Paris-based IEA will establish a regional co-operation centre in Singapore to work with countries in southeast Asia on their energy transition efforts, the agency announced on 13 February.
The centre will serve as a hub for IEA's activities in the region, and is set to begin operations in the second half of 2024. It will focus on scaling up the deployment of renewables and other clean energy technologies, boosting cross-border power trade and improving access to finance for clean energy investments. The IEA aims to provide policy guidance, technical assistance, training and capacity building through this hub.
The new office will also allow the IEA to deepen its engagement with southeast Asia, said the agency's director Fatih Birol, and the region "will be critical to the energy transition." The centre will "energise the region's decarbonisation journey, while continuing to provide advice on energy security and resilience," said Singapore's second minister for trade and industry Tan See Leng.
The IEA and Singapore's energy regulator the Energy Market Authority (EMA) have worked together on energy efficiency, infrastructure financing and cross-border power interconnections through the Singapore-IEA regional training hub, and the new centre will further strengthen their collaboration to "support the region's energy transition pathways," said EMA's chief executive Ngiam Shih Chun.
Singapore is leading efforts in southeast Asia to create more cross-border power and renewables agreements in the region. The country aims to import up to 4GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035, and in October last year granted conditional approval to Singapore-based Sembcorp Utilities (SCU) to import 1.2GW of low-carbon electricity from Vietnam. SCU also signed a deal in the same month with engineering services firm PetroVietnam Technical for investment in offshore renewables and export of "green" electricity to Singapore.
The EMA has also granted conditional approvals to import 2GW of electricity from Indonesia and 1GW from Cambodia. If realised, these projects will utilise a mix of solar, hydro and wind power.
