Singapore turns to nuclear energy and innovating power grid to strengthen energy security

The EMA would work alongside and leverage Battelle’s expertise to assess the potential of advancing nuclear energy and reactor technologies in the country.  

The second part of this collaboration with the US involved a Letter of Intent (LOI) for Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to work with EMA on nuclear energy. 

This would entail working together toward establishing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to enhance capabilities, understanding, and technical expertise in advanced nuclear energy technologies. 

 “The US stands strongly with Singapore… We want to be your partner in technology, in artificial intelligence, and in all things energy,” said the US’ Secretary of Energy and Vice-Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council, Chris Wright, in his keynote address. 

EMA’s Puah noted that this collaboration with the US would strengthen the efforts toward pursuing potential pathways to reduce carbon emissions and meet Singapore’s energy needs.  

Enhancing Singapore’s power grid 

As part of the Future Grid Capabilities Roadmap, Minister Tan announced several initiatives to ensure the reliability of Singapore’s power grid via R&D, pilot projects, and new solutions. 

One of these initiatives was the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Regulatory Sandbox.  

A VPP is a network of decentralised, distributed energy resources (DERs) that are aggregated and managed like a conventional large power generation plant. 

DERs are small power generation units, such as electric vehicle chargers or rooftop solar photovoltaics, that are installed to produce, store or use electricity.  

The expansion of DERs would be expected as Singapore incorporates more renewable sources in its energy mix, and DERs start to play a greater role to support the needs of the grid. 

The VPP helps support the commercial feasibility for DERs to provide grid services, as it may not be viable for each DER to individually provide services given its smaller scale.  

Through the regulatory sandbox, which will run for two years, the EMA would evaluate the benefits of VPPs to the power system and inform future market design to encourage investments into new DER assets. 

The sandbox includes the participation of Blue Whale Energy, Nanyang Technological University, and SP Group. 

Another initiative to support the reliability of Singapore’s future grid, was the Energy Grid 3.0 Grant Call. 

The Grant Call sought proposals from research institutions, private companies, and institutes of higher learning to enhance grid planning and operations capabilities to manage the grid as more renewables and DERs are involved. 

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Encouraging lower carbon emissions 

“As our systems grow more complex, our energy ecosystem must also grow more resilient. We will achieve this by enhancing natural gas-based generation systems,” said Minister Tan.  

To this end, the EMA rolled out an incentive scheme to encourage the adoption of advanced natural gas power plants that are more carbon efficient.  

Under the Advanced Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) Incentive Scheme, EMA will award up to S$44 million to Keppel Electric and Sembcorp Industries to support their deployment of the first two advanced power plants in Singapore by the end of next year. 

“Energy is an existential issue for Singapore… as we step into this new chapter, I invite all of you, our partners in ASEAN and around the world, to join us as we write this important chapter in our journey together,” concluded Tan. 

Read also: Singapore to build its first district-level smart grid, November 4, 2024