Singapore ‘seriously studying’ geothermal, with potential 60 times annual use – Green Central Banking

Pulau Tekong, Singapore’s largest outlying island, is one of the areas identified as holding potentially vast reserves of subterranean geothermal energy. Photo by triplefivedrew / Flickr.
 
Singapore discovered geothermal resources at potentially 60 times its annual electricity consumption.
Energy regulators appointed a consortium to run a 15-month assessment on generating utility-scale geothermal power.
The 2035 solar goal was meanwhile raised to 4GWp, targeting unconventional spaces like building facades and carports.
 Solar will meet just 10% of 2050 demand, driving the push for round-the-clock low-carbon energy alternatives.

Singapore’s geothermal resource potential is more than 60 times its current annual electricity consumption, its two-year survey has concluded.
Following these preliminary findings, Singapore’s Energy Market Authority has appointed a consortium formed by state-owned Surbana Jurong and Canadian energy consulting firm GLJ to study the feasibility of generating geothermal power from the newfound resources it detected several kilometres deep.
The study will commence by the end of 2026 and is estimated to take about 15 months.
“We are at the start of our journey, and have not yet made a decision on whether to deploy geothermal in Singapore. It could take many years before we get to that decision point. Nevertheless, we will explore this option seriously,” said Tan See Leng, Singapore’s minister for energy, trade and industry.
Given the constraints in deploying its most viable domestic renewable energy source, Tan said geothermal energy is one of the alternative pathways Singapore is “seriously studying”.

Meanwhile, Singapore has raised its 2035 solar target to 4 gigawatt peak (GWp) as part of its efforts to decarbonise its gas-reliant grid.
But even with its new target, solar is not expected to meet more than 10% of projected electricity demand in 2050, said Tan at the annual Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) on Monday. 
“Ultimately, we need sources of low-carbon energy that can meet baseload demand at utility-scale.”
To date, Singapore has deployed 2.3GWp of solar, and is on track to meet its current 2030 target of 3GWp. The land-scarce nation has already installed solar panels on reservoirs, interim vacant lands and building rooftops, but plans to make a bigger push into underutilised spaces.
A new tender has been launched to deploy solar in less conventional spaces in the public sector, such as through replacing the rooftop materials of parking structures with solar panels, also known as solar carports, or building-integrated photovoltaics, where solar cells double as building facades. 
The government is also exploring the use of containerised solar solutions, paired with mobile battery storage systems, on vacant plots and remote construction worksites that currently rely on diesel generators. 
It has also partnered with the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore to link up private homeowners to solar installers to maximise residential solar deployment.
Meanwhile, Singapore industrial landlord JTC has awarded a tender for the country’s first overhang solar project to renewables giant EDP APAC. The project, which involves suspending solar panels between two existing buildings, aims to export 250 kilowatt peak (kWp) of power to the grid and will be licensed to operate for 10 years, once commissioned.
Under Singapore’s recently announced S$800m (US$624m) initiative to develop emerging low-carbon technologies, it has co-funded a pilot project by the Asia-Pacific arm of Portuguese/Spanish giant EDP Renewables and Chinese solar firm GCL Perovskite to roll out higher efficiency tandem perovskite-silicon panels – designed to generate more solar using the same amount of space – within the next decade.
“We are really pushing all boundaries and surfaces, literally… to harness solar across Singapore,” said Gan Siow Huang, minister of state for energy, trade and industry of Singapore. 
“But even so, we know there are limits to how much solar energy we can deploy here.”
This page was last updated October 29, 2026
Gabrielle See is an award-winning journalist based in Singapore who has written for Green Central Banking since 2025. She has covered the intersections of finance, geopolitics and energy transition in Asia over the past five years for regional and international publications, including CNBC, Eco-Business, Southeast Asia Globe and the Business Times.
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