Singaporean officials have granted Spanish clean energy developer EDP Renewables (EDPR) a tender to build up to 200MWp of new rooftop solar capacity in Singapore.
The company is obligated to install at least 130MWp of capacity, but has the option to install as much as 200MWp, and has announced that it will install more than 320,000 PV modules across a range of buildings.
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These include 1,075 public housing facilities and 101 government buildings, and rooftop solar is of particular interest in Singapore, considering the majority of the city-state is given over to urban development, all but preventing the installation of large utility-scale solar farms, which take up a considerable amount of land.
Indeed, data from the World Bank suggests that, in 2021, 63% of Singapore’s land was used by urban areas, and optimising electricity generation on this land could be crucial as Singapore looks to decarbonise its energy mix.
The Singaporean Housing and Development Board and Economic Development Board awarded the tender under the eighth phase of the SolarNova programme, a government initiative to accelerate the installation of new solar projects across the country. The latest project is the third SolarNova tender that EDP has won, and has the largest capacity of any project supported by the scheme.
“This award reinforces EDPR’s commitment to accelerating the pace of the energy transition.” Said Pedro Vasconcelos, CEO of EDPR APAC.
“The SolarNova 8 project is a testament to our position as a leading renewables player in Singapore, while also driving benefits such as employment and economic growth,” Vasconcelos added. “We aim to set new benchmarks in innovation and environmental stewardship, contributing with meaning and purpose to Singapore’s clean energy landscape.”
The news follows a number of EDPR investments made into the Asia-Pacific energy sector, including the announcement of plans to invest US$7.39 billion into the region by the end of the decade. Such investments will be important for markets such as Singapore, which are heavily reliant on fossil fuels to meet their energy demands.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), natural gas accounted for 93.9% of the country’s electricity supply in 2021, and adding more renewables to the energy mix is a priority for the government, which aims to deploy enough solar capacity to meet 5% of the Singaporean energy mix through the SolarNova scheme.
The government aims to install 2GW of solar capacity by 2030, and reach net zero emissions by 2050, ambitious plans considering renewables only accounted for 2.9% of power generation in 2021.
