Talks underway for undersea power cable between Sarawak & S'pore

The cable was expected to have a capacity of one gigawatt.

February 13, 2025, 10:53 AM

Talks between Singapore and the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak on an undersea cable for electricity transmission are expected to be wrapped up in the first quarter of 2025.

Sarawak's Premier (equivalent of a chief minister), Abang Johari Openg, said that the matter was discussed between Prime Ministers Lawrence Wong and Anwar Ibrahim at a recent bilateral meeting.

Bernama quoted Abang Johari as saying that discussions are underway for a 1,000-megawatt (MW) undersea electricity transmission cable project from Sarawak to Singapore.

Abang Johari said that he expected a conditional agreement between Malaysia and Singapore to follow soon after.

Assort(ment of renewable energy) and Battery (of Asean)

Abang Johari was speaking after delivering a public lecture at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

In his public lecture, Abang Johari emphasised the critical need for immediate action in addressing climate change, and that it was clear that climate change was “not a distant threat”.

Instead, it was here now, impacting economies, ecosystems, and everyday lives, and Southeast Asia would be among the most affected regions.

The region would face severe weather patterns, rising sea levels, and increasing disruptions to natural habitats.

It was in this context that Abang Johari spoke about his ambition to turn his state into a “Green Energy Powerhouse” in Asean, the “battery of Asean” through a cross-border grid over land and sea.

Sarawak’s goal was to boost electricity generation to 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, and 15 gigawatts by 2035.

He also spoke about what he called “Sarawak’s pioneering efforts” to increase the renewable energy portion of its energy generation mix, through projects such as establishing floating solar farms, or combined-cycle and hybrid wind and solar power.

This power could then be exported to Singapore via the 1,000 MW undersea cable, allowing Singapore to fulfil its own commitments to greening its power grid.

Meetings and goals

To that end, while Abang Johari was in Singapore, he took the opportunity to meet with Manpower Minister Tan See Leng and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

Both ministers said in their social media posts on the meetings that the Singaporean and Sarawakian delegations had discussed enhancing cooperation in renewable energy and the green economy, amongst other things.

Asean members have taken on increasing efforts to pursue the goal of an Asean power grid, such as Singapore’s importing 100MW of hydropower from Laos through Thailand and Malaysia.

Discussions are also underway for Singapore to import up to 6GW of electricity generated by solar power from Australia, also via an ambitious undersea cable project.

Abang Johari acknowledged that the Sarawak-Singapore cable plan posed several technical challenges and that there were currently only three undersea power cables in existence globally.