This project seeks to explore the potentials and implications of the renewable energy transition in Southeast Asia by studying the role of Singapore in this process. It takes renewable energy (production) as lens to investigate the relationship between extended urban regions as productive territories and urban centralities as sites of consumption and control and the (newly emerging) topologies of social just implications. This builds on the fact that the growing demand for renewables increases the demand for and pressure on land, resources, and efficiency due to the relative lower power densities of renewables compared to fossil fuels. It takes the conceptualisation of extended and concentrated urban territories as a framework to analyse the implications of the energy transition in the context of contemporary urbanization processes, ultimately studied through and from diverse urban conditions. The seed grant project focuses on Singapore and aims to facilitate a better understanding of its role in the renewable energy transition and its future opportunities as an ‘alternative-energy-disadvantaged’ country to meet its ambitious goal of decarbonising the energy sector and the contingencies for regional energy developments. Subsequently, this is to be expanded towards a regional perspective and a study of the ‘renewable energy landscape’ and its socio-spatial implications in Southeast Asia.

PI: Naomi C. Hanakata
Collaborators: Filip Biljecki & Hiromi Inagaki 

Funding Agency: Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund, NUS
Project Duration: 8 February 2024 – 7 August 2025