SINGAPORE, Oct 26 — Singapore plans to trial clean energy imports from Malaysia to boost the security of its energy supply, the city-state’s Minister for Trade and Industry said on Monday, unveiling a series of moves aimed at reducing its carbon footprint.
The two-year trial, which will make up about 1.5 per cent of Singapore’s peak electricity demand, aims to assess and refine the technical and regulatory frameworks for importing electricity into Singapore, as well as facilitating potential larger-scale regional imports in the future.
“This can help us to access clean energy from regional countries and improve our energy resilience,” said Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Trade and Industry, speaking at the annual Singapore International Energy Week event, being staged partly via video-conferencing this year.
Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) separately confirmed it will launch the trial for 100 MW of electricity imports from neighbouring Malaysia possibly by end-2021.
Meanwhile Singapore is aiming for a massive boost in solar power as its most viable renewable energy source to generate electricity, Chan said. The target is to raise its solar generation capacity to at least 2 Gigawatt-peak (GWp), referring to nameplate capacity, by 2030, up from around 390 Megawatt-peak in the second quarter this year.
“The public sector will take the lead in catalysing solar deployment, and together with the private sector, we work will towards potentially achieving 1.5 GWp of solar deployment by 2025,” said Chan.
To address the intermittent nature of solar energy, the EMA and Keppel Offshore and Marine have jointly awarded a research grant to a consortium led by Envision Digital to develop what would be Singapore’s first floating energy storage system, a 7.5 MW stacked lithium-ion battery facility.
Chan also announced a $49 million research fund for low-carbon energy solutions that will support projects in low-carbon energy technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage over the next five years.
— Reuters
