Opening Address by Minister Lawrence Wong at the World Cities Summit HDB’s Signing Ceremony

Jul 10, 2018

I’m very happy to join you at today’s event.  

The theme of this year’s World Cities Summit is focused on innovation and collaboration – two broad subjects. So I think it is very fitting that this morning, we come together for a signing event that marks collaborative innovation - working together to innovate with various private sector partners as well as government bodies. We all know that there is tremendous potential to transform and improve our living environment through new technologies. That is why in Singapore we have invested significantly in Research & Development (R&D) at the national level. We have a national level R&D blueprint. We are investing and have been doing so for some years, and we are continuing to invest in R&D. One major part of our R&D spending is in urban solutions, and specifically in our Cities of Tomorrow (CoT) programme.

While we have done well in building a green and liveable city in Singapore, we also recognise that we must continue to push ourselves to go beyond the status quo. Because we know that there is still much more we must do to make Singapore even more liveable and sustainable and to create a better environment for all to enjoy.  

That’s why I am very happy that HDB will be working now with various partners on three interesting collaborations. I will share a bit about each one of them.   

First on Smart Energy solutions. This is a partnership with Singapore Power Group, where we are looking to prototype and pilot new energy solutions in our newest HDB town called Tengah, in the western part of Singapore. We have unveiled the plans for Tengah some time ago. In fact, we will be launching our first batch of flats in Tengah in the later part of this year.  When we showed the blueprint for Tengah, we are designing this as a Forest Town. Because it is designed with nature in mind and integrated with the greenery that is already there. But now with this pilot project, we are also going to make Tengah a Smart Energy Town. 

We will push the boundaries to explore new ideas. For example, we already have solar power in many of our HDB rooftops. But how can we integrate solar power with storage solutions, so that energy can be stored and can be used at a later time to power estate services – perhaps used at a time when prices are higher so that we can do peak shaving or used for backup in the event of a localised power failure. So these are ideas where you can better optimise the use of energy. We will explore the use of centralised cooling system for public housing, which potentially can be more energy-efficient than individual air-conditioned units. And importantly, we want to integrate across different energy systems, harness the synergies between them to achieve optimal energy efficiency for the entire town. This can be done today using the Internet of Things, using platforms that integrate different systems together so that you can really achieve full and optimal energy usage. 

We also want to empower the residents. So it is not just innovating on the supply side, we also want to do the demand side applications. For example, applications that can be developed to help residents make more informed decisions on their energy usage; applications that will allow them to track their energy consumption and optimise their usage patterns. So these are the ideas that will be explored in Tengah, our Smart Energy Town. And if successful, many of these applications can serve as a model for future towns, both in Singapore and even internationally. So we think this is an exciting project to work together on, and we are very happy that we can do this collaboration together with Singapore Power. 

The second area is also in the area of power, but it is a specific area of solar technology for the marine environment. All of us know that we have limited land in Singapore. So while we are ramping up the deployment of solar panels, the constraints for us now is land. There is just not enough space for solar panels. We are already, by 2020, deploying solar panels on about 5,500 HDB blocks. Half of all the HDB blocks in Singapore will be fitted with or identified for solar installation. 

Why not every one? It is simply because it doesn’t make sense for every single block to have it. It will depend on the solar exposure on the particular block. Some blocks are low-rise; some blocks have buildings that overshadow them. So if there is not enough solar exposure, it doesn’t make sense to put a solar panel. But wherever we can identify a rooftop space with solar exposure, we are putting a solar panel. We are probably going to reach our limits before too long. 

So how can we push the boundaries further? How can we harness even more solar power in Singapore? The only way is to go beyond our shores to the sea. So we are considering harvesting Singapore’s solar energy in the maritime environment. 

 HDB’s engineers have been making useful innovations on this front. Several years ago, they managed to design a floating modular system, which they found to be useful in creating a floating wetland system in Punggol Waterway. It is already being deployed. In May this year, we adopted this modular system for a floating solar system in Tengeh Reservoir which is in Tuas. Now we are putting the solar panel on the floating system and we are deploying it in the sea. 

Today, we will ink a collaboration with a homegrown company, ISO Landscape, to expand the use of this floating modular system in open sea conditions for solar deployment.  And if that is successful, again, it will expand the potential for us to harness solar energy in a significant way.

The third collaboration is the development of digital fabrication and 3D printing. 

This is very exciting as it will open up many new possibilities for the construction industry. Here we are collaborating with Robin Village Development Pte Ltd, Witteveen + Bos, and NTU to take advantage of these opportunities in digital fabrication and 3D printing. 

Under this collaboration, we will develop 3D-printing of full-scale concrete building elements.  The 3D concrete printer, when completed, will be the first of its kind and the largest concrete printer to be set up in Singapore. The potential for time savings and for productivity improvements in the construction industry is considerable. A conventional precast production of such concrete elements can take months to prepare and to fabricate. But with a 3D printer, you can fast-track the whole process and a typical room size element can be printed in a 3D printer in just two days. So imagine the kind of productivity and time savings that can be generated through such a process. 
 
These are three very exciting areas of research collaborations that we are signing today. There are many more in the pipeline which we are working on, in HDB, BCA and in the broader MND family. Basically, we are investing more in research – basic research and upstream research in our universities -  but we are also translating the research into specific outcomes that make a difference in our living environment, and in our quality of life. 

So overall, year by year as we do this, we are now starting to see a vibrant eco-system of researchers, engineers and industry stakeholders that will keep Singapore at the leading edge of urban solutions. I think it is an exciting journey we are embarking on to reimagine, to rebuild an even better Singapore and we welcome all partners to join us in this journey. 

Together, we can build a Greener City and Better Home for ourselves and our future generations. 

Thank you.