Sembcorp Utilities, Tuas Power among those making it to the shortlist
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 16 Mar 10;
NINE corporations - with two Singapore gencos among leading European and US players like EADS, General Electric and Lockheed Martin - have been shortlisted to bid to be the developer-cum-operator of a clean and renewable energy intelligent micro-grid for Pulau Ubin.
They were picked from a total of 21 submissions to the Energy Market Authority, following the close of an Expression of Interest (EOI) tender in December.
The EMA called for the EOI last November when it announced the Pulau Ubin project, saying the island could be powered by the sun, wind and even waste in a year or two, when it becomes a testbed for such clean energy technologies. Currently, the islanders there rely on their own diesel power generators.
This followed the completion of an earlier first- phase study covering the technical and commercial viability of the various clean and renewable energy options and their integration with an intelligent micro-grid infrastructure.
The plan is that if the experiment for the island - with its 100 inhabitants, small businesses, restaurants and Outward Bound training camp - succeeds, the technology can potentially be applied to the generation and distribution of power on mainland Singapore.
Sembcorp Utilities and Tuas Power are the two generation companies here that have been shortlisted.
Sembcorp, which has experience in using renewables like biomass, including willow crops, in its UK plant, is also doing pilot trials on refuse-derived fuels here, while Tuas Power is building a $2 billion clean coal/biomass cogeneration plant, with the latter including use of palm kernel shell.
Big wind/solar players like Europe's EADS (which builds the Airbus jetliner), America's GE and Lockheed Martin and Japan's Shimizu Corporation, are also vying for the Ubin project.
Others include Patrick Energy Inc, Daily Life Renewable Energy Pte Ltd (representing Arizona's Southwest Windpower) and OKH Holdings, and Singapore Technologies Kinetics.
All nine have now been invited to submit their project concepts first, industry sources said, before putting in detailed proposals as part of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the intelligent micro-grid infrastructure.
Companies interested to testbed their close-to-market clean and renewable energy solutions in the Ubin micro-grid infrastructure will be invited to submit their proposals under another RFP after the completion of the detailed design of the micro-grid infrastructure which is expected at the end of this year, the EMA said on its website.
EMA deputy chief executive David Tan earlier said that the regulator would fund part of the multi-million dollar Ubin project, with companies running and using the testbed bearing the rest of the cost.
