Global heatwaves which impact public health and raise challenges of energy demand management as well as floods from extreme weather events like Typhoon Yagi are a stark and local reminder that climate change will increasingly impact Southeast Asia. The region’s electricity use is projected to rise three-fold through 2050, and most of the region’s power still comes from fossil fuels. As a technical lead and innovator on the integration of key clean energy technologies like floating solar and battery energy storage systems, Singapore has an opportunity to invest in and support adoption in other Southeast Asian countries. Doing so can provide opportunities for Singaporean companies to capture growth while simultaneously helping the region meet net-zero commitments.
Following thirteen months of new global heat records this year, as well as a major heatwave in Southeast Asia in April and May which brought climate and public safety discussions into the open, energy issues should remain a public focus. Energy reliability underpins not only public services and air conditioning necessary to manage the impacts of extreme heat but also all elements of the modern economy. During the recent heatwave, Thailand set multiple peak energy demand records, and authorities in the Philippines and Vietnam raised concerns about air conditioning demand impacting grid reliability. Ensuring Southeast Asia’s future energy system is simultaneously ready to meet surging demand while minimizing carbon emissions is a major challenge. As Southeast Asia faces rapid electricity demand growth, Singapore has an opportunity to support the adoption of technologies such as floating solar and energy storage which are crucial to keeping the region growing sustainably.
Southeast Asia’s electricity use is expected to rise three-fold through 2050 as tens of millions of people gain access to the grid, tens of millions of others urbanize and improve living standards, and as energy-intensive manufacturing zones, data centers, and digital services expand. Most power in Southeast Asia still comes from fossil fuels, and so hot weather is a vicious cycle: energy is needed to address the impacts of extreme heat but leads to additional emissions which drive climate change and future heat waves.
Although the region has seen significant growth in investment in renewable energy in recent years, sustained investment is necessary to meet net-zero targets. Renewable energy investment is on track to surpass ASEAN’s shared target for 25% low-carbon energy by 2025, but the Global Energy Monitor estimates only 3% of proposed solar and wind projects are currently under construction. This is insufficient to ensure longer-term targets for renewable energy stay on track. Concerns about effectively integrating variable solar and wind into the grid remain an obstacle. On the part of investors, such concerns raise risk and can inhibit investment; on the part of governments, it can stall permitting to new solar and wind projects.
Singapore can support the regional renewable energy transition through targeted engagement on key renewable energy technologies, particularly in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Laos has recently sold power to Singapore via the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project, while Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have signed MOUs to sell low-carbon electricity to Singapore by 2035. In August 2024 Australia granted environmental approvals for the SunCable solar form, which plans to export up to 2,000 MW of power to Singapore. Singapore thus has a vested interest in supporting renewable energy expansion and diversification to ensure its future energy import options are low carbon.
While every country’s challenges are unique, investment and capacity-building related to the expansion of solar energy and integration of energy storage can benefit all. High rates of sunshine and low cost of generation make solar particularly attractive in Southeast Asia—however, large-scale solar installations require large amounts of land which can cause tensions with local communities and raise prices where land is in high demand. Given its physical constraints as an island nation, Singapore has developed significant expertise in the use of both floating solar and rooftop solar technologies to avoid or minimize these costs and challenges to solar projects.
Floating solar (FPV) provides many benefits compared to traditional solar farms, including the avoidance of land competition and land lease fees. FPV produces electricity during the dry season, right when reservoirs often start to run low on water and face reduced power capacity. As climate change’s impacts are increasingly felt through droughts and heatwaves, FPV can provide a valuable complement to existing hydropower. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that Southeast Asia has between 134-278 GW of technical potential for FPV on reservoirs. For context, total installed power generation capacity in ASEAN in 2024 is about 312 GW. FPV is thus a major opportunity, and Singapore has a first-mover advantage in this space through the 60 MW FPV project on the Tengeh Reservoir. This project has been operational since 2021, and Singapore thus has years of operational experience and commercial experience to draw on for capacity-building efforts as well as direct investment in floating solar abroad. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia all have numerous reservoirs which could host floating solar installations. Singapore’s experience integrating over 1,000 MW of rooftop solar installations into the grid is also relevant for denser urban areas like Bangkok or Jakarta which would benefit from local energy production.
As the amount of variable solar and wind rises, energy storage is necessary to ensure grid stability. Vietnam stands as both an inspirational tale given its rapid expansion of solar and wind power and a cautionary tale due to difficulties with effectively integrating large amounts of variable energy into its grid. Generally speaking, energy storage is crucial to ensure grid reliability, both on a moment-to-moment basis when a grid may struggle to absorb surges of power when the sun comes out as well as on an hour-to-hour basis given that electricity use often surges when people return home as the sun sets. Energy storage systems such as batteries can ease both integration pains, but battery technology is still relatively expensive and unfamiliar to power planners in the region.
While there are pilot battery energy storage systems around the region, Singapore has already invested in large-scale battery storage projects. The 285 MWh system on Jurong Island is the largest battery storage system in Southeast Asia and has been operating since early 2023. Sharing lessons learned from how to effectively integrate both solar systems and energy storage into the grid in Singapore would benefit national utilities in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, all of which have near-term ambitions to scale up variable renewable energy.
Supporting adoption of these technologies can deliver numerous long-term benefits for Singapore and the region at large, through both supporting a faster road to net-zero and providing an opportunity for Singaporean tech leaders to capture growth in growing sectors.
This analysis is generously supported by the BRIDGE (Building River Dialogue and Governance) Project, which aims to build water governance capacities through learning, demonstration, leadership, and consensus building and is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam by IUCN.
