Singapore businesses keen to explore opportunities in India's green energy, other sectors

Singapore, Nov 5 (PTI) Singapore businesses have said they are keen to join India's development journey, especially in fast-expanding sectors like green energy, and semiconductor, amid threat of disruptions in global supply chain.

New challenges in markets are making it necessary to stay ahead of the curve and compete with a mindset to be global players, said Singapore-based executives at the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) held during October 27-31 in the Lion City.

One such business group looking at potential participation in India's development is SP Group, one of Asia Pacific's leading utilities groups, which has built and is operating the world's largest underground district cooling network. The group is expanding its portfolio of solar, battery energy storage, and EV charging solutions across the region.

"There is increased momentum in India's electrification and clean energy transition," said Dean Cher, Managing Director of SP Mobility at SP Group. "We're open to sharing our experience where it can help accelerate national and city-level net zero goals." Cher noted that Asia's growing EV adoption, especially in major cities where EV two-wheelers are already popular mode of transportation for short-distances, presents opportunities to deploy smart charging solutions and scale these digital solutions and capabilities on mega platforms which are available in bigger markets like India and China.

"Furthermore, we are investing in sustainable energy solutions, and have developed district cooling systems and solarisation projects among other green projects related to decarbonization," Cher told PTI as SP Group hosted the biennial Conference of Electric Power Supply Industry (CEPSI) 2025, in SP's current tenure at the helm of the Association of the Electricity Supply Industry of East Asia and Western Pacific (AESIEAP).

The five-day CEPSI event brought together about 3,200 delegates from over 20 countries, featuring more than 200 speakers and technical paper presenters.

The city state's heavyweight financiers and industries are already leading players in a number of sectors in India including logistics, ports and power.

Also, market strategies are on the minds of executive members at the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS), an organisation with over 300 members comprising multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises that are interested in expanding the sustainable energy ecosystem in Asia.

SEAS' Executive Director Kavita Gandhi sees the association's members going regional through collaborations particularly in response to the expanding infrastructure developments in a number of South East Asia countries.

Collaboration was a central theme at the Asia Clean Energy Summit, a part of the Energy week, and organised by SEAS, where industry leaders came together to tackle key challenges and explore opportunities in shaping the future of clean energy.

As an industry veteran, she also noted India's success in renewable energy development, having recently crossed over 500 GW of installations.

"Such models are the need of the hour in Southeast Asia," said Gandhi, pointing to the "energy efficiency" required in the region to bring down production costs. "There are opportunities to share knowledge and experience from India's success in developing solar energy among others." Singapore, to an extent, has succeeded in installing 1.5 GW of rooftop solar networks and more is being done to achieve 'net zero' targets by the island state. But there is also surging energy demand as new industries, especially energy-intensive data centres are being set up to support the island state's advanced technology adoption programmes.

India and Singapore have initiated talks on sharing of green energy and the two nations are collaborating in a wide range of hydrogen energy, solar, and Battery Energy Saving Systems (BEES).

Collaboration among industries is on the cards as delegates at SIEW summit noted the desires expressed by the Indian and other Asian countries to pool resources and build world class infrastructure for making "Asian Century" with world class infrastructure. PTI GS HVA