Four-country electricity alliance could accelerate ASEAN’s energy transition

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In October 2023, Singapore’s Energy Market Authority announced that it would grant conditional approval for the import of 1.2 GW of clean electricity into Singapore directly from Viet Nam via a subsea interconnector approximately 1,000 kilometres in length.

In May 2026, however, officials from Malaysia, Singapore and Viet Nam signed a Joint Development Agreement to assess the feasibility of a multilateral trading arrangement under which power would be transported by subsea cable from Viet Nam to Peninsula Malaysia, then wheeled using existing grid infrastructure to Singapore.

Compared to a direct link between Viet Nam and Singapore, the benefits of such an arrangement would be manifold:

Most importantly, the subsea infrastructure required would be approximately 40% of the length necessary for a direct Viet Nam-Singapore connection. This would significantly reduce costs, technical complexity and supply-chain concerns, while remaining well within the range of subsea interconnector distances already built in Europe.

Source: Geographies of Cooperation Atlas