Despite the Singapore government putting out many tenders tapping on unused spaces for renewables in recent years, solar expansion in the city-state is being held back by the uncertain and temporary nature of land leases, said the Asia Pacific executive director of EDP Renewables.
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The world’s fourth-largest renewables provider is seeing “a lot of interest” for solar from corporate offtakers in Singapore, where much of the region’s largest power purchase agreements (PPAs) are concentrated, said Filipa Ricciardi. To date, EDP Renewables has been “utilising [rooftops] as much as possible” in the land-scarce city-state to meet the increase in demand for clean power, but it “would like to see more stable, long-term land that would be available to serve clients here in Singapore”, Ricciardi told media representatives at a joint tour of one of its solar farms it held with multinational technology company Amazon in Singapore.
Ricciardi said: “It’s difficult in Singapore, because obviously land scarcity is a major thing. Even if you secure a sea lease in the sea… it is for a temporary time.”
“What I would love to see changed is the concept of temporary, [for leases to] more definitive for a certain time period.”
The renewables giant, which entered the Asia Pacific market in 2022 after acquiring Singapore solar firm Sunseap, has been active in industrial landlord JTC’s SolarLand programme. The initiative was launched in 2018 to maximise the use of temporarily vacant land by temporarily converting them into vacant plots of land into solar farms in support of to reach Singapore’s national target of installing 2 gigawatt-peak (GWp) of solar by 2030.
Under the initiative, temporary occupation licences (TOLs) – which typically permits the use of industrial land for up to three years – can go up to 21 years for solar installation and commissioning, confirmed a JTC spokesperson.
But Ricciardi suggested having longer leases that could be extended to 35 years to align with the current expected lifespan of solar panels, which falls between 25 and 30 years.
“I’ve mentioned this in many conversations with the government and I understand why it’s challenging in this context. But obviously… the longer the time, the better for the renewable projects,” she said.
Ja’afar Karim, EDP Renewables APAC’s head of asset operations for distrbuted generation, also brought up instances when developers need to “be ready to give back the land” for SolarLand projects – in some instances, immediately after it was issued – for other development priorities.
The renewables firm, however, clarified that this is in line with the lease terms, but declined to share specifics on individual projects sites which had been returned earlier than planned, citing confidentiality clauses in its contractual agreement with JTC.
The firm has worked around the challenges posed by the short-term leases with modular solar panel systems that can easily be removed and relocated whenever the land is taken back by authorities, said Karim. As a result, it only takes the developer about five to six months to dismantle the systems and reinstate the land back to its original state, before handing it back to JTC.
In other Southeast Asian countries, including major markets like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines, solar developers can typically secure land leases of at least 14 years – and in Vietnam’s case, up to 50 years – for ground-mounted or floating solar projects.
In response to Eco-Business’s queries, JTC’s spokesperson said under the SolarLand programme, land licensed is not meant for long-term solar deployment and that it “will not consider 35 years”.
“Tenderers are made aware upfront that these sites are temporary, and that solar panels will need to be removed or re-deployed to other areas should the land be required for re-development,” said the spokesperson. “To ensure fair compensation during early return of the land, the tenders include a component where vendors propose the reimbursement amount by JTC for every year of early removal.”
To date, some 100 hectares of vacant JTC land across Singapore have been utilised for solar deployment to generate about 200 megawatt-peak (MWp).
In 2020, EDP Renewables was awarded one of the two contracts under the SolarLand programme to deploy 62 MWp of solar capacity on approximately 40 hectares of vacant land across Singapore. It has already installed 50 MWp on three of the four sites it has been awarded. While the physical power generated from these sites is sold back to the national grid, the green attributes will be claimed by Amazon under a long-term PPA it signed with the renewables developer in 2021.
In addition to land-based solar installations, the company has completed one of the world’s largest floating solar farms in the Straits of Johor in 2021.
EDP Renewables has also established itself as a leading player in the solar rooftop sector – winning three out of the eight SolarNova tenders put out by Singapore’s public housing authority, including the latest and largest one last year to install up to 200 MWp of capacity. The Housing Development Board remains the largest driver of Singapore’s solar push, having put out eight tenders totalling approximately 455 MWp of capacity – making it on track to meet its solar target of 540 MWp by 2030.
Plans for expansion in Vietnam uncertain
Earlier this month, Eco-Business reported that EDP Renewables axed jobs in its Asia Pacific headquarters of Singapore, amid its pivot to more mature markets – namely Australia, Japan and Taiwan – in the region.
In response to a question from Eco-Business, Ricciardi said that the shift away from Southeast Asian markets doesn’t mean “there is less excitement” for the region. Rather, EDP Renewables will focus on countries where it can grow deeper, due to liberation of energy markets, sustained demand for clean power and stability in regulatory frameworks.
“When we acquired Sunseap, it had a presence in 11 different countries. We took the decision to focus on fewer countries – it doesn’t mean we will grow less, but it means we will grow deeper in these markets,” she said.
EDP Renewables continues to operate in nine of these countries, including China, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam. According to its website, it no longer has a presence in Cambodia and Thailand.
The developer has yet to further expand in Vietnam – which currently accounts for nearly a third of installed capacity in APAC – since the government ended its feed-in-tariffs programme in 2023, which initially served to incentivise renewables growth by providing a fixed price for each unit of power delivered into the grid.
For EDP Renewables to continue growing in Vietnam, Ricciardi said that its energy markets would have to be further liberalised through allowing for direct PPAs with corporate offtakers. “We do see a lot of demand from very large offtakers in the market, but the regulatory framework is still not there yet… Let’s see where it goes.”
The firm has also been advocating for battery storage in Vietnam to overcome grid constraints preventing renewable electricity to efficiently flow to where demand is, leading to high curtailment rates.
Across Asia Pacific, Ricciardi singled out Australia as a good example of a country of how energy arbitrage opportunities have driven a surge in utility-scale batteries. Developers there have been able to profit off the price fluctuations in the wholesale electricity market, by charging batteries with renewable power when prices are low and discharging it to the grid when prices are high.
Uncertain macroeconomic environment due to higher interest rates, the trade war and geopolitical tensions, has led EDP Renewables to halve its 2026 target for yearly global renewables additions from 4GW to 2GW. The revised strategic plan will be presented in full to investors in November, Ricciardi said.
Amendment note (9 July): The subheading and paragraph 10 of the story have been updated to clarify that EDP Renewables’ recommendation to optimise the value of solar assets through lease extension was not specific to JTC’s SolarLand programme.
