CONSTRUCTING a commercially viable, industrial-grade solar farm requires a lot of land — which wealthy and progressive Singapore doesn’t have. However, the electricity-hungry island nation has been meeting its solar energy needs, without the need for too much land.Since 2014, four major solar projects have emerged, feeding Singapore’s grid with a cumulative total of approximately 600 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of power combined.
SolarNova is Singapore’s national solar deployment program, initiated by the Housing and Development Board, and the Economic Development Board. The objective is simple: install solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on the roofs of government agencies, public housing blocks and other government-owned structures like schools. Since 2014, it is estimated to have contributed over 111 GWh annually, targeting an estimated 420 GWh of solar energy annually when fully operational.
SolarRoof is a specific initiative by JTC Corp., introduced in 2017. JTC Corp., a statutory board under Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, operates like a private entity. It is the lead government agency responsible for developing and managing industrial infrastructure in the country. The SolarRoof project focuses on optimizing the vast rooftop spaces of private industrial buildings within JTC’s managed estates. Flexible business models like solar leasing and rooftop licensing eliminate upfront capital costs for even small-to-medium businesses. As of 2024, it has contributed approximately 800 megawatt-peak (MWp) of solar power to the grid.
Power inverters are the first step before feeding solar energy into the grid. PHOTO BY RAYMOND GREGORY TRIBDINO
SolarLand, first set up in 2018, creatively uses idle industrial land or recently reclaimed land destined for residential purposes. Temporary solar energy facilities are installed using flexible, modular technologies. When the lease for the land expires and is needed for other uses, the entire facility is simply dismantled and redeployed elsewhere.
Currently, there are seven sites across Singapore, generating a total of 62 MWp. MWp or GWp (gigawatt-peak) are the standard units used to determine how a solar panel converts sunlight (solar irradiance) into electricity.
The fourth project, the Woodlands Offshore Floating Photovoltaic Array, is found floating near the shores of Johor. It was the world’s largest floating solar farm when completed in March 2021. The 5-MWp project has generated an estimated 6.02 GWh of clean energy per year since it started. This is equivalent to cutting down up to 4,258 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
On-site solar facility
Hidden among the crosslink fences and sandwiched between building worksites are thousands of solar panel arrays under JTC SolarLand. The arrays feed direct current voltage into inverters that convert the power into alternating current (AC) which is then passed into step-up transformers to the required voltage and fed directly to Singapore’s power-hungry grid.
Operated by EDP Renewables (EDPR), a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal, in collaboration with JTC Corp. and other stakeholders, the Tuas solar farm spans 10 hectares and generates up to 17.6 MWp of solar energy.
SolarLand installation in Singapore. PHOTO BY RAYMOND GREGORY TRIBDINO
On a second, 11.6-hectare site just opposite to Tuas is a 35,500 PV array, making it the biggest ground-mounted solar farm on a single parcel of land. JTC’s industrial park portfolio has many empty parcels of land, offering significant potential for solar deployment.
“Our collaboration with JTC has proven advantageous to fill Singapore’s energy requirements,” Filipa Ricciardi, executive director at EDP Renewables APAC, told The Manila Times. “Ground solar has a more meaningful impact at scale because it is easier and faster to install and deploy. Rooftop solar and floating solar have particular, practical challenges that ground-level facilities do not.”
Ricciardi also mentioned that Amazon Web Services, through a virtual power purchase agreement, gets 100 percent of its power from renewables via the SolarLand facility, which is located just 10 minutes away from its headquarters in Singapore’s Central Business District.
“Singapore has over 2,000 hours of sunlight,” Ricciardi said. “We may be short on land, but not on sunlight. How we creatively harness it is the game changer.”
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