SINGAPORE

SUPPORTING POLICIES FOR OCEAN ENERGY

 

NATIONAL STRATEGY

Singapore is an islandic nation located in the heart of South East Asia with a total land area of about 721.5 km2 and with a population of about 5.7 million as per data provided by the Department of Statistics Singapore in June 2019. In its Climate Action Plan released in July 2016, the Government devised four strategies to achieve a sustainable and vibrant low carbon economy: improving energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions from power generation, developing and demonstrating cutting‐edge low‐carbon technologies, and through the collective action of the Government, individuals and businesses. In 2015, Singapore pledged to reduce its Emissions Intensity (EI, or GHG emissions per unit of GDP) by 36% from 2005 levels by 2030 and stabilise emissions with the aim of peaking around 2030. This makes the country more determined to establish different energy efficiency measures and to harness alternative sources of energy.

MARKET INCENTIVES

The Green-e Renewable Energy Standard for Singapore allows Green-e Energy certification of renewable energy products throughout Singapore, in order to accelerate the development of renewable generation and renewable electricity markets, and to provide consumers with a meaningful mechanism through which they can express demand for renewable electricity (Green-e, 2017). Instead of subsidies, Singapore has taken proactive steps to introduce regulatory enhancements to facilitate the entry of renewable energy when such technologies become commercially viable (EMA, 2017). The Government's support for renewables mainly comes in the form of funding for Research & Development to develop capabilities within the industry.
 

PUBLIC FUNDING PROGRAMMES

More than S$800 million public funding has been set aside by the Singapore Government for research in energy, water, green buildings and addressing land scarcity, of which S$140 million is allocated for research into clean energy technologies under the banner of the Energy Innovation Programme Office (EIPO) (EDB, 2015). Ocean renewable energy has been identified as one of the prominent alternative energy by ERI@N specifically towards remote coastal and islandic region as part of its strategic research interests. The Government also welcomes clean technology companies to use Singapore as a ‘Living Lab’ to testbed and demonstrate innovative solutions before scaling up for the rest of the world. In 2017, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) also secured investments from six clean energy companies worth $500 million for next five years (EDB, 2017).