Indonesia reduced natural gas supplies to Singapore.
The amount of gas cut is less than 2% of the Republic’s total daily gas demand, Singapore’s energy regulator the Energy Market Authority (EMA) later clarified. Singapore relies on natural gas to meet about 95% of its needs.
Tan said the trend of resource nationalism is particularly concerning, especially if it undermines established contractual agreements.
He added that such moves increase business risk and deter investments in the energy sector with negative long-term implications for energy importers like Singapore.
He also cited the disruption of global energy flows caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Coming just four years after the 2022 energy crisis, the situation could escalate further following recent attacks on Saudi Arabia.
When Singapore first started importing gas, all of its gas was piped from neighboring countries, but today, about half of the Republic’s gas is imported as liquified natural gas (LNG) from a global portfolio of sources, such as the US and Australia, said Tan.
He pointed out that the EMA requires Singapore’s power plants to also run on diesel, allowing for them to tap the Republic’s reserves when there is a severe disruption to gas supplies.
This will be shored up with the signing of an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Singapore on Oct 26, which aims to enable the storage of Saudi crude oil in the Jurong Rock Caverns from the second half of 2027.
Located 150m beneath Jurong Island, the facility has a total storage capacity of 1.47 million cubic metres, enough to fill 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Quoting a Chinese saying, Tan said: “We cannot predict every disruption, but we will always ensure that Singapore is prepared for them.”
And as Singapore prepares to meet growing electricity demand by tapping a variety of different energy sources, the Republic will need to ensure it has the infrastructure to support this.
A five-year plan on how the Republic plans to expand its power system from 2026 was also rolled out on Oct 26.
“This will be the most significant build-up of our energy infrastructure in decades,” said Tan.
The plan features five new power plants, seven new substations, more underground transmission cables, as well as potential energy infrastructure on offshore Pulau Tekong. It also has an aim of tripling the capacity of energy storage systems here to 1 gigawatt-hour.
Energy storage systems help maintain balance in the power system by storing excess electricity during periods of high solar generation and releasing the stored energy when solar output is lower or when the system is under stress, explained Tan.
Elaborating on Singapore’s plans for solar energy, Tan said Singapore intends to expand the deployment of its “most viable indigenous renewable energy source” to 4 gigawatt-peak by 2035.
This is up from its refreshed target of 3 gigawatt-peak by the end of this decade, and amounts to about 5 per cent of the country’s total electricity demand projected for 2030.
The Republic is also working with Chinese firm GCL Perovskite on a proposed pilot for next-generation solar panels that could generate more solar energy with the same amount of space, Tan said. Traditional solar panels are made of silicon, while next-generation ones made of a material known as perovskite could potentially increase its efficiency.
In a drive to develop low-carbon technologies for cleaner and more secure power generation, Tan also announced a $75 million initiative that will fund research in promising technologies.
Despite Singapore’s bigger push for solar energy, it will need other sources of low-carbon energy, noted Tan, who laid out how the Republic is seriously studying tapping nuclear and geothermal energy.
While Singapore has not yet made a decision on whether it will tap nuclear energy, it is working to build up its local expertise to help the country make an informed decision.
To this end, Tan said selected public officers will be able to experience what it is like to work in some of the world’s leading nuclear energy organisations. This will be part of several new schemes to build a pool of nuclear experts and professionals in Singapore.
He said: “Now, even if Singapore eventually decides not to deploy nuclear energy, the capabilities and expertise we are developing today will continue to serve us well, particularly as interest in nuclear energy grows across South-east Asia and around the world.”
The Republic is also deepening its connectivity with partners.
On Oct 26, EMA awarded a conditional approval to Sembcorp Utilities to import up to 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electricity from and through Peninsular Malaysia to Singapore.
This could mean the import of electricity from sources elsewhere from 2035, including solar power from Malaysia and offshore wind in Vietnam, through connected infrastructure.
Singapore has a target of importing 6 GW of low-carbon electricity from its neighbours by 2035, which will account for around 30 per cent of the Republic’s electricity demand that year.
Marine subsea surveys to build a new subsea interconnector between Singapore and Peninsular will start in October, Tan added. This will be the Republic’s second interconnection with Malaysia.
Said Tan: “This marks a concrete step forward in adding up to 2GW of new interconnection capacity between Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia by 2030, which will complement the 1 GW of capacity via our existing interconnector.”
The location of the interconnector’s landing site will be determined following the completion of the studies, said an EMA spokesperson.