Renewable-fuel energy output to fall short of ESC proposal

It'll account for 2% of peak electricity demand by 2014, against 5% proposed
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 19 Feb 10;

POWER projects using renewable fuels (such as palm kernel for Tuas Power's latest clean coal/ biomass plant) - and if taken to broadly include waste-to-energy facilities - will account for about 2 per cent of Singapore's peak electricity demand by 2014, going by current projects and others underway here.

This falls short of the Economic Strategies Committee's (ESC) recommendation that 5 per cent of peak electricity be supplied from renewables by 2020, although solar energy could enter the picture here once the technology improves, industry officials said. They said that the ESC recommendation was definitely a step in the right direction, but 'a challenging one'.

The move towards energy alternatives - renewables in the interim, and nuclear energy in the longer term - is critical, they add, given the generating companies' current reliance on piped natural gas from Indonesia and Malaysia.

'Natural gas accounts for as much as 85 per cent of the gencos' fuel, with the remainder being fuel oil. But recently, with some Indonesian gas supply problems, natural gas use here fell to as much as 70 per cent, with more oil used as a back-up,' one genco official said.

Liquefied natural gas supplies which will be available from mid-2013 will help, although it will initially be more expensive than piped gas, he added.

One genco source said that peak electricity demand here currently ranges from 5,800 MW to 5,900 MW, and even at a conservative 6,000 MW, the ESC target suggests that at least 300 MW should be supplied from renewable fuels by that date.

(The Energy Market Authority projects electricity demand to grow by 2.5-3 per cent annually between 2009 and 2018.)

Right now, the only known projects incorporating renewables includes Tuas Power's $2 billion clean coal/biomass plant being built on Jurong Island. Tropical biomass, comprising palm kernel shell, will make up 20 per cent of its fuel mix.

Apart from steam and cooling water, the plant, when fully completed in 2014, will produce 160 MW of electricity - which means that roughly 32 MW will be generated from renewables.

Singapore's Biofuel Industries had also tied up with Indonesia's Medco Energi to build a $55 million, 24.8 MW cogeneration plant fuelled by horticultural and industrial wood waste, and is scheduled to start selling about 20 MW to the power grid here once the project is completed by the middle of this year.

Currently, there are also several waste-to-energy plants here - such as Senoko Waste-to-Energy (generating 55MW), Keppel Seghers Tuas Waste-to-Energy (24 MW) and IUT Singapore's bio-methanisation plant which creates energy from food waste (2.13 MW). Another power player, Sembcorp, is also continuing pilot trials on refuse-derived fuels (RDF) for its planned second cogeneration plant on Jurong Island, but has so far found RDF to be costly and not energy-efficient. In the UK, it has a 30 MW plant which uses entirely biomass including willow crops, to produce electricity, and gets 'green' incentives such as carbon credits from the UK government for this.

If RFD is added to the 'renewables' equation, then all the current and on-going projects here will add up to about 133 MW by 2014 - or just 40 per cent of the ESC's 300 MW-plus target by 2020.

John Ng, CEO of PowerSeraya, disclosed that the genco is also looking at producing power from waste, but declined to go into project details at this time.

The genco, now owned by Malaysia's YTL Group, is also studying how it can participate in Singapore's electric vehicle network, as well as in small-scale solar projects for customers, he added. 'We are not discounting solar as the technology is evolving and a lot of things can change in 10 years time,' said Mr Ng.

Another industry source cited the example of pharmaceuticals manufacturer Pfizer which has apparently employed solar panels to meet its energy needs, in addition to having an in-house tri-generation plant which produces steam and 4.8 MW of electricity.

'But solar is not sufficiently efficient nor cost effective at this stage to justify the investment involved, and government incentives will be needed to promote its use,' the source added.