One Of World's Largest Floating Solar Farms: Singapore's Solar Plan | Tomorrow City | Part 2/3

singapore is running out of space space to develop and prosper [Applause] there are more developments now it's harder to find land now the little red dot is being re-engineered for the 21st century nobody has done it before this is the only job that allows you to work on a smart city project in singapore we are going from about 350 megawatts of solar to 2 gigawatts of solar and that's a huge jump new mega projects using state-of-the-art technologies to dig deep i did not believe the space saving part until i saw it with my own eyes this is what engineering is all about automated sports i can't imagine we will be developing a 60 plus both and harness the power of the sun it's uh kind of new for singapore to have solar panels on water this is a journey into singapore's tomorrow city dengue reservoir is usually a place of quiet contemplation now the piece has been shattered by the sounds of construction work has started on a floating farm of solar panels no one has ever built such an ambitious project in singapore before and the site engineers have to solve new technical challenges every day [Music] you need to pull the panel post kalimatu chandira kumar the engineer in charge of operations is struggling to get the floating pontoon positioned correctly on the reservoir each pontoon has to be anchored to the bottom of the reservoir and the team has run into problems finding the anchor points i need to go 10 artificial islands will be built here made from 122 000 solar panels covering an area the size of 45 football fields the new solar farm will have the capacity to power 16 000 hdb flats for a year the power from the singing project is equivalent to about seven percent of pubies current energy demand the energy generated will be used to offset the vast amount of power needed for singapore's water supply getting clean potable water for a population of nearly 6 million people and extensive industrial usage is a highly complex process rainwater collected in reservoirs is pumped into a network of treatment works it passes through a series of purification operations to remove sediment and contaminants before it is stored and ready for distribution cck can treat about 80 mg 18 million gallon of water per day and is equivalent to about 145 olympic sized swimming pools and and it supplies clean water to the western region of singapore water from the reservoirs in the western catchment including tenge flows into choa chu kang waterworks here the water is mixed and treated it's an energy intensive process and to lower the energy footprint the pub is investing in new technologies basically cck we have two phases of our treatment processes phase one was built in 1975 and phase two was built later in 1981 so in 2019 we upgraded from san francisco system to our ceramic membrane system ceramic membranes play a vital role in the purification process they are essentially filters that remove contaminants from rainwater because ceramic membranes are more efficient than other materials they help reduce the energy used by the plant and singapore holds a world first for this at choa chukan waterworks one of the best thing about celluloid membrane is that is the largest ceramic membrane plant in the world in a single plant chochu kang waterworks is one of the most advanced treatment plants in singapore but even this state-of-the-art plant still requires huge amounts of energy so the question is how can singapore generate all that power needed in a more sustainable way [Music] if we continue business as usual i expected to quadruple close to 2060 with the doubling of the water demand hence renewables provide a very important opportunity for us to lower our carbon footprint and produce water cleaner according to the public utilities board or pub the solution is in the sun solar energy is one of the most viable renewable sources in singapore so for us we're interested in both rooftop land and floating solar but the big problem is that renewable energy sources whether wind or solar needs space lots of space wind farms and solar projects occupy huge areas of land or sea to effectively compete with non-renewable energy systems but space is a resource singapore is running short of solar deployment is dependent on the availability of land so our large reservoir surfaces does provide very good opportunity for us to deploy large-scale flowing solar pumps so now um reservoirs can double up as storm water catchment areas as well as posts for large floating solar pumps so the planners decided to kill two birds with one stone this ambitious plan has been piloted for tenge it's a clever idea because until now reservoirs have only been used to catch and store water rain that falls on singapore's 728 square kilometers of land is channeled to 17 reservoirs these reservoirs are an untapped resource at tenge the engineers begin constructing access routes to the reservoir these will be needed during construction to bring in the panels cables and other components of the new solar farm now we are at the preparation stage the preparation of the temporary access roads and ramps and the next one erecting the platforms and the ramps on the onshore to the reservoir so it's a meeting point of the water and the land at tenge there will be 10 zones of floating solar cells joined together in rafts or pontoons each cell uses a double glass construction to amplify the durability when sunlight hits the solar panels the absorbed radiation triggers a reaction that generates an electrical current and heat one of the