German utility E.ON (EONGn.DE) will move its carbon team from Malaysia to Singapore this month and aims to ramp up investment in clean-energy projects in Southeast Asia, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The firm sees the region, and particularly Indonesia, as offering strong opportunities in projects that yield U.N.-backed carbon offsets and already has a “full pipeline” of prospective investments, said Frederic Boeuf, regional director of project development for E.ON Climate and Renewables. 

 

Boeuf said the Singapore operation would start initially with six carbon specialists this month and build up to 8 by the end of December. The move follows other carbon project developers to Singapore, which is emerging as a regional centre for carbon and clean-tech investors. 

 

“We’re currently implementing 4 projects and we are in negotiations for many more,” Boeuf told Reuters in Singapore on the sidelines of a energy conference. 

 

He said the pipeline of Southeast Asian projects under evaluation totalled 20. 

 

“We’re only investing in projects that generate more than 100,000 CERs per project per year,” he added, referring to internationally tradeable offsets called Certified Emissions Reductions issued under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol. 

 

He said E.ON had committed 150 million euros to develop carbon-offset projects over the next few years, the bulk of them 

 

Wind and solar were not technologies the firm would focus on in the region, he said, given the high initial capital cost and 

 

Instead, the firm would focus on making power stations more efficient, refurbishing hydropower plants, treating wastewater from palm oil mills and capturing methane from landfills.