Singapore opens first solar farm with integrated rainwater system

Sitting on almost 10ha of temporary vacant land, Singapore's first solar farm with an integrated rainwater harvesting system was officially opened by Sembcorp in Tuas yesterday.

Tapping the country's rainy weather, the facility is expected to collect 170,000 cubic metres of water annually – equivalent to the amount to fill 68 Olympic-size swimming pools – to cool and clean solar panels for optimum performance.

The farm is also highly mobile such that it can be packed up over four months and set up at another site in two months, said Sembcorp Industries' head of integrated solutions (Singapore and Southeast Asia) Jen Tan.

The Sembcorp Tuas Solar Farm, a 17.6 megawatt-peak (MWP) facility, will generate enough energy to power about 4,700 four-room Housing Board flats a year.

This will help to avoid about 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year from non-renewable sources, equivalent to planting almost 150,000 trees.

The facility takes the Republic

closer to reaching the target of hitting at least 1.5 gigawatt-peak (GWP) worth of energy generated by solar power by 2025, and 2GWP by 2030 as part of Singapore's transition towards achieving a greener energy mix, said Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling at the farm's opening ceremony yesterday.

While solar energy is one of Singapore's most viable sources of renewable energy, the country faces the constraints of limited space and overcast skies caused by its tropical climate.

"Such innovations not only help boost efficiency and yield, they ensure that the space is well used all the time - rain or shine," Low said.

The farm in Tuas is constructed under the third phase of government agency JTC'S Solarland programme, which was launched in 2019 to supply solar energy to the national grid via the installation of solar panels on vacant land. Since the end of last year, it has been operational and providing solar energy to the national grid.