Rivers to the Grid: Why 500 Megawatts From Laos Matters for Singapore’s Green Power Market

Singapore has almost no rivers to dam, little spare land for solar farms and no room for wind turbines. So when it wants more clean electricity, it has to look abroad. On October 30, on the sidelines of Singapore International Energy Week, one such option took shape: generator Tuas Power signed a memorandum of understanding with Laos’ state power company Électricité du Laos (EDL) and the Lao renewable developer Phongsupthavy Group (PSTG) to explore importing up to 500 megawatts of Laotian hydropower.

The plan in numbers

The proposal would start at 100 MW in the first contract year, rise to 300 MW in the second and reach 500 MW from the third year on, under an arrangement lasting five to 15 years. At full scale, that is slightly over 4% of Singapore’s current generation capacity of about 12 gigawatts, and more than double the 200 MW permitted under the existing Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project, which began in 2022.

Tuas Power, a unit of China’s state-owned Huaneng Group, wants to sell the power to customers such as data centres and chipmakers on long-term contracts, optionally bundled with renewable energy certificates (RECs) certified through T-RECs Energy.

Why the timing matters

That last detail is more important than it sounds. Under Singapore’s revised SS 673 code for RECs, dated October 27, certificates must now be linked to renewable electricity physically delivered into Singapore’s grid. Companies can no longer simply buy certificates for green power generated elsewhere. For firms with carbon targets, real imported clean electrons suddenly carry a premium.

The dry-season problem

Hydropower has a weakness: Laos has roughly six months of dry weather each year, and Tuas Power’s chief operating officer Michael Wong says early talks with EDL in 2023 stalled on supply stability. The answer was to bring in PSTG, whose solar, wind and storage assets can top up supply when reservoirs run low.

The deal is still exploratory. Electricity must cross Thailand and Malaysia, so approvals are needed from several governments, and Singapore’s Energy Market Authority grants import licences in three stages, from conditional approval to a conditional licence and finally an importer licence. Wong expects progress in the first half of 2027 and says new cables may be needed as demand grows. The direction, though, is clear: Singapore’s clean-power future is being written in its neighbours’ rivers.