A subsea power cable will be developed to import renewable energy from Indonesia to Singapore.

Power grid operator SP Group has partnered French energy company EDF Group to develop the infrastructure which will include a proposed 1,000 megawatt-peak (MWp) solar photovoltaic plant, the two companies said in a joint statement yesterday.

In comparison, the newest solar farm in Tengah has a capacity of 60MWp, leading to carbon savings equivalent to removing 7,000 cars from the roads.

The two power companies will be conducting commercial, regulatory and technical feasibility studies for the subsea cable under a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday.

They will also be exploring opportunities to widen the interconnection to other clean energy sources in Indonesia.

Singapore has been looking to meet more of its power needs with renewable energy by scaling up solar power generation across the island and importing it, including from Malaysia.

Currently, Singapore relies overwhelmingly on gas for power generation.

Plans are under way to import energy from Australia through a 4,200km subsea power cable - a cable carrying electric power below the surface of the water.

There are also plans to begin trialling hydropower import from Laos via Thailand and Malaysia.

The solar photovoltaic plant project is being led by EDF Renewables, a subsidiary of EDF. Mr Stanley Huang, group chief executive officer of SP Group, said: "The subsea transmission cable will be an important part of the regional grid interconnection and allow us to better plan for future network requirements to maintain our reliability standard."