A total of 3,333 pieces of solar panels were installed at Choa Chu Kang Waterworks, and these can harness enough energy to meet about 7 per cent of the plant's daily energy needs.
Nadia Jansen Hassan Channel NewsAsia 25 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE: The Choa Chu Kang Waterworks (CCKWW) is the first water treatment plant here to tap on solar power for its energy needs.
A total of 3,333 pieces of solar panels were installed at Choa Chu Kang Waterworks, and these can harness enough energy to meet about 7 per cent of the plant's daily energy needs for areas such as lighting and air conditioning, it was revealed during a media briefing on Thursday (Jun 25).
The panels are also expected to generate 1.1 gigawatt hours (GWh) every year - the equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 247 Housing and Development Board households. They work by converting sunlight into a renewable energy source, which can be used to power the plant.
It took about a year to complete the construction, which wrapped up in May, 2015. This is part of the Public Utilities Board's (PUB) push towards using more clean and renewable energy, and the agency picked this site to be the pilot project because it is one of the largest waterworks in Singapore, with the capacity to meet up to 20 per cent of the country's water demand.
"It's fed into the same electricity network as the grid energy. What happens is that when the solar panels are producing electricity, this electricity will be consumed first, then the balance will then be produced by the grid energy," said Mr Tan Nguan Sen, Chief Sustainability Officer at PUB.
Environment and Water Resources Minister, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, said using solar power wherever possible is important for Singapore, despite its compact size.
He said: "The key bottleneck for energy for solar energy in Singapore is land. We don't have enough land. And therefore solar energy can never replace our ultimate dependence on fossil fuels. But to the maximum extent possible, solar energy is green, solar energy is renewable and right now, solar energy is competitive."
PUB is kicking off another solar project in Tengeh Reservoir next year. It will be installing floating solar panels there, and running environmental studies concurrently, to see if they impact the reservoir's water quality, biodiversity and evaporation.
Solar panels will also be set up in three other PUB facilities, in the Changi Water Reclamation Plant, Bedok Waterworks and Waterhub in Toh Guan, by the end of 2017.
- CNA/kk/dl/hs
PUB studies environmental impact of floating solar panels
HOLLY MATTHEWS Today Online 25 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE — Studies are underway to assess the environmental impact of installing floating solar panels at Tengeh reservoir, as the Republic continues to look for ways to optimise land-use for solar power generation.
The Tengeh project was announced last year, and a tender for the contract to build the panels will be launched in September. The environmental study will measure the effect of water-based solar photovoltaic (PV) cells on the reservoir’s water quality, biodiversity and evaporation, by examining these indicators before and after the panels are installed. It is being conducted in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and DHI Water & Environment, and will end in 2017, a year after the panels are installed.
These updates were shared by PUB during a visit to Choa Chu Kang Waterworks (CCKWW), the first water treatment plant here to be installed with solar panels. During the visit, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said it is important to optimise the use of land in Singapore, but it would not be possible to cover the nation’s reservoirs, which make up about 5 per cent of Singapore’s land area.
“The appearance of water is still far more beautiful than that of a photovoltaic cell … But where we can, and where it makes economics and operational sense, we will do so,” he said.
CCKWW is the first of four announced PUB facilities to be fitted with PV cells and was chosen as the pilot project because of its large roof area. About 3,300 solar panels now provide an average of 7 per cent of the Waterworks’ daily energy needs since it began operations on May 21.
The panels are estimated to generate 1.1 gigawatt hours per year — the equivalent of the annual electricity of 247 Housing and Development Board (HDB) households. On the cards are PV cells at Changi Water Reclamation plant, Bedok Waterworks and Waterhub. PUB aims to have all new plants and selected existing plants outfitted with solar panels by 2020.
Currently, about 70 per cent of CCKWW is covered with solar panels, said PUB chief sustainability officer Tan Nguan Sen. “Because of this huge area we have, we are able to supply a lot of energy,” he said.
With the global prices of PV cells falling, Dr Balakrishnan said it makes sense to fit solar panels on as many buildings and PUB facilities as possible. “Solar energy is green, renewable, and right now, solar energy is competitive with grid energy.”
The Government is moving to tap solar power on a larger scale. Earlier this month, it called its first tender for PV panels to be installed across multiple public-sector premises — which will include 900 HDB blocks — to collectively produce about 40 megawatts (peak) of power.
PUB powers up with solar energy
Samantha Boh Straits Times AsiaOne 26 Jun 15;
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan on a tour of Choa Chu Kang Waterworks yesterday. With him was Mr Albert Lim, managing director of SolarGy, which installed the solar panels.
NATIONAL water agency PUB's Choa Chu Kang water treatment facility is now partly run by solar energy from more than 3,300 solar panels, which will cut its carbon dioxide emissions by some 500 tonnes every year.
The energy will be used to power a portion of the plant's lighting, air-conditioning and water treatment operations, amounting to 7 per cent of its average daily energy consumption.
Spanning about 6,700 sq m, the panels can generate the equivalent of the annual energy consumption of about 250 Housing Board households.
The installation of the solar panels was done under a 20-year power purchase agreement, under which the $2.3 million cost of installation was borne by the supplier, RCS Engineering, and sub- contractor SolarGy. PUB had to pay only for the solar energy subsequently generated.
During a tour of the Choa Chu Kang Waterworks yesterday, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said with the fall in prices of solar panels, solar energy is now in fact cheaper to use than energy from the grid, which is supplied here mainly from natural gas.
"The beauty about the current project is that there has been no capital cost to PUB up front and we literally save money from Day 1," he said. He said PUB will roll out solar photovoltaic (PV) cells at its facilities on land and water in the next few years.
The goal is to cut the amount of imported energy for the production of water by half, using PV systems and bio-gas converted from used water. Its only other solar project now is at Marina Barrage, which supplements daytime electricity for offices there, and the Sustainable Singapore Gallery.
PUB chief sustainability officer Tan Nguan Sen said considerations to be made before a building is singled out for the installation of a solar PV system include whether there is enough space, whether the roof structure is strong enough and whether the building is new enough so that it will not be rebuilt in the next 20 years.
The next facilities to have PV systems will be its Changi Water Reclamation Plant, the Bedok Waterworks treatment plant and Waterhub, a PUB training centre.
PUB's efforts are part of a government push to harness solar power. At the end of the first quarter of this year, total installed capacity of solar PVs was 33.8 megawatt-peak (MWp), up from 18.7 MWp a year ago, according to Energy Market Authority data.
