Think about the car that you might have driven today to travel around. Look up at the lightbulb that is illuminating your room. Pause and think about the device that you are using right now to read this article. All of these are powered by energy.
In today’s day and age, it’s hard to imagine a world where we do not rely on fuel or electricity to provide energy in our daily lives. Yet, as we all probably know, this overconsumption of energy has set the world in a downward spiral. The more energy we use, the more fuels we burn, and the more carbon we emit into our atmosphere.
It’s obvious that we need to do something to generate energy in a cleaner manner. This is where renewable energy comes in.
Solar Energy for Sunny Singapore
There are many forms of renewable energy, but in Singapore, the most viable renewable energy is solar energy. Hydro, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy are more difficult to harness, if not, unviable1.
Solar energy, however, is not without its constraints. One major limitation is that we need open spaces to install solar panels. In land-scarce Singapore, we do not have the luxury of having huge plots of land to set up solar farms, like those we see in other countries such as China, US or India. As such, we have to be creative and make use of various unconventional spaces to install solar panels, such as the rooftops of many residential and commercial buildings, which many of you would probably have already noticed2.
Another unconventional space used are our inland reservoirs and offshore seas. In March 2020, a floating solar farm located in the Straits of Johor was completed3. Another floating solar farm is also currently being constructed in Tengeh Reservoir. With these developments, Singapore now boasts to one of the world’s largest floating solar farms that is estimated to offset over 4000 tonnes of carbon dioxide yearly4.
By using these unconventional spaces which would otherwise be left untouched, Singapore is able to make use of as much surface area as possible, thereby generating the most amount of solar energy possible.
Singapore’s Energy Plans
Earlier this year, the Singapore Green Plan 2030 was announced, outlining the various goals to enhance our efforts in sustainable development in various sectors. In terms of energy generation5, Singapore aims to generate energy in a cleaner manner, achieving a 2-GWp solar capacity by 2030, 5 times more than what we have in the first quarter of 20206. This target, while ambitious, will only be able to meet 4% of Singapore’s energy demands7.
To supplement the solar energy supply, we still have to rely on other sources of energy. These sources of energy are described as the “4 Switches” – solar, low-carbon alternatives, regional power grids, and natural gas2.
Despite all these plans to generate energy from cleaner sources, natural gas is currently responsible for 95% of our energy supply, and will continue to be the dominant source of energy to power our daily lives. While it is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. That means we still have to extract it from the ground, damaging the environment at the mining sites. That means we still have to burn it to generate energy, emitting harmful gases in the process. How can we reduce the amount of natural gas that is being used to generate energy?
Individual Choices in Energy
On one hand, we can call for more efforts in research & development and policies to improve the technology and increase the implementation of solar panels all around Singapore. On the other hand, well, we should use the other hand to point inwards and wonder what we can do to reduce the need to generate that much energy.
The average household in 2019 consumed 430.6kWh of energy every month8. It might be hard to understand how much energy that is, so let me put it into perspective for you using a little experiment I did for a school assignment previously9. My ceiling fan has a rating of 75W, so with the amount of energy consumed by an average household every month, I can keep my fan on continuously for 239 days.
P.S.: My air-conditioner has a total rating of 2.2kW, which means that I can only keep it on continuously for 8 days, so use your fan more often 🙂
Based on the current way of life, energy is essential and it doesn’t seem like we can do without it anytime soon. And sure, as individuals, you may feel like you don’t have that much, or any, power to direct the future of our energy plans. But all of us, as individuals, have a part to play to reduce the need to generate that much energy. Every one of you reading this article can choose to make more environmentally-conscious decisions to reduce your energy consumption.
Go back to that first paragraph in this article. Instead of driving all day, choose public transport as your main mode of transportation. Switch off your lights when not in use, or if natural lighting suffices. Use your electronic gadgets less, so you don’t have to charge them as often. Instead, take a walk outside, and immerse in the sights and sounds of nature (maybe only after this pandemic).
I challenge you to challenge yourself. How else can you reduce your energy consumption even further?
