Singapore's renewables usage hits record high as imports, solar output rise
Domestic solar generation in May rose at the fastest pace since March 2024 and renewable imports rose a third straight month to their highest in more than two years, lifting the share of renewables in the city-state's power mix to 2.58 per cent, data from the National Electricity Market of Singapore showed.
Regional electricity trade is crucial to Singapore's aim to become carbon neutral by 2050, as Asia's second-smallest country has limited renewable energy potential. Cross-border power trade is also seen as key to easing regional reliance on fossil fuels amid growing data centre-driven power demand.
Gas-fired power plants in Singapore account for about 95 per cent of its power capacity.
In the five months through May, the data showed Singapore imported 122.7 million kilowatt-hours of clean power – 0.52 per cent of total generation – through the Lao PDR-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore (LTMS) power trade route that was set up in 2022.
It did not import any power during the same period last year, the data showed, and only started importing small quantities in the last quarter of 2024.
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The share of imports in Singapore's power mix rose for a third straight month in May, displacing some fossil fuel-fired generation. Singapore's total electricity generation grew 0.4 per cent during the first five months, the data showed.
Though the imported power came through the LTMS framework, all of it originated from neighbouring Malaysia under a 50-megawatt supply agreement reached last year with Malaysian state utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad, said a source familiar with the matter who was not authorised to speak with media.
Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) did not respond to a request for comment.
The EMA last year doubled the capacity of electricity that can be traded in the second phase of the LTMS to 200 MW through additional supply from Malaysia.
It said in October, however, that it had yet to finalise the terms of an extension to the supply of hydropower generated in Laos and sent to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia. REUTERS
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Business Times
an hour ago
- Business Times
Overseas placement scheme for locals ahead of pace at six-month mark
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CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
1 in 4 older platform workers have opted in for higher CPF contributions
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As of April, a quarter of older platform workers have opted to increase their CPF contribution rates, a CPF Board spokesperson said in response to CNA's queries on the scheme's take-up rates. The move to gradually align platform workers' CPF contribution rates with that of salaried employees kicked in at the start of 2025. The move is part of the Platform Workers Act, a suite of stronger employment protections for gig workers that was passed in September last year. The measure is intended to improve the retirement and housing adequacy of platform workers, who largely work as private-hire vehicle drivers, delivery workers, as well as taxi drivers who use ride-hailing platforms. Those who do not opt in for higher CPF contributions only make MediSave contributions, and do not receive contributions from the platform operator. Those who opt in will contribute to MediSave and the Ordinary and Special Accounts. They also get contributions from the platform operator. Between January and April, around 105,700 platform workers received CPF contributions from platform work in at least one of the months. Out of this number, 88,200 platform workers were born before 1995 and are turning 31 or older this year. Higher CPF contributions are not mandatory for this cohort. Of these, 22,400 platform workers or 25 per cent opted in for higher contributions, the CPF Board spokesperson said. This is three times the number of platform workers who had opted in as of December 2024, the spokesperson said. The opt-in rate is a higher 30 per cent when considering those who worked consistently every month from January to April. 'Platform work is transient in nature, and some may only take on platform work sporadically,' said the spokesperson. 'These trends suggest that platform workers who rely more consistently on platform work recognise the value of CPF contributions. 'We encourage other platform workers who have not opted in to consider doing so, so they can also benefit from the higher CPF contributions.' Higher CPF contributions are mandatory for platform workers born on or after Jan 1, 1995, who are turning 30 or younger this year. There are 17,500 platform workers in this younger cohort, according to the CPF Board. In the past three years, the number of regular platform workers has fallen from 88,400 in 2022, to 70,500 in 2023, to 67,600 last year, according to Manpower Ministry data. The ministry previously noted a general rise in the number of regular resident platform workers from 2016, except for a 'choppier' period during the COVID-19 pandemic. WHAT PLATFORM WORKERS SAY For those who opt in to make higher CPF contributions, platform operators will have to make CPF contributions to the worker at a rate of 3.5 per cent of his net earnings in 2025. 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Providing customised examples could help to make the choice of opting in or not more relevant to workers, such as a toolkit for those paying for or planning to buy a house, or showing workers how much they would receive in CPF payouts after retirement, he suggested. Mr Shamil Zainuddin, who is studying platform work as a PhD student at the University of California, San Diego, said the most common reason he has heard for opting in is that the platform operator will also contribute to CPF. 'As one worker puts it: 'People give you money, you don't want ah?' Even if the starting amount is 3.5 per cent, it is still additional CPF savings that wouldn't otherwise exist, and the rate will increase in the coming years. 'Highlighting this 'extra money from the platform' narrative and making benefits tangible can give workers the clarity they need to decide whether it suits their life stage and goals,' he said. Mr Shamil also said that the priority should be to help platform workers make an informed choice as the decision to opt in is irreversible. 'Workers understand the general benefits of CPF, but they are likely adopting a 'wait and see' attitude. They want to observe how opting in plays out for fellow workers. 'It would help to share honest reviews from older platform workers who have opted in, explaining how it has affected things like take-home pay and working hours.' He added that workers should not feel pressured into making a choice as 'if they later experience unexpected downsides, they may feel misled and hold the authorities responsible for not presenting a complete and realistic picture from the outset'.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