Singapore Can Better Support ASEAN Through Clean Tech Diplomacy
By Courtney Weatherby
Southeast Asia
Global heatwaves which impact public health and raise challenges of energy demand management as well as floods from extreme weather events like Typhoon Yagi are a stark and local reminder that climate change will increasingly impact Southeast Asia. The region’s electricity use is projected to rise three-fold through 2050, and most of the region’s power still comes from fossil fuels. As a technical lead and innovator on the integration of key clean energy technologies like floating solar and battery energy storage systems, Singapore has an opportunity to invest in and support adoption in other Southeast Asian countries. Doing so can provide opportunities for Singaporean companies to capture growth while simultaneously helping the region meet net-zero commitments.
Following thirteen months of new global heat records this year, as well as a major heatwave in Southeast Asia in April and May which brought climate and public safety discussions into the open, energy issues should remain a public focus. Energy reliability underpins not only public services and air conditioning necessary to manage the impacts of extreme heat but also all elements of the modern economy. During the recent heatwave, Thailand set multiple peak energy demand records, and authorities in the Philippines and Vietnam raised concerns about air conditioning demand impacting grid reliability. Ensuring Southeast Asia’s future energy system is simultaneously ready to meet surging demand while minimizing carbon emissions is a major challenge. As Southeast Asia faces rapid electricity demand growth, Singapore has an opportunity to support the adoption of technologies such as floating solar and energy storage which are crucial to keeping the region growing sustainably.
Southeast Asia’s electricity use is expected to rise three-fold through 2050 as tens of millions of people gain access to the grid, tens of millions of others urbanize and improve living standards, and as energy-intensive manufacturing zones, data centers, and digital services expand. Most power in Southeast Asia still comes from fossil fuels, and so hot weather is a vicious cycle: energy is needed to address the impacts of extreme heat but leads to additional emissions which drive climate change and future heat waves.
Although the region has seen significant growth in investment in renewable energy in recent years, sustained investment is necessary to meet net-zero targets. Renewable energy investment is on track to surpass ASEAN’s shared target for 25% low-carbon energy by 2025, but the Global Energy Monitor estimates only 3% of proposed solar and wind projects are currently under construction. This is insufficient to ensure longer-term targets for renewable energy stay on track. Concerns about effectively integrating variable solar and wind into the grid remain an obstacle. On the part of investors, such concerns raise risk and can inhibit investment; on the part of governments, it can stall permitting to new solar and wind projects.
Singapore can support the regional renewable energy transition through targeted engagement on key renewable energy technologies, particularly in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Laos has recently sold power to Singapore via the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project, while Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have signed MOUs to sell low-carbon electricity to Singapore by 2035. In August 2024 Australia granted environmental approvals for the SunCable solar form, which plans to export up to 2,000 MW of power to Singapore. Singapore thus has a vested interest in supporting renewable energy expansion and diversification to ensure its future energy import options are low carbon.
While every country’s challenges are unique, investment and capacity-building related to the expansion of solar energy and integration of energy storage can benefit all. High rates of sunshine and low cost of generation make solar particularly attractive in Southeast Asia—however, large-scale solar installations require large amounts of land which can cause tensions with local communities and raise prices where land is in high demand. Given its physical constraints as an island nation, Singapore has developed significant expertise in the use of both floating solar and rooftop solar technologies to avoid or minimize these costs and challenges to solar projects.
Floating solar (FPV) provides many benefits compared to traditional solar farms, including the avoidance of land competition and land lease fees. FPV produces electricity during the dry season, right when reservoirs often start to run low on water and face reduced power capacity. As climate change’s impacts are increasingly felt through droughts and heatwaves, FPV can provide a valuable complement to existing hydropower. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that Southeast Asia has between 134-278 GW of technical potential for FPV on reservoirs. For context, total installed power generation capacity in ASEAN in 2024 is about 312 GW. FPV is thus a major opportunity, and Singapore has a first-mover advantage in this space through the 60 MW FPV project on the Tengeh Reservoir. This project has been operational since 2021, and Singapore thus has years of operational experience and commercial experience to draw on for capacity-building efforts as well as direct investment in floating solar abroad. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia all have numerous reservoirs which could host floating solar installations. Singapore’s experience integrating over 1,000 MW of rooftop solar installations into the grid is also relevant for denser urban areas like Bangkok or Jakarta which would benefit from local energy production.
As the amount of variable solar and wind rises, energy storage is necessary to ensure grid stability. Vietnam stands as both an inspirational tale given its rapid expansion of solar and wind power and a cautionary tale due to difficulties with effectively integrating large amounts of variable energy into its grid. Generally speaking, energy storage is crucial to ensure grid reliability, both on a moment-to-moment basis when a grid may struggle to absorb surges of power when the sun comes out as well as on an hour-to-hour basis given that electricity use often surges when people return home as the sun sets. Energy storage systems such as batteries can ease both integration pains, but battery technology is still relatively expensive and unfamiliar to power planners in the region.
While there are pilot battery energy storage systems around the region, Singapore has already invested in large-scale battery storage projects. The 285 MWh system on Jurong Island is the largest battery storage system in Southeast Asia and has been operating since early 2023. Sharing lessons learned from how to effectively integrate both solar systems and energy storage into the grid in Singapore would benefit national utilities in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, all of which have near-term ambitions to scale up variable renewable energy.
Supporting adoption of these technologies can deliver numerous long-term benefits for Singapore and the region at large, through both supporting a faster road to net-zero and providing an opportunity for Singaporean tech leaders to capture growth in growing sectors.
Check out Stimson’s recent report on Opportunities for Singapore to Drive ASEAN’s Green Transition, which dives into regional electricity trade and technology opportunities in greater detail.
This analysis is generously supported by the BRIDGE (Building River Dialogue and Governance) Project, which aims to build water governance capacities through learning, demonstration, leadership, and consensus building and is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam by IUCN.
Recent & Related