advantages of constructing the solar farm on the reservoir is that there is abundant wind to cool the panels the solar panels send a flow of direct current to combiner boxes which convert it into alternating or ac current for domestic and industrial use from the plant the ac current is sent into the national grid tenge looks set to be one of the world's biggest island solar farms it is expected to offset an estimated 32 kilotons of carbon emissions yearly which is equivalent to removing 7000 cars from the island's roads but what will the vast new solar farm mean for the natural environment of the reservoir singapore's water catchment areas were built long ago and have since become homes to unique wildlife even welcoming back previously endangered species the pub is obligated to protect these habitats so a specialist team has been tasked with monitoring the impact of the solar farm construction [Music] so we're going to collect the data from here right okay environmental consultant hong yao will be keeping a very close eye on the flora and fauna at the reservoir to ensure that there is no disruption to their environment his team will use a network of these camera traps to record the numbers and activities of animals during construction we don't disturb the animal surrounding here that's the purpose of this survey you will see common birds like miners or kingfishers or even like the raptors you can see in the background the brahminy kites and then that on one instance we saw a monkey a long-tailed macaque hong yao's work has long-term significance the pub wants to use the island's other reservoirs to build more solar farms so tenge will need a clean bill of environmental health for other projects of this scale to get the green light helming the project at tenge is energy and urban development company semcorp the company's solar division has a lot of experience installing rooftop solar panels but the reservoir is a first for its young team [Music] the difference between a ground-mounted system or a rooftop system compared to floating pv system is that it is a static system but for your floating pv system is always in movement due to the environmental conditions such as the water speed the wind speed wave movements so there is an additional set of consideration that we need to put in in order to make sure that the system is stable and it can operate for 25 years engineer jun fun contributed to the technical design of the floating farm and he's come to the site to check progress how many panels do we have yeah as for construction status right now we have four ramps and we will be assembling them in an assembly line so as you can see from that side they will be assembling the pv panels they'll be putting them on floats then they will start to place them all over here the semcorp engineers had to come up with innovative ways to ensure that the panels could withstand the unpredictable conditions on the reservoir but they've run into quite a few problems putting these into practice there's some tv issues we have sold out so right now actually the floating frame and everything right it's a bit more complicated compared to the other rooftop installations that we have so that is uh one thing that is slowing down production this is the first attempt at constructing a solar farm of this scale in singapore in an unpredictable environment every panel must cope with factors such as wind water quality and wildlife that might come into contact the panels are constructed on shore then pieced together like a huge jigsaw puzzle on the ramp to form the floating pontoons the pontoons are made from high density polyethylene to ensure that the water quality isn't affected each pontoon will then be towed to its position on the reservoir and tethered by anchors attached to the bottom for the engineers the learning curve is a steep one on site the first challenge is to assemble the multi-layered solar panels you must handling one more person means you will ask one more supervisor to arrange one more supervisor or no worker okay don't take shortcut when you do any manual the workers have been assembling the parts in pairs but these panels are delicate and even minor damage during installation can cause an issue down the line if they're not carried properly the metal parts over here can damage the glass or below the pv panel so an extra pair of hands is needed let's say now no problem may be installed in the reservoir itself right very difficult to identify which panel is crack or maybe which string is crack will be a lot of manpower wastage and replacing in the reservoir i mean the panels in the reservoir more higher risk than this means doing the work in the ground itself while ashok sorts out the assembly line eugene checks the cabling that connects the different parts of the pontoon only when all the checks are completed can the floats be towed into the reservoir why this cable is not connected okay this this cable we connect to the other other final then follow up by the string each of the solar panels must be earthed and then connected to the other panels the cabling is so intricate that one mistake can compromise the entire system today eugene has to make a few corrections [Music] so we found the earthing cables the yellow color cable was turned from the connection due to very high tension so issues like cable management cables are especially like the fasteners for the floats any issues with them have to be resolved before uh actually throwing the array out because they'll actually save time now how we're doing now we uh push the panel and then fix this board okay then