Singapore hits 2020 solar deployment target, JTC to extend industrial initiatives

SINGAPORE has achieved its 2020 solar deployment target of 350 megawatt-peak (MWp) in the first quarter of this year, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) and JTC said in a joint release on Wednesday.

This comes as the the government and industry are working closely to shift to cleaner energy in light of worsening climate change.

EMA chief executive Ngiam Shih Chun said Singapore will increase its solar energy adoption, given that it is the country's most viable source of renewable energy.

The 350 MWp target for 2020 was set in 2010, and is equivalent to powering about 60,000 households a year.

The Republic crossed this mark after the completion of a 6 MWp rooftop solar installation at a CapitaLand industrial property at 40 Penjuru Lane, held under Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust.

These solar panels were installed and operated by Sembcorp Industries, allowing the industrial facility to reduce its carbon footprint, while excess electricity generated is sold on the wholesale electricity market.

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With the 2020 target now met, Singapore is setting its sights on the next target of at least 2 gigawatt-peak of solar deployment by 2030. This is equivalent to powering about 350,000 households a year.

For one, JTC will roll out extensions for two of its solar initiatives, SolarLand and SolarRoof, which generate clean energy to the national grid via the installation of solar panels on vacant land and on the rooftops of JTC's buildings respectively.

The programmes' next phases will seek to use over 740,000 square metres (sq m) of industrial land and roof space - equivalent to about 103 soccer fields - for solar installations.

This is estimated to contribute over 82 MWp of solar energy capacity to the 2030 national goal, and generate about 78,000 MWh to power more than 14,600 households and reduce over 32,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

The SolarLand and SolarRoof programmes will help to overcome some challenges faced by Singapore's solar market, such as limited space and high capital costs, said Calvin Chung, JTC's group director of engineering.

The agency will issue a tender in the first half of 2020 for the second phase of SolarRoof, to create an additional 15 MWp of solar energy capacity.

Aside from JTC's industrial buildings, the agency is also exploring allowing lessees to tap on a new contract to install solar panels on their own rooftops.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement on Wednesday, Singtel announced it has completed a 1.65 MWp solar energy installation on the rooftop of its Bedok Data Centre, which is the company's largest generator of clean energy to date.

It consists of 4,292 solar panels across an area of about 8,205 square metres.

The installation began operations in March, and will generate enough clean energy to fulfill 10 per cent of the data centre's energy needs, Singtel said.

The telco aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

To meet this target, it is exploring the use of direct renewable energy for its infrastructure and larger-scale projects in Singapore and Australia, and has also been investing in energy-efficient technologies to lower energy consumption at its operations.

Singtel's vice-president of group sustainability, Andrew Buay, said the company's green initiatives "are increasingly important to customers, particularly enterprises that outsource their ICT (information and communications technology) operations to us and want to reduce their own carbon footprint too".