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Huge Solar-Battery Plant Seeks to Cash In on Singapore Demand

Huge Solar-Battery Plant Seeks to Cash In on Singapore Demand

One of the world’s most ambitious renewable energy projects is being proposed in Indonesia, piggybacking on demand for electricity from Singapore.

Sunseap Group Pte plans to develop 7 gigawatts of solar power and 12 gigawatt-hours of battery storage on Indonesia’s Riau Islands, Chief Executive Officer Frank Phuan said in an interview. Singapore said earlier this week that it aims to import nearly a third of its electricity by 2035 from low-carbon sources to help meet climate targets.

Huge Solar-Battery Plant Seeks to Cash In on Singapore Demand

The venture would be many times larger than the world’s current biggest battery facility, Vistra Corp.’s Moss Landing in California, which has capacity of 1.6 gigawatt-hours. It involves an expansion over many years of an already-announced $2 billion facility in Batam, and the company doesn’t yet have any cost estimate, Phuan said. 

Other developers including Sembcorp Industries Ltd. and Medco Power Indonesia also this week discussed potential projects to export electricity to Singapore.

Companies are seeking to unleash Indonesia’s solar power potential, which the country also plans to rely heavily on to meet its own climate goals. An Indonesia-based think tank earlier this year estimated that the country could theoretically generate almost 20,000 gigawatts of solar power, more than double the combined capacity of every power plant in the world. 

Singapore-based Sunseap has signed non-binding agreements with companies including Sumitomo Corp. and Samsung C&T Corp. to develop its project, which will be spread across several islands and built on land, reservoirs and coastal seas, Phuan said in the Tuesday interview. About 1 gigawatt of uninterrupted electricity would be exported to the city-state, with other generation used to develop green data centers in Indonesia, he said. 

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.