after fix also still we need to work there and tie the cable tie okay this is the difficulty okay like so have you tried uh removing the cable uh over there like uh let's say like that's between the panels itself actually now now the gap is very short [Music] once the artificial islands are afloat the cables will be under continuous stress due to the water currents over time the solar panels will need to be repaired or even replaced and the semcorp engineers are still figuring out how to do that on a floating island [Music] so right now right it's very much in the experimental phase let's say for our rooftop installations uh it's actually elevated so if you want to change your panel right go underneath the panel and then you just like lift it up from the underside but from here right let's say if you want to change the pv panels in the middle there's actually very little room for you to maneuver on the reservoir the team has run into difficulties attaching the pontoon to the sinkers that will anchor it to the bottom we need to disconnect each voice wire chandira is the engineer in charge of the operation we need to disconnect so we maybe we go to other corner that side [Music] the jungle side corner [Music] then we need to disconnect from the panel technical difficulties are not the only problems confronting the engineers when covert 19 hit singapore in 2020 the number of workers was cut down now they are trying to make up for lost time if they can't get this first solar island into position on time the project could fall behind schedule they have just six more months to complete it tucked away on the western fringes of singapore semcorp engineers are building a huge solar energy project on the once calm waters of tenge reservoir today the first floating solar island or pontoon is ready to be towed out to its final location but chandira the engineer helming the operation has run into some difficulties no no no cannot you you need to pull the panel first pull this one already this one comes almost that one two four okay you go there i use the hook to put go to the boy yeah the first boy the team has towed the pontoon to its position on the reservoir now they have to locate the submerged sinkers then they have to match the right sinker to specific anchor points on the floating island okay go to the next one next one okay go to another one [Music] [Music] strong winds are threatening to push the pontoon in the wrong direction it's become a test of the boatman's skills [Music] battling the winds the job is finally done [Music] for singapore the future well-being and security of the city-state hinges on the success of projects like the tenge solar farm tenge reservoir is just one example of the way singapore is tackling the problems of global warming and space shortage at the same time a new initiative called cooling singapore is taking a different tack by studying how warming has an impact at street level hello we are conducting a survey how do you feel right now cold cool slightly cool neutral slightly warm warm or hot how do you feel about the humidity now very dry dry neutral humid or very humid as an island situated close to the equator singapore is uniquely vulnerable to sea level change and global warming a study conducted in 2018 revealed that at certain times of the day urban areas in singapore were seven degrees celsius hotter than forested zones this is called the urban heat island effect [Music] if you look at temperatures downtown in orchard road it was 30 degrees celsius at 10 pm and in lim chukang it was 23 degrees celsius we know what causes the heat island you know it is established science we know what causes climate change it's also established science the challenge though is trying to develop a set a basket a combination of solutions that can give us the best outcomes to reduce our exposure to both the heat island and to climate change cooling singapore was launched in 2017 to look into the challenges of a warming island today they are trying to investigate outdoor thermal comfort basically how hot do you feel [Music] outdoor thermal comfort is how a person perceives feels and responds to his her their exposure to the outdoor environment through temperature wind speed and exposure to sun [Music] over a period of seven months researchers collected data from monitoring stations in singapore's central business district and they sent other teams to install sensors in areas with tree cover like bichan park [Music] we are mounting some sensors to measure what the performance of different trees regarding thermal comfort we want to know how different species how different different shapes of trees can impact on the thermal comfort so we will be mounting five sets of sensors one of each below three we deployed four sensors and we saw significant differences in the thermal comfort just because it was under a tree or beside a high rise building the high-rise building was producing some shadow in the afternoon and the drop and the benefits in thermal comfort was clearly seen you can we can see this in the in the graph cooling singapore looks at how small-scale improvements in urban design can help to mitigate the effects of warming [Music] but that's not enough what's key is the usage of renewable energies to reduce the dependence on traditional sources like gas and oil which produce emissions that cause global warming [Music] we know that singapore's energy source 95 of it comes of natural gas the aim is eventually as we reach the middle of this century we want to get as much renewable energy sources in so why wait until 2050 the urgency