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SINGAPORE: Singapore has granted conditional approval to import 1 gigawatt (GW) of low-carbon electricity from Sarawak, Malaysia.
The conditional approval was given to Sembcorp Utilities and its consortium partner, Sarawak Energy.
“This marks a new phase of energy partnership between both nations,” said the Energy Market Authority (EMA) on Friday (Oct 17).
This is the first large-scale low-carbon electricity project from Malaysia that has been granted conditional approval by Singapore.
Singapore currently imports 50MW (0.05GW) of renewable energy from Malaysia as part of a pilot that started in December 2024.
The authority said it has preliminarily assessed the consortium’s project proposal to be technically and commercially viable in supplying electricity from hydropower in Sarawak to Singapore.
To progress, the consortium will need to secure all required approvals from relevant jurisdictions, including the countries that transmission cables will pass through.
“The conditional approval provides the consortium with regulatory support from EMA to continue to develop the project to meet its proposed commercial operation date, which is expected to be around 2035,” said the authority.
“Low-carbon electricity imports form a key part of Singapore’s strategy to decarbonise the power sector, which currently accounts for 40 per cent of our carbon emissions.”
The awarding of the conditional approval was marked by two ceremonies on Friday.
The first ceremony was held in Singapore and was witnessed by Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong and Sarawak Premier Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Zohari.
The second ceremony was witnessed by Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof, and Singapore’s Minister-in-charge of Energy and Science & Technology Dr Tan See Leng on the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
“EMA will continue to engage all companies with credible and commercially viable import proposals that can contribute to the decarbonisation of the power sector,” said the authority.
To date, EMA has issued conditional approvals to 10 other projects to import low-carbon electricity from Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Six projects have made substantive progress and were awarded conditional licences.
