“Allow renewable energy export to S’pore to attract more investments,” Putrajaya told

“Allow renewable energy export to S’pore to attract more investments,” Putrajaya told




THE Government should allow renewable energy (RE) export to Singapore to attract more investments and create more green jobs, said a former minister.

According to Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysia had been proactively engaged with Singapore on RE export to the country from the end of 2018 until the events of the “Sheraton Move” which had led to the fall of the 22-month-old Pakatan Harapan (Pakatan) government in February 2020.


Yeo served as the Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister during the Pakatan administration.


“In fact, RE trading was included in the agenda of almost every one of my bilateral discussions with my Singaporean counterpart when I was in office,” she pointed out.


“We anticipated then that Singapore would need more RE in their electricity mix due to the trend of the increasing number of multinational companies making commitments towards carbon neutrality and the fact that many of these companies have their regional headquarters in Singapore.


“As for us, we were keen to export RE as it would be another growth area for the green economy and green jobs.”

Yeo noted that as anticipated, the Singapore Government had made the announcement on Oct 25, 2021 that it will import up to 4 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon RE by 2035.

“This is a potential export market that, if captured fully, will be able to attract RM6 bil in private investment and create around 50,000 jobs in Malaysia,” she said.

“Of course, Malaysia will probably not be able to ‘eat the whole pie’ but since Malaysia is geographically close to Singapore, I believe that we will be able to capture a healthy piece of the pie.

“However, out of the sudden, the Malaysian government announced a ban on RE export in October 2021.”

While Yeo had questioned the ban in Parliament, she explained that the reply she had received was that RE export – including the carbon credits that come with the exported RE – will hinder Malaysia from fulfilling its carbon reduction target namely the National Determined Commitment (NDC) in the Paris Agreement.

“This is mathematically flawed. Overall, in Malaysia, the untapped potential of solar, bioenergy and small hydropower is 269 GW, 3.6 GW and 2.5 GW,” Yeo clarified.

“To put things into perspective, our national total installed power generation capacity as of 2020 is only 34.6 GW – comprising 27.2 GW for Peninsular Malaysia, 5.7 GW for Sarawak and 1.7 GW for Sabah. The untapped potential of RE can power up more than eight Malaysias!

“In short, Malaysia is able to fulfil our NDC and export a considerable amount of RE at the same time.”

Yeo went on to explain that the Singapore Energy Market Authority (EMA) had issued the first Request for Proposal (RFP) on Nov 12, 2021 for the import of up to 1.2 GW of electricity, with the deadline for RFP submission being June 14, 2022.

“While our RE players will likely miss this round, the second RFP will be open in this quarter of the year and I call upon the Government to reverse the decision to ban RE export so that Malaysia-based RE players can participate in the second RFP,” she commented.

“Upon winning the bid, RE players – either foreign or local – will build RE plants in Malaysia and export the electricity to Singapore. This will lead to greater green investment in Malaysia and generating more green jobs, such as engineers, technicians and analysts.”

Noting that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and many other Cabinet ministers had been going around the world in the name of attracting investments to the country in the recent months, Yeo expressed her hopes that the Cabinet realises that there is “one very low-hanging fruit lying at our doorstep waiting to be picked”.

“If the Government needs help pin terms of driving the technical and regulatory change needed to allow RE export, I am more than happy to help,” she said. – May 24, 202