An upcoming renewable power plant by MGreen in Indonesia is set to export its green energy to Singapore. The development comes days after the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard. MGreen is the renewable energy subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corp (MGen), a wholly owned subsidiary of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the Philippines’ largest electricity distribution utility.
The firm owns 58 percent of PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd, which owns and operates a combined cycle turbine power plant in Jurong Island in Singapore. Jaime T. Azurin, President and CEO of MGen said, “We are right now looking into hopefully exporting renewables from Indonesia to Singapore because we have a Singapore plant.”
He further informed that Singapore is the chosen location because of its recognised electricity demand, which cannot be fulfilled due to the island’s limited land area disadvantage. At the same time, the outer islands of Indonesia are at a distance of 20 to 30 kilometers from Singapore.
“When you lay down the cable going to Singapore, there will be issues; where is the jurisdiction of the Singapore government? We have been trying to develop that for the past years and hopefully, something will come out of it within the year,” he pointed out. He further hoped that his firm is hoping to get an export permit from the Indonesian government for this project.
“It is very meticulous because you are passing through a cross border,” he informed. However, Azurin did not reveal the capacity of the power plant. Still, he said the plant would have a sizeable capacity comprising solar power and battery as the undersea cable is expensive.
“Submarine cables are expensive. So it has to be more than 300 megawatts (MW),” he said, adding that the proposed plant will be owned by the Pacific Light in partnership with an Indonesian company as an Indonesian license is also needed.
