SINGAPORE – EDP, Portugal’s largest utility company, is committing €1 billion (S$1.5 billion) to enhance the development of new technologies to accelerate the energy transition to renewables globally.
This investment will be made over a period of four years, Ms Ana Paula Marques, an executive board member of EDP, told The Straits Times in a recent interview during a stopover in Singapore.
In March, EDP said it would invest around €25 billion over four years to nearly double its renewable energy capacity to 33 gigawatts (GW) by 2026.
The bulk of the investment of around €21 billion will be directed to its wind and solar unit EDP Renovaveis (EDPR) – in which Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC has a stake – while the remaining €4 billion will be channelled towards developing electricity grids.
At the time, GIC had also confirmed its investment of €1 billion for a stake in EDPR.
“The energy transition will be essential to achieving energy independence, and to comply with environmental goals and to create affordable energy. This cannot be done without further innovation,” said Ms Marques.
She added: “EDP is committed to leading the energy transition and for that, we need empowered people to help the organisation become more prepared for its current and future challenges. We aim to be an innovative and future-proof organisation.”
She said the investment will be channelled into seven existing innovation segments, including renewables, smart grids, energy storage and green hydrogen.
A new business unit called the “open box” has also been added to the business, she added.
“The reason why we have decided to add an eighth domain is for our innovation teams to be aware that they continuously need to have their radars on and scout the market so that if new trends emerge, they are able to identify it and potentially invest if there is potential to scale it up as a business.”
EDP currently operates innovation hubs in Portugal, Spain, the United States and Brazil, with Singapore being the most recent addition to its global footprint.
“We decided, due to the central role that Apac plays to EDP strategy, to set up the innovation hub here in Singapore,” Ms Marques said.
EDPR has said the Asia-Pacific region is the world’s fastest-growing renewables market, accounting for 55 per cent of global capacity additions this decade, with solar representing 65 per cent of the growth.
In 2022, the company acquired a 91 per cent stake in home-grown renewable energy firm Sunseap in a deal valued at around $1.1 billion.
Sunseap, founded by Mr Frank Phuan and Mr Lawrence Wu, is credited for being among the first to install solar energy systems in public residential estates, and commercial and industrial buildings in Singapore.
In March 2021, the company completed one of the world’s largest floating solar farms in the Johor Strait off Woodlands. It is also building a mega floating solar farm in Batam, Indonesia, at a cost of about $2 billion.
In early March, EDPR’s Asia-Pacific chief executive Pedro Vasconcelos told ST that the company was committed to investing more than $2 billion to expand in the Asia-Pacific region, with a plan to install an additional 1.5GW of renewable energy capacity by 2026.
