Can Singapore and Southeast Asia learn from Europe’s interconnected power grid?

STOCKHOLM: In the Swedish capital, energy provider Stockholm Exergi uses resource-efficient solutions, including generating power from biofuels and incinerating waste, to supply electricity and heating to residents.  

Stockholm is aiming for a fossil fuel-free future with net-zero emissions by 2040.

The power provider aims to go even further – carbon negative. The term refers to removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than emitting it.

“Society will not be able to get rid of all fossil emissions, even when we are at net-zero. The only way to do that is … by creating negative emissions,” said the energy company’s head of research and development Fabian Levihn.

The firm aims to store carbon dioxide permanently in the ground after removing it from the atmosphere, and use this to counterbalance other emissions.

It has spent over 150,000 engineering hours on a carbon capture project which could work hand-in-hand with energy generation in the future.

“We are looking at an (integrated power plant) design where … the energy used in the carbon capture process can be recovered back into district heating,” said Dr Levihn.

The provider is not the only source of energy for the city of nearly 1 million – Stockholm can also import power from neighbouring nations.

Sweden is connected to Europe’s multinational electricity grid which allows the country to trade electricity in the region.

EU INTERCONNECTED POWER GRID

With countries relying on different energy sources, the shared power grid is key to ensuring a reliable and steady flow of electricity for member states that includes most of the European Union, said experts.

France, for instance, is one of the world’s top producers of nuclear power and generates up to 70 per cent of its electricity this way.

Germany is increasing the share of solar and wind in its electricity mix, while Swedish hydroelectric power stations cover more than 40 per cent of the nation’s consumption.

This diverse mix of resources and the interconnected grid allows nations to share resources all year round, said professor of electric power systems Lennart Soder from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

“For example, we have hydropower. When we have a wet year … we can sell our surpluses. When we have dry years, then we import from other countries. This means an efficient use of all these resources,” he said.

“In southern Sweden this summer, we had very low (electricity) prices because we could import solar power from Germany.”

Sharing power in different time zones also helps nations save costs as they can import during peak periods and export when others are experiencing high consumer demand for energy, Prof Soder added. 

He noted that a unified and flexible energy market is key to meeting the rising demand of electricity needs.

“You have to have a common market. You have to agree between the different countries on pricing. It must be a liberalised market with common rules,” he said.

COULD A SHARED GRID WORK FOR SINGAPORE?

Southeast Asia already has an interconnected grid in operation, albeit on a smaller scale compared with Europe’s.

There are currently bilateral interconnections that involve Singapore and Malaysia, Thailand and Malaysia, and Laos and Vietnam.

Dr David Broadstock, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Sustainable and Green Finance Institute, said a shared power grid is beneficial for Singapore due to its limited resources to produce sufficient renewable energy to power the nation.

“Within Singapore, we're constrained in terms of how much domestically-produced clean energy we can create using current technologies. If we move into a shared grid, then we're able to benefit from the land resources and space available in neighbouring countries,” he told CNA.

While Singapore lacks natural resources, the nation can contribute by investing in infrastructure and playing a part in coordination.

“There's a lot to be done in terms of organising flows of money which will see richer economies potentially invest in developing economies within the region, in order to help facilitate flows of energy that can be carefully accounted for to ensure everybody gets paid the right price, and that it's the fairest possible solution,” Dr Broadstock said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has aspirations to develop the current network into a completely integrated Southeast Asia power grid system to enable resource-sharing and enhance cross border electricity trade.

Achieving this would require expanding the grid infrastructure with cables over vast distances where electricity can run from one country to another.

Unlike the EU’s system, which is already well established, Dr Broadstock said Southeast Asia has a chance to design its shared grid with latest innovations, such as incorporating artificial intelligence and smart technologies to allocate resources efficiently.

“We have new technologies on the horizon. We may be able to leapfrog over some of the technologies used in the past, which created certain operational conditions for Europe… and we may be able to take a different pathway relative to the EU,” he said.

In the future, solar energy from Australia may also be exported to Singapore.