Singapore Diversifies Energy Supply, Expands Solar and Explores Nuclear and Geothermal to Counter Resource Nationalism

On the morning of Oct 26, at the opening of the Singapore International Energy Week conference at Marina Bay Sands, Tan See Leng laid out how Singapore intends to keep its lights on in a world he described as increasingly short of supply and increasingly protective of it. Tan is the Minister for Energy, Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry), and his ministry only took that name on Oct 1, when the Ministry of Trade and Industry was renamed to reflect how much energy now matters to the country.

His timing was pointed. Two days earlier, Indonesia had reduced the natural gas it supplies to Singapore. The Energy Market Authority later clarified that the cut was less than 2% of the country's total daily gas demand. Still, Singapore depends on natural gas for about 95% of its needs. Tan said resource nationalism is especially worrying when it undermines established contracts, because it raises business risk and deters investment in energy, which hurts importers like Singapore over the long run. He also pointed to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted global energy flows just four years after the 2022 energy crisis, and warned that recent attacks on Saudi Arabia could worsen matters.

The near-term defence is diversification. When Singapore began importing gas, all of it came by pipeline from neighbouring countries. Today about half arrives as liquefied natural gas from a global portfolio of suppliers, including the United States and Australia. The EMA also requires power plants to be able to run on diesel, so they can draw on national reserves if gas supplies are severely disrupted. That cushion will be reinforced by an agreement signed the same day between Saudi Arabia and Singapore, which aims to allow Saudi crude oil to be stored in the Jurong Rock Caverns from the second half of 2027. The facility sits 150m beneath Jurong Island and holds 1.47 million cubic metres, enough to fill 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Supporting more varied sources requires more hardware. A five-year plan for expanding the power system from 2026 was released, which Tan called the most significant build-up of energy infrastructure in decades. It includes five new power plants, seven new substations, more underground transmission cables and potential energy infrastructure on offshore Pulau Tekong. It also aims to triple local energy storage capacity to 1 gigawatt-hour, so that surplus electricity from periods of strong solar output can be stored and released when output dips or the system is under stress.

Solar, which Tan called Singapore's most viable indigenous renewable source, is set to grow to 4 gigawatt-peak by 2035. That is up from a refreshed target of 3 gigawatt-peak by the end of this decade, and amounts to about 5% of projected 2030 electricity demand. Singapore is also working with Chinese firm GCL Perovskite on a proposed pilot of next-generation panels. Made of perovskite rather than traditional silicon, they could potentially be more efficient and generate more power from the same space. Tan also announced a $75 million initiative to fund research into promising low-carbon technologies.

Solar alone will not be enough, he said, and the country is studying nuclear and geothermal power. No decision has been made on nuclear, but Singapore is building local expertise, including placing selected public officers in leading nuclear organisations abroad as part of several schemes to build a pool of professionals. Tan said that even if Singapore ultimately declines nuclear, these skills will remain useful as interest grows across South-east Asia. On geothermal, consultants found the technical potential for power generation is more than 60 times Singapore's current annual electricity consumption. Tan said a decision could be many years away, but repeated that no option is off the table.

The third strand is connectivity. On Oct 26, the EMA gave Sembcorp Utilities conditional approval to import up to 1.3 gigawatts of renewable electricity from and through Peninsular Malaysia. From 2035 that could include solar power from Malaysia and offshore wind from Vietnam. Singapore aims to import 6 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity from neighbours by 2035, around 30% of that year's demand. Marine subsea surveys for a second interconnector with Peninsular Malaysia start in October, part of up to 2 gigawatts of new capacity by 2030 alongside the 1 gigawatt existing link. The landing site will be decided after the studies, an EMA spokesperson said.

Tan said the announcements build on years of groundwork, and that the task now is to continue with the same resolve with which Singapore wrote its water story. The things to watch are the interconnector surveys and the path to 6 gigawatts of imports by 2035.