Singapore approves the import of 1.2 GW of low-carbon power from Vietnam

Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) has granted conditional approval to Sembcorp Utilities, a subsidiary of the Singaporean company Sembcorp Industries, to import 1.2 GW of low-carbon electricity from Vietnam. The imported electricity will harness offshore wind power and potentially other forms of generation, to be developed with Petrovietnam Technical Services Corporation (PTSC). It will be transmitted from Vietnam to Singapore via new subsea interconnection cables that will run for about 1,000 km under the South China Sea.

In 2021, Singapore announced plans to import up to 4 GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035. In 2021, the country thus issued a first Request for Proposal (RfP) to select suppliers to import around 1.2 GW from 2027. A second RfP was issued in July 2022. In January 2023, YTL PowerSeraya and TNB Genco signed a joint agreement for the import of 100 MW from Malaysia, marking the first power supply from Malaysia to Singapore on a commercial basis. In March 2023, the EMA authorised Keppel Energy to import 1 GW of electricity from Cambodia to Singapore by 2035 and in September 2023, the EMA gave conditional approvals for five companies to import 2 GW of low-carbon electricity from Indonesia.