KEPPEL Infrastructure Trust : A7RU 0%’s wholly-owned subsidiary City Energy is working with a Petronas unit to study the feasibility of importing hydrogen from Malaysia to Singapore, it announced on Tuesday (Apr 18).

The study follows the Singapore government’s launch of an import-reliant hydrogen strategy last October, with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announcing that hydrogen could supply up to half of Singapore’s power needs by 2050 if technology continues to advance.

While hydrogen is already the largest component in the town gas produced at City Energy’s Senoko Gasworks plant, the country’s sole piped town gas producer and gas utility provider will have to secure additional sources of hydrogen to stay relevant.

It is against this backdrop that City Energy’s chief executive officer Perry Ong called the partnership with Gentari, a Petronas-owned clean energy company with ambitions to produce up to 1.2 million tonnes of clean hydrogen a year, “a key development”. 

“As City Energy is the sole piped town gas provider for more than 880,000 homes and businesses, City Energy is well-placed to establish a hydrogen supply for the future production of our town gas,” he added. “We are excited to collaborate with Gentari to develop a hydrogen supply chain which will contribute to our nation’s hydrogen strategy.”

Gentari was formed just last year, but it already plans to become the “go-to industry partner for clean hydrogen”, providing integrated clean energy solutions for customers in Asia-Pacific. Its chief hydrogen officer Michele Azalbert said the collaboration with City Energy sets the Malaysian company on the right path towards this goal.

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“We believe this partnership will be the first of many in Singapore,” she added.

When Singapore’s hydrogen strategy was announced, experts had told The Business Times that a hydrogen system comes with complications as the gas will embrittle the current network of natural gas pipelines, predominantly made of stainless steel. They cited literature stating that these pipelines can only accommodate up to a 10 per cent blend of hydrogen by volume.

They expressed that a more realistic build-out would be if the low-carbon hydrogen was converted to ammonia, shipped to its destination, and cracked before use.