Sembcorp, a Singapore-based energy and urban development group, is building a 200MWH battery storage system on Jurong Island, home to much of Singapore's industrial activity.
Jurong Island was formed through land reclamation work that began in the late 1960s and eventually became one of the world's top ten chemical production centres and five refinery export centres.
As part of the government's green economy policy, work is under way to transform it into a sustainable energy and chemicals park by 2030, and the amount of renewable energy generated and used on the island is increasing.
The Energy Market Authority of Singapore (EMA) issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) in May to build a 200MW/200MWh battery storage system. Sembcorp expects to complete the battery Storage System (BESS) deployment by the end of this year, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Sembcorp is one of EMA's partners in accelerating the deployment of an energy storage project in Singapore, which started in late 2018 and has received support from the authorities to build the country's first distributed virtual power plant (VPP). The EMA has identified the ability of energy storage to contribute to the integration of renewable energy sources and improve the overall reliability of energy supplies and the grid.
Singapore's first large battery storage system, the 2.4MWH system from Wartsila, came online in 2020.
While only a handful of distributed storage systems and small pilot projects have been installed since then, EMA's preparations have included commissioning energy storage technology roadmaps, a manual on regulatory requirements for installing energy storage and a consumer guide.
At the EOI in May, THE EMA is soliciting energy storage System (ESS) capacity that can provide different functions in both phases of its life expectancy.
During the first two years of the project, ESS will provide "200MW/200MWh rotary reserve to release the combined cycle gas turbine for power generation". For the rest of its life, it will be "primarily used to provide frequency regulation to mitigate solar intermittency and ensure grid reliability during solar time".
The bidder will build, own and operate the storage capacity and EMA has set a deadline of November this year for the project to come online. The proposal is limited to systems that use lithium-ion or vanadium REDOX streams for battery storage.
The EMA has set a target of deploying 200MW of energy storage by 2025. Although this single award will go beyond that, the authority noted that it expects to need more funding to achieve the national target