required for the climate change problem and for the heat island problem is to make sure your electrical appliances the the sort of things that we use to pull the environment mechanically like air conditioning we want to use renewable energy okay hi guys uh i just wanted to quickly check on the floating solar testbed which we have in tangier reservoir while the pub and semcorp are testing out their potentially revolutionary floating solar farm idea at the other end of the island the solar energy research institute of singapore or ceres is going at it from a different angle their project is all to do with clouds for clouds have a huge impact on solar farms solar radiation in singapore rises and falls as cloud cover changes this means that the power generated by the farms is not consistent and weather conditions can sometimes cause black or outs the scientists at cerris are developing a way of mapping the changing cloud cover to predict just how much power solar farms in singapore can potentially generate it's called solar forecasting and this will become increasingly essential as the pub boosts its investments in solar energy so this shows you at any given point in time how much is the sun intensity that comes down onto singapore and this is a an interpolation of 25 different stations which we have deployed all across singapore which you can see here on the map so all these yellow dots are installations in of irradiance measurements equipment which is interconnected through our proprietary real-time monitoring system and then collected here in this room in order to generate the live irradiance smith this live irradiance map will prove most useful to the team at tenge reservoir so so these are additional information which we need in order to do solar forecasting so we have uh satellite images in order to track the clouds how they move but we also have uh so-called sky cameras so we try to predict the movement of clouds because every cloud will uh inherently impact the uh the power output of a solar installation and we try to look at the clouds from below with so called sky cameras and we look to on clouds from a top which is then satellite pictures and try to match these and then try to predict how the clouds are moving because then eventually this will tell us which solar systems will see shade in the next 10 15 20 minutes or the next hour or longer and then we can project what will be the output of solar power systems installed in singapore the solar panels at tenge use silicon to convert light energy into electricity a silicon panel converts between 17 and 19 of light into power what if this conversion rate could be boosted and if so can this efficiency boost reduce the pressure on the amount of land space needed to build solar projects so the crystalline silicon solar cells they've been around for many decades they're well understood and that's why the industry has adopted it to a degree that virtually all the solar panels today are made of crystalline silicon so now the major aim is to increase the efficiencies today's crystalline silicon solar cells can go up to 25 percent in industrial production and we are trying to push these limits to go to 26-27 ultimate aim is to go beyond 30 percent now there is a new technology that promises to make solar energy more efficient and it lies in a tiny mineral called perovskite it has a crystal structure that absorbs sunlight more efficiently than silicon in singapore researchers have been astonished by its performance in the lab when they tried it out the efficiency was already much higher than what we had done before so although i did not want to believe in it i have no choice because data is king and i gotta believe it it's much easier to me it just works at the school of materials science and engineering at nanyang technological university professor naripan matthews and his team are hard at work investigating the potential of perovskite and here are some demonstrators damond could you help me so this is one of those slot i quoted modules you can use it to power lighting of course you can use it to power what else uh simple internal clocks etc the advantage of perovskite solar cells is that the materials that we use the quantity of materials that we use is much much lesser so you can make lighter flexible solar cells the amount of material that you need to make is not that high perovskite may well be a game changer in solar energy because the material is more efficient solar projects like the one at tenge will not need so much space perovskite can be used in panels thinner than a human hair and these panels can be made using inkjet printers it's simple and cheap in theory so let's walk through the labs so um our lab has many kinds of chemical assembly chemical analysis etc so over here is a room we do a lot of our sprinting so you can come in so this is our large format printer which can go 3cm by 30 cm and we use the same screen printing technology uh so these are the different precursors that we use as you can see all of them are solution viscous space so we print them layer by layer and then we infiltrate the perovskites through them professor nripan is passionate about perovskite now he just has to find a way to perfect the production [Music] [Music] in landscape singapore scientists and engineers are working out ways to maximize the nation's solar output to help mitigate climate change the key is to make ever more efficient use of space and technology the mineral perovskite promises to maximize the efficiency of solar energy technology and replace aging silicon panels startup prominence pv is the first