Singapore and Sweden Strengthen Energy Partnership at SIEW 2025

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SINGAPORE — The Energy Market Authority of Singapore (EMA) and the Swedish government inaugurated a bilateral energy forum on the sidelines of the 18th Singapore International Energy Week, transforming a diplomatic understanding signed during a royal state visit into an operational framework for clean energy cooperation.

Strategic context

The Singapore International Energy Week is Asia’s preeminent venue for energy policy dialogue, drawing regulators, utilities, and technology providers to address the region’s energy security challenges amid accelerating decarbonization commitments.

This year’s edition coincided with mounting pressure on Southeast Asian nations to reconcile industrial growth trajectories with climate obligations, while European states contend with energy security imperatives following years of geopolitical disruption.

The EMA operates at the intersection of these tensions.

In an informal chat with EMA Chief Executive Push Kok Keong, CleanTechnica asked about the rapidly changing energy environment in Asia and the rapid pace of energy technologies being developed, and how Singapore can be a global example of decarbonization and at the same time energy utilization.

“As regulator of a city-state entirely dependent on imported energy—primarily natural gas and petroleum products—EMA’s mandate extends beyond conventional market oversight to encompass the orchestration of Singapore’s energy transition strategy,” he responded. He then pointed out that utilization only means collaboration–this includes pursuing regional grid interconnection, developing nascent hydrogen supply chains, and positioning Singapore as a clean energy trading hub within ASEAN’s fragmented energy landscape.

From protocol to practice

The forum materialized an energy cooperation memorandum with Sweden, signed last November 2024 during King Carl XVI Gustaf’s state visit—a diplomatic gesture that has since generated substantive technical exchanges on clean energy deployment and cross-border infrastructure.

The October 29 gathering assembled senior officials to examine specific mechanisms for collaboration, moving beyond the aspirational language characteristic of bilateral energy agreements toward concrete technical cooperation. The discussions encompassed hydrogen value chain development, advanced grid technologies, energy efficiency optimization, and the architecture of cross-border electricity trading—domains where both nations possess complementary capabilities and strategic imperatives.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch, who also holds the energy and industry portfolios, addressed the forum’s strategic significance.

“This Forum builds on the strong and longstanding ties between Sweden and Singapore. Sweden’s energy and industrial policy combines competitiveness with climate ambition, focusing on practical solutions that advance innovation, digitalisation, and modern nuclear technologies. By working closely with partners in Asia, we can strengthen energy security, support a stable global baseload, and accelerate the green transition toward a sustainable energy future,” Busch articulated, explaining the partnership’s underlying logic in a press statement.

Technical architecture

Central to the partnership is the deployment of HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) transmission technology and associated infrastructure—overland cables and subsea interconnectors—that would integrate into the ASEAN Power Grid architecture. HVDC systems enable efficient long-distance electricity transmission with lower losses than conventional alternating current systems, a critical consideration for submarine cables spanning hundreds of kilometers between national grids.

The cooperation framework extends to nuclear technology and safety protocols, reflecting Sweden’s decades of operational experience with its reactor fleet and Singapore’s ongoing assessment of small modular reactors as a potential baseload complement to intermittent renewables. Both governments indicated plans to deepen engagement through SIEW and other multilateral forums, while establishing bilateral channels for knowledge transfer on clean fuel pathways, including hydrogen and ammonia as maritime fuel alternatives and energy carriers.

The multidirectional electricity trading component addresses a fundamental challenge in Southeast Asian energy integration: the absence of robust cross-border trading mechanisms that would enable surplus renewable generation in one jurisdiction to offset fossil fuel consumption in another, thereby strengthening collective energy resilience while advancing decarbonization.

Institutional Perspectives

Keong framed the collaboration within Singapore’s broader regional energy strategy: “EMA welcomes the deepening of collaboration and high-level exchanges between Singapore and Sweden through this Forum. This partnership strengthens regional energy resilience and supports our shared vision of a sustainable energy future.”

The Singapore–Sweden partnership represents a calculated alignment of interests between a European state with mature renewable energy infrastructure and nuclear expertise, and a Southeast Asian city-state positioned to serve as a regional energy aggregator and trading nexus. Sweden brings operational knowledge of integrated renewable systems, nuclear power, and industrial decarbonization; Singapore offers access to rapidly growing Southeast Asian energy markets, established trading infrastructure, and convening power within ASEAN energy dialogues.

Whether this framework yields tangible outcomes depends on navigating formidable technical and financial obstacles. HVDC interconnection requires multi-billion-dollar capital commitments, complex multilateral negotiations involving transit countries, and resolution of regulatory asymmetries across jurisdictions with divergent energy market structures. Hydrogen infrastructure development faces similar hurdles, compounded by persistent economic uncompetitiveness relative to incumbent fuels absent substantial policy support or carbon pricing mechanisms.

The forum’s success will ultimately be measured not by diplomatic communiqués but by project finance commitments, grid connection agreements, and operational hydrogen supply chains—benchmarks that typically emerge years after initial policy dialogues, if they materialize at all.