FIRST Renewable energy could meet about 8% of Singapore’s current peak power demand by 2025.
RE to meet 8% of Singapore’s peak power demand
Singapore gets green and smart
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or a small country like Singapore which heavily relies on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy requirements, it is inevitable to turn to alternative energy sources at home. Anton Finenko, analyst at the Energy Studies Institute of the National University of Singapore, says despite challenges like geographic constraints and lack of space required by geothermal plants and wind farms, the city-state is doing well with solar photovoltaics, biomass and waste-for-energy combustion. “According to a new white paper launched by industry experts in January
2014, renewable energy could meet about 8% of Singapore’s current peak power demand by 2025,” Finenko says. He adds that there is a potential investment of S$3 billion to S$4 billion from the private sector waiting to flow into the renewable energy sector, based on estimates made by industry experts. Singapore: smart city Meanwhile, Jason Goh, vice president of Schneider Electric Singapore’s Energy Business Unit, says Singapore needs to make a shift from being the Lion City to a smart city if it wants to meet the energy needs of its population.
Goh says Singapore needs to evolve into a smart city to meet the energy demands which will be placed on the country’s infrastructure by a growing population. He describes a smart city as one which has interconnected systems that are able to work with each other, sharing information to make a city more efficient, and at the same time more environmentally friendly and sustainable. “While a mix of alternative energy sources like solar and wind is commonly highlighted as one of the solutions that could help to meet future energy demand, we believe that strategic and efficient use of energy can take any city to a more sustainable future, and this is particularly so for Singapore,” he adds. Goh says that in a smart city, all the various systems work together, forming a critical mass of data that allows for continuous improvement of the systems themselves. The improvement delivers information which can be analyzed by intelligent software systems, and the data allow cities to deliver more efficient public services.
Grid Emission Factor and Percentage Share of NonNatural Gas Energy Products in Fuel Mix
Source: Energy Market Authority, Singapore
The Chartist: China to fall short of new solar installations in 2014 Macquarie Equities Research forecast 10.5GW in 2014, lower than the official guide of 11.8GW - 7.6GW new installations from distributed solar projects (rooftops) and 4.2GW from utility scale solar projects (solar farms). “Our projection is based on a sum of individual projects that have been granted preliminary approval by the local NDRC, and our estimated rooftop distributed projects, with a split of 50:50. The Street is concerned that China demand will be far off track if the Chinese government caps 4GW solar farm installations in 2014,” according to a recent Macquarie report. The Chinese government sets a clear goal of achieving over 35GW cumulative installation of solar power capacity by 2015, implying ~45% CAGR in annual new installations.
China Solar annual new installations and cumulative installations’ growth
Source: CEC, China PV Assoc., Macquarie Research
Estimates of cumulative solar power capacity by region (end of 2013)
Source: NEA Macquarie Reseach
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