24 October 2017 - Asia’s leading thought leadership platform on clean energy technology, policy and finance, organised by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS) was officiated by Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of National Development.
In his opening address, Dr Koh spoke about Singapore’s plan to be a global hub for clean energy, saying, “Since 2009, Singapore has invested over $400 billion into clean energy and the number will continue to rise to support this.”
Dr Koh also unveiled six clean energy investments across the fields of solar, wind, microgrids and energy management in Singapore. Secured by EDB in recent months, these investments solidify Singapore’s position towards becoming Asia’s leading clean technology (cleantech) hub. These investments include:
* Envision Energy, a Chinese company, will set up its global digital energy hub in Singapore, while Germany-based VDE Renewables is investing $20 million to set up an energy storage testing and certification lab.
* Solar firm GCL, wind company Hover Energy, and Jiangsu Linyang, which specialises in smart meters and solar energy, are establishing their regional headquarters in Singapore for sales, operations, finance, treasury and other various management functions for the Asia-Pacific.
* Narada Power will set up its regional Energy Storage Solution Centre of Excellence in Singapore to develop co-innovation opportunities with companies here.
Highlights at key panel sessions include:
The Clean Energy Leaders’ Dialogue, which brought together speakers such as Didier Holleaux, Executive Vice President of ENGIE, Steve O’Neil, Chief Executive Officer of Renewable Energy Corporation, Gary Demasi, Director, Data Center and Location Strategy of Google Inc, Lu Yonghua, Chairman of Jiangsu Linyang, and Goh Swee Chen, Chairman of Shell Companies in Singapore, who discussed global trends in clean energy. They talked about growing demand from corporations, in economies like India and China, to go 100 percent renewable, as well as climate goals and concerns from around the world.
Speakers at the Digitalisation and Industrial IoT Revolution in Energy addressed the global ambition of building smart cities, buildings and industries as well as the advancement and availability of technologies related to renewable energy.
“The evolution of the energy democracy is going to spur a real disruption. This is a game-changing event to the energy infrastructure, allowing us to control this with digitalisation. Renewable energy is the fundamental drive of revolution,” said Zhang Lei, CEO, Envision, in his keynote preceding the session.
Finally, at the session on Exploring Growth Markets in Asia, David Elzinga, Senior Energy Specialist at Asian Development Bank (ADB) deduced that the application of sustainable energy in developing countries depends on three key factors – economic, social and environment.
