SINGAPORE is exploring more workable solutions and technologies to improve commercial buildings’ energy efficiency in its drive to accelerate decarbonisation in the built environment.
On Friday (Sep 6), Second Minister for Finance and National Development Indranee Rajah announced the launch of a consultancy study identifying innovative decarbonisation strategies that are both technically feasible and commercially viable for high-rise offices, hotels and mixed-use developments.
The six-month study will include energy modelling and simulations to assess the extent of improvement in energy efficiency for the various decarbonisation strategies; cost-benefit and thermal comfort analyses will also be carried out.
The study will also identify potential barriers and key considerations in implementing these strategies and technologies.
The aim is to help best-in-class green buildings make an 80-per-cent improvement in energy efficiency over 2005 levels – one of the key goals in the Singapore Green Building Masterplan 2030.
Other targets of the plan include greening 80 per cent of Singapore’s buildings and ensuring that 80 per cent of new buildings are super low energy (SLE) buildings by 2030. These are buildings that achieve at least 60 per cent improvement in energy efficiency from 2005 levels.
“Today, the best-in-class green buildings can achieve 72-per-cent energy efficiency improvement from 2005 levels,” said Indranee. “The challenge is: How can we do better than this?”
She was speaking at the Building & Construction Authority’s awards ceremony at the International Built Environment Week conference. The 21 awards handed out recognised companies in the built-environment sector for their pro-environment and sustainability efforts.
Consultancy firms with proven experience and expertise in energy modelling and simulation are encouraged to “participate actively” in the study and “push the boundaries” of Singapore’s sustainability efforts, said Indranee.
These firms will partner building owners or developers who can offer their buildings as case studies; other environmental sustainability consultants, architects, and mechanical and electrical engineers will also be involved.
Together, they will explore workable strategies and technologies to improve the energy efficiency of the selected building project by 80 per cent.
Insights gleaned from the studies will be shared with industry stakeholders for broader application, said Indranee.
Besides announcing the consultation study, she gave updates on the Energy Efficiency Grant (EEG), which has been extended to include more sectors such as manufacturing, construction, maritime and data centres and their users.
The grant was introduced in 2022 for companies in food services, food manufacturing and retail sectors. During Budget 2024, the government announced its extension to support companies with “more ambitious plans to reduce their emissions”.
Under the grant, eligible construction firms receive up to 70 per cent co-funding support for energy-efficient construction equipment. There are two tiers of support: a base tier for pre-approved energy-efficient equipment, capped at S$30,000 per firm, and an advanced tier with a S$350,000 cap for companies making larger investments for energy efficiency.
Since the announcement in February, Indranee said agencies have been consulting industry stakeholders and experts to identify key construction equipment that would make the most difference in greening the construction process. These include electric and other energy-efficient machinery such as eligible battery-energy storage systems, electric excavators, wheel loaders and crawler cranes.
Interested firms are welcome to apply for the EEG from the end of 2024, she said.
