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More Punggol flats to go solar
Another 80 HDB blocks will use sunlight to power common facilities
Published on Jan 25, 2013
By Daryl Chin
SOLAR panels will be installed in another 80 Housing Board blocks in eco-town Punggol to harness energy to power services in common areas.
Facilities such as lifts, lights in corridors and staircases and water pumps will use the energy, the HDB said yesterday.
This will take the town a step closer towards relying entirely on solar power for common services by 2016, it added.
Commenting on his blog, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said that while solar energy is still more expensive than energy produced from oil or gas, that should not deter efforts to go green.
He noted that the greater use of solar technology has been fuelled in part by the falling cost of solar photovoltaic cells.
The costs have dropped some 60 per cent since HDB first tested using solar panels on the top of HDB blocks in Serangoon North and Sembawang in 2008.
"As solar panels improve on their efficiency and their cost of production drops, the economics of solar energy is getting better every day," he said.
To encourage more companies to bid to set up the solar panels, the HDB offsets up to 30 per cent of the start-up costs.
The firm that won the 20-year contract sells the energy tapped to Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council at up to 5 per cent off the retail electricity tariff rate.
Mr Khaw believes that this leasing arrangement would enable more flats to benefit from the technology.
The HDB said the initial capital outlay from the Government acts as an incentive, as contractors bidding for the project can take about 20 years before they recover operational costs.
The cost of the system in the latest tender is $8.84 million, of which the HDB will foot $645,000. In a previous tender in 2011, also in Punggol, the winning bid was $10.9 million for a less advanced system that covered 45 blocks. The Housing Board put up $3.28 million. Solar developer Sunseap won both bids.
HDB chief executive Cheong Koon Hean said the latest move is in line with its vision to create sustainable towns.
National University of Singapore researcher Kua Harn Wei said that while investing in greener gadgets and equipment is a must, society should not forget that it is also about "sustainable consumption".
Small things, like switching on the lights only when necessary, can help.
To date, the HDB has committed a total of $15million to install solar systems for 175 blocks of flats. The energy harnessed is enough to meet the needs of 1,800 four-room flats for a year.
The aim is to test-bed such technology in 200 public housing blocks by 2015.
Said Punggol resident Eric Tong, 33, a businessman: "It's great that my town is going greener, but of course it will be better when conservancy charges also fall."
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