Commentary: Howdy Modi and Namaste Trump were high points. It's been downhill for US-India ties since
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'I AM READY TO PAY THE HEAVY PRICE': MODI The first signs of strain in their bromance were already visible during Mr Modi's visit to the US in February. Although Mr Trump said he was thrilled to welcome 'his friend' Mr Modi back to the White House, he did not hesitate to publicly rebuke India's "unfair, very strong tariffs", calling them a "big problem". After months of negotiations, by July a trade deal was supposedly ready. Instead, President Trump slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods – and then an additional 25 per cent as punishment for New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil. The sticking point was not just Russian oil – which may not have been as big an issue if Mr Trump had succeeded in getting Russia and Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire deal he had promised his base. It was India's reluctance to allow market access for American agricultural and dairy produce. It is a fact that India needs internal market reforms; even as the economy grows at over 6 per cent, unemployment and underemployment remain chronic. Yet opening up agriculture and dairy to foreign competition would be untenable politically. Mr Modi faces a legislative election in Bihar, a largely agricultural state, in November. India will never compromise on the interests of farmers, fishermen and dairy farmers, said Mr Modi last week. 'I know personally, I will have to pay a heavy price for it, but I am ready for it.' As India celebrates its 79th year of Independence on Friday (Aug 15), many in the strategic community in New Delhi are rethinking the country's equation with the US following the tariffs, plus the notoriously mercurial president's recent jibe about India's 'dead' economy. Likewise in Washington DC, hardline America First ideologues with a binary view of the rest of the world that leaves little latitude for empathy are uncomfortable with precisely the strategic autonomy that India has been pursuing, in the shape of continued ties with Iran and, more importantly in this case, Russia. Mr Trump also insists he was instrumental in stopping the limited but intense clashes in May between India and Pakistan – a claim India denies. Mr Trump followed up with a two-hour private lunch with Pakistan's military chief Asim Munir at the White House. These events have left a sour taste in New Delhi and inflamed nationalistic public sentiment in India. Mr Munir returned to the US last week to attend a black-tie dinner for the retirement of General Michael Kurilla, the commander of US military forces in the Middle East. There, he spoke of a new dimension in US-Pakistan relations, and almost casually warned of nuclear war. HARDENING POSITIONS ON BOTH SIDES Certainly, the US-India relationship has historically not been entirely rosy, even though there is some fundamental ideological convergence; India and the US are both liberal democracies in recent years trending towards the illiberal. The US security establishment has long danced with Pakistan, in part to try to balance China's influence in that country. This has historically rankled India. Additionally, Mr Trump sees the growing BRICS group as a threat especially to the hegemony of the US dollar. He also seems fixated on cementing a legacy with the Nobel Peace Prize; for good or bad, it is not possible to separate the personal from the political in the case of Mr Trump. The India-Pakistan episode, with New Delhi cold to his ceasefire claims, may have left a sour taste for him as well. Meanwhile, domestic politics are hardening positions on both sides. Mr Trump was voted to power for a second time by a base that wants to revert to what it widely sees as core American values – white, conservative, patriarchal, Christian – and the country remains bitterly divided. Mr Modi's base largely sees its core value as a conservative and inherently strongly patriarchal Hindu identity. But the US-India relationship is also much more broad-based than it was during the Cold War. Shared concerns about an assertive China have helped nudge them closer. The US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement of 2008 was a significant turning point. The four-member Quad brings together Japan, Australia, and the US with India in a loose arrangement. The annual joint naval exercise Malabar hosted by India includes US, Japanese, Indian and Australian naval forces. Mr Trump's unpredictability has begun to revive doubts. Old contentious issues - Pakistan, trade and Indian protectionist tariffs with one eye on its vulnerable farmers, and of course Russia - are back on the table, wrapped in the heightened rhetoric of nationalism. In this new environment, some storms even if they pass can be imprinted in public memory. In India in particular, doubt and distrust of the US will linger in the public mind even when Mr Trump is no longer in office. That means the US, while valued as a hedge against China, may go back to being at arm's length, at least publicly, even as strategic security and military cooperation will quietly continue. 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Mr Modi is due to visit Tianjin on Aug 31 for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, where he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. To be sure there are issues that could torpedo the touchy relationship – the succession of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama looms large – so there are likely to be limits to India-China detente. Nevertheless, Chinese state media has been playing up Mr Modi's upcoming visit. One may have to wait until the annual Quad summit, to be hosted by New Delhi in the last quarter of this year, to gauge whether India and the US can return to the comfort zone of the first Trump, and subsequent Joe Biden administrations. Whether Mr Trump attends will be a key indicator. Meanwhile however, ironically for the US, recent developments reinforce precisely what India believes – that it is too big to be pushed around, and it cannot depend on the US but needs to be multi-aligned, as one pole in a multipolar world.