company in singapore trying to manufacture perovskite glass panels how will you carry and then move things at the same time once uh once you feed it in right then we just one person push one side the minute is to get it onto the frame yeah i know but i get uh i get this two i got a guy in so we are not moving as fast as we would like because of the equipment issues and supply issues but i think we are we have still made a lot of progress considering that we are building something from scratch and and all these things are new it's not something it's not uh uh something that we can get elsewhere so we are and most of the machines are in uncharted territories so that i think in terms of progress we have done a lot uh but we feel like to be faster gan and his team are in the midst of designing the manufacturing process from scratch and as with all experiments there are plenty of teething problems [Music] finally the machine is ready for its first test run yeah it's a little bit too high so the ink is not spreading properly yeah i need to do some fine tuning too higher a little bit too high you're showing what to do huh what's wrong i do you know this should be okay then i just need to pour more paste you know just press the one print then it should be okay okay now one more time yeah okay actually the print is looking pretty good yeah without we will move it out slowly uh a lot of dust you can see the little specks it's like like little solutions yeah later we'll be doing a major major cleanup so once because now we just have to make sure the machines are running first this is a dummy print i'm 80 percent to 90 satisfied so the rest so uh at least this machine we know that it's working now it's up to us to really clean it up and make sure that during the actual printing we don't get this kind of dust yeah yeah i'm quite happy that uh for first run i think it's a really good result but we still have a lot of work i think ensuring that the screen printing machine works is the crux of the process with their first test printer success they are one step closer but there are still many obstacles to overcome in order to scale up the production this will require months to fix at tenge reservoir the tricky process of anchoring the floating islands has finally been completed they have installed nine out of ten islands it has taken them eight months of assembling and tweaking the connections now the team can start testing the panels on one of the islands like any electrical system everything depends on getting the connections right so what we did what we wanted to do was just to see if the panels are connected and working efficiently are working properly eugene will test the panels row by row with a voltmeter to ensure that they are all properly connected if there is no reading it means that there's a breakage in the wiring and he will have to recheck every single panel to identify the problem the earthing cable requires special attention this needs to be properly grounded if it isn't the entire system could be tripped [Music] like any electrical engineer eugene dreads finding a loose connection between the panels and now he has okay so for this one turn right initially it was also like trial so i think they didn't tighten the ground cable the nut tight enough so maybe by the time it came to here some of the wires became slightly looser and then there's a break in continuity not a good electrical contact it's been a frustrating day but finally the system is properly connected and eugene is satisfied that every link in the chain is secure okay everything is all right okay thank you yuji knows that keeping an eye on all those tricky connections in the future will require a new approach he's going to need an eye in the sky we can use some of the more emerging technologies like drone using drones to help make the maintenance efforts more effective and more efficient [Music] today this new drone technology is being trialled at tenge the drone is equipped with specially designed cameras the engineer in charge is yongsheng and he has to test the new drone before it takes off on its maiden flight so we are going to do a full sight drone electroluminescence inspection of these floating pv plants so in total we are going to capture 120 000 over solar panels of the el images and the idea is we want to see whether there's any problem with the solar panels gaia 160s solar farm companies typically use infrared images taken by inspectors on the ground to check for defective solar cells this new electroluminescence test can survey the entire array of panels to reveal any malfunctioning parts in the system electroluminescence you can think of it solar panel in the daytime you have sunlight so it will convert the sunlight into electricity so similarly the solar cells you can function the other way around by injecting a current to the cell and then it will emit a light but this light is in a very specific wavelength where it is not detectable by our human eye so you need to use a special camera to detect this electroluminescence signal [Music] okay so thanks guys we're good to go yeah yes we can proceed through the water all right all right thanks let's go i am quite excited to conduct a tesla because this is the first time el is being done on an installed location i'm actually quite curious as well to see if there is anything that we can do to improve on our working process even though we designed these plants to run for like decades most of our plants are quite new [Music] the drone test is a success now the semcorp engineers have one last island to complete before the farm