Singapore is on track to achieve 1.5 gigawatt-peak by 2025, said Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng in Parliament on Tuesday (5 January), adding that the pricing for electricity tariffs should not be “significantly higher” than the current cost.
In his Parliamentary speech, Dr Tan pointed out that solar energy is “the most viable source of renewable energy within Singapore”.
He noted that installed solar capacity has increased more than a hundredfold over the past 10 years, from 3.8 megawatt-peak in 2010 to around 400 megawatt-peak in mid-2020.
“We are accelerating our efforts and we will almost quadruple our solar capacity to 1.5 gigawatt-peak by 2025,” he said.
The Minister added that the country aims to achieve 2 gigawatt-peak by the end of 2030.
“So by 2030, we expect our second switch to supply around 3 per cent of our total electricity consumption. And of course, depending on the state of technology at that point in time and cost, we hope to be able to do more,” he noted.
Noting that Singapore is trialling electricity imports of up to 100 megawatts from Peninsular Malaysia, Dr Tan said that there will be “minimal impact” on the reliability and cost of electricity supply as this makes up about 1.5 per cent of Singapore’s peak electricity demand.
“Our preference, of course, is to import electricity from renewable energy sources and hence the cleanliness of the generation source will be a major consideration in selecting the importer,” he added.
Following that, Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament Louis Chua asked whether the ministry would consider setting a target mix for the amount of energy to be generated from renewable energy sources.
In response, Dr Tan said that the Government has been looking at various technologies that are currently available, as well as working with the research institutions and universities to see how their initiatives on carbon capture utilization can be implemented to reach the target.
“With regards to the renewable energy targets, the 2 gigawatt-peak in terms of renewable solar power will come in by 2030,” said the Minister.
“We are on track by 2025 to achieve 1.5 gigawatt, so to reach that target by 2030 should not be a major problem. In fact, we hope that we can do even better than that,” he added.
Mr Chua also asked about the calculation of electricity tariffs, given that 95 per cent of the energy mix derived from natural gas.
“Especially in the future, when transmission from regional power grids are involved, how then would the fuel costs as well as network cost component be calculated? And how would that be passed on to consumers at the end of the day?” he questioned.
Responding to the question, Dr Tan noted that the regional power grids are “still a fairly commercial venture” at this point in time.
“The pricing will be competitive, there will be an open transparent bidding process and this electricity will be then sold into the Singapore wholesale electricity Market.
“When we work out the arithmetic behind it from the import of the 100 megawatt from the regional power grid itself, the pricing should not be significantly higher than what we are already getting today in terms of the electricity tariffs,” he noted.