Singapore’s Keppel Gets Conditional Approval to Import Renewable and Low-Carbon Energy

Keppel Infrastructure Holdings Pte Ltd’s (KI) wholly owned subsidiary, Keppel Energy, has received conditional approval issued by the Energy Market Authority of Singapore (EMA) for the long-term import and sales of 1 GW of low-carbon electricity from renewable energy sources and is the first entity to receive such a conditional approval.

To this end, Keppel Energy has also signed a long-term Power Purchase and Export Agreement (PPEA) with Cambodia’s Royal Group Power Company Ltd (RGP), for RGP to supply and export and Keppel to import utility-scale low-carbon electricity into Singapore.

Keppel Energy’s large-scale electricity import is expected to aggregate low-carbon electricity generated from various renewable energy sources in Cambodia, with the ability to scale and hybridise with the vast renewable energy sources in Lao PDR, which will provide greater flexibility and energy resilience.

It is envisaged that the power will be transmitted through onshore overhead high-voltage transmission lines and subsea high-voltage transmission cables from Cambodia to Singapore.

The low carbon electricity will be generated and supplied from an integrated energy system of more than 4 GW of installed capacity comprising largely solar power, complemented by hydro and potentially wind, and will be supported by proven energy storage systems, such as pumped hydro storage and batteries.

The conditional approval from EMA to Keppel Energy paves the way for Singapore’s first-of-its-kind large-scale electricity import under EMA’s Request for Proposal to appoint importers to import and sell up to 4 GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035.

Subject to requisite regulatory and other approvals, the large-scale low-carbon electricity import from Cambodia is expected to commence post-2030. Keppel will leverage its experience in the first multilateral cross-border electricity trade involving four ASEAN countries and the first renewable energy import into Singapore as part of the Lao PDR-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP) to facilitate the successful implementation of the large-scale import of renewables and low-carbon energy.

Mr Ngiam Shih Chun, Chief Executive of EMA, said, “The Conditional Approval for electricity imports from Cambodia is an important step towards achieving Singapore's goal of importing up to 4 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon electricity by 2035. Singapore is committed to decarbonising our power sector, and electricity imports of low carbon electricity from renewable energy sources will help us achieve our net-zero target by 2050.”

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