SINGAPORE: Where Singapore gets its electricity from has been in the headlines in recent months, with the announcement that the country will import electricity from Malaysia and the opening of the largest energy storage system in Southeast Asia on Jurong Island.
On January 30 there was a news that Singapore would import 100 megawatts MW of electricity from Malaysia as part of a two-year trial, under a joint agreement between YTL PowerSeraya and TNB Genco.
This is the first time that Malaysian electricity will be supplied to Singapore on a commercial basis.
Sun Cable, a company that plans to develop a $30 billion S $27.6 billion project to provide solar power from Australia to Singapore through undersea cables, announced last year that it was entering voluntary administration after Keppel Electric and the state-owned Electricite du Laos EDL signed a deal to import renewable energy from Laos.
Questions asked online include why Singapore needs to import electricity and whether it can rely on solar energy.
CNA looks at Singapore's power sources and where electricity could come from in the future.
95 per cent of Singapore's electricity is generated from natural gas, which is the cleanest form of fossil fuel, as it produces the least carbon emissions per unit of electricity.
Using natural gas has allowed Singapore to reduce the amount of carbon it releases into the atmosphere.
As the country scales up other sources, natural gas will continue to be a dominant fuel for Singapore in the near future, according to the government agency Powering Lives.
The National Climate Change Secretariat Singapore NCCS said the percentage of natural gas used in electricity generation has increased from 19 per cent in 2000 to 95 per cent. Other energy products such as solar, biomass and municipal waste accounted for 2.9 per cent, followed by coal at 1.2 per cent and petroleum products such as diesel and fuel oil at 1 per cent.
Singapore's electricity is produced by the combustion of natural gas that is piped from Malaysia and Indonesia, NCCS said.
The country plans to build a second terminal to support new industrial sites and power plants with the opening of a liquefied natural gas LNG terminal in Jurong Island.
It said that this will not only provide critical mass for enhanced energy security, but it will also enable Singapore to be a hub for LNG related business.
Singapore doesn't have natural renewable energy sources, so importing energy allows it to access cleaner energy sources from abroad.
Singapore's total electricity consumption has increased over the years.