can be officially opened [Music] as singapore continues to grow economically so do our energy demands with challenges brought about by climate change singapore has chosen to invest heavily in clean energy the goal for 2030 is to be able to deploy at least 2 gigawatt peak of solar energy this can power up to 350 000 households with this concrete deadline the work at tenge reservoir continues but ambitious new projects like tenge can only be one part of the solution reinventing how singapore generates power in the 21st century requires new thinking across the grid literally today most of singapore's power is generated by burning liquefied natural gas this is converted into electrical power and transmitted to the national grid then the electricity is distributed to consumers it's a one-way process [Music] professor subad masalka executive director of the energy research institute at the nanyang technological university believes that singapore needs to rethink the power grid and how it is used [Music] solar electricity is not being generated if the sun is not shining so for the intermittency part we need energy storage our power grid needs to be modernized we need to digitize the power grid we need to introduce new technologies like power semiconductors uh into the grid so the so the new smart grid of the future would enable peer-to-peer trading so the consumer now is fully empowered to generate electricity and sell electricity back either to the grid or to its neighbors or to its peers certain startups are doing just that they are taking the initiative to revolutionize singapore's grid one of them is electrify hey hi hi nice to meet you excellent okay great we'll check out the meter as well ceo martin lim feels that the national grid should be open to anyone who can provide power especially ordinary singaporeans who are generating solar energy on their own okay so here are solar panels nice okay so here's a better view of the solar panels yeah you can see the 10 by 10 uh solar panels um so this is a 6.3 kilowatt peak system so on average about three and a half cent hours we get about 21 kilowatt hours of energy per day an air conditioning unit uses around 3.5 kilowatts per hour robin's 21 kilowatts are sufficient to power his air conditioner for up to six hours a day he spent around 14 000 us dollars on the installation of the solar panels and is now trying to recoup his initial investment he is selling the total generated 90 kilowatts per month to interested consumers through electrify's platform so the peer-to-peer energy trading platform we called it uh solar share allows end users to build trade the surplus solar energy that they have across a citywide grid to anyone else who wants to consume it so any surplus power from this rooftop generation will be sold back through the grid to anyone else on the grid wants to buy that power solarshare is the first peer-to-peer energy trading platform in southeast asia launched in collaboration with companies sunoco energy and ng factory connected yes so this sensor will read the current running through the trunking so what we've got to do is we have to scan it until the light turns green tells us the strong signal strength and we find an appropriate position and we stick it on we just see it's scanning it's green already immediate so this sensor will pull the data from this conduit over here it will send the current data over to the base station that we installed just now right so that unit will transmit this energy data back to us so this has current that one will read voltage and then on the back end we'll match the two together to determine the energy flow and that's how we do it it looks pretty easy and straightforward devices like this help to track the amount of surplus energy generated and sold on the grid the amount that robin earns per month is enough to offset his air conditioning bills if you generated surplus power for example you sell the power back to the wholesale market in this case being able to generate that power is important so if you had the ability to generate it could store that power and use it that's fantastic it accelerates the green agenda right and we're able to export that surplus to other people who need it that's even better climate change is a clear and present danger especially for low-lying island states so singapore has put in place the 2030 green plan a national sustainability movement which aims to rally collective action in all sectors to tackle climate change one of the pillars is the investment in renewable energies and its related tech innovations but new technologies need space and singapore is just a small island more groundbreaking solutions will be required in the coming decades to tackle climate change like the tenge reservoir solar project the new solar farm was completed on time in july 2021 now the thousands of floating solar panels are sending power to singapore's water treatment plants in our tomorrow city [Music] you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 121,901

Keywords: CNA, CNA Insider, Channel NewsAsia, Asian perspectives, Tomorrow City, Singapore, documentary, engineering, infrastructure, building, construction, land scarcity, technology, city, engineer, urban development, outsourced, full documentary, narrated, solar, solar power, solar farm, floating solar farm, solar energy, green energy, clean energy, renewable energy, water treatment, sustainability, carbon footprint, solar island, global warming, Cooling Singapore, solar forecasting

Id: UJX14EqSukA

Length: 47min 20sec (2840 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021