Singapore is installing its largest private microgrid yet at SIT’s new Punggol campus in 2024, receiving additional funding from SP Group.
The Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) is installing a microgrid at its future Punggol campus in 2024. This will be Singapore’s largest private self-sufficient energy system and marks a new generation of more sustainable energy usage solutions for the island nation.
The new installation will include solar panels on rooftops throughout the campus, aligning with Singapore’s aim to lower the carbon footprint of its power sector. In contrast to a single-layered grid, microgrids will allow users to generate and use power according to their own needs. In addition to powering the campus, the new SIT microgrid will also act as a test bed for new energy systems that can be replicated across Singapore.
SIT revealed last Tuesday that the Singapore Power Group (SP) will be putting in additional funding of $8 million into the project, rounding up to a $14 million total investment.
SP and SIT will also work together to design a system that allows remove certain buildings and floors from the national grid to conduct further research, according to the Institute’s Director of Engineering Programmes, Tseng King Jet.
To accommodate this, specific buildings on the campus will be equipped with their own rooftop solar panels and energy storage systems in order to be able to function as their own nanogrids, Professor Tseng added.
The campus targets solar panels supplying about 4% of total energy needs- over 2,000 megawatt-hour (MWh) annually, or about 400 times of a four-room Housing Board flat’s average annual consumption.
SIT President, Chua Kee Chaing, said “the Institute’s future Punggol campus would be optimised for energy usage with renewable sources of energy and low energy buildings [are] expected to bring annual consumption down from over 78,000MWh to below 52,000MWh. This is equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of about 12,200 four-room HDB flats.”
Solar power is Singapore’s most viable source of renewable energy, but extraction still faces many challenges, including the nation’s skyscrapers blocking sunlight along with a scarcity of land resources to install larger scale farms.
Professor Tseng commented that the campus’ microgrid will remain open and flexible to other sources of renewable energy.
Featured banner image credit: singaporetech.edu.sg
Related Articles
Singaporean Tech Startup RIMM Sustainability Raises US$3 Million in Funding
Singapore Leads APAC Data Centre Market Followed by Hong Kong
