Government facilities in Singapore have been asked to take steps to reduce electricity consumption to boost the nation’s energy resilience with the conflict in the Middle East tightening global energy supplies.
In a statement on Wednesday (8 April), the National Environment Agency (NEA) said that immediate measures include setting the air-conditioner at 25ºC or higher, managing operating times for air-conditioning, lighting and lifts and unplugging or turning off non-essential equipment when not in use.
However, air-conditioning has been credited – by Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew – as having “changed the lives of people in tropical regions” by enabling work indoors despite the heat outside.
In 1999, he was quoted as saying, “The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.”
