SINGAPORE

SUPPORTING POLICIES FOR OCEAN ENERGY 

NATIONAL STRATEGY AND TARGETS
Singapore is determined to reach its national targets to become economically greener and provide environmental and sustainable development for the whole city-state. Singapore has recently announced that “it intends to reduce its emissions intensity by 36% from 2005 levels by 2030, and stabilise its emissions with the aim of peaking around 2030” (UNFCCC, 2015). This makes the country more determined to establish different energy efficiency measures and to harness alternative sources of energy. The Government sees renewable energy as an emerging field, which needs to be closely studied and developed in tune to regional needs (SMI, 2014).

More than S$800 million public funding has been set aside by the Singapore Government for research in energy, water, green buildings and addressing land scarcity, of which S$140 million is allocated for research into clean energy technologies under the banner of the Energy Innovation Programme Office (EIPO) (EDB, 2015). Ocean renewable energy has been identified as one of the prominent alternative energy by ERI@N specifically towards remote coastal and islandic region as part of its strategic research interests. Singapore, being a small city-state, yet develops its own solutions to address constraints in land and water resources by building partnerships between public agencies, academia and industries towards the country’s sustainability agenda.

An example of this is Singapore positioning itself as a “Living Laboratory” – “making its national urban infrastructure available to local and international companies who find it useful to develop, test, prove and showcase their solutions in a real-life urban environment that is also representative of many Asian cities” (EDB, 2015). This enables Singapore to harness the best technologies and industrial solutions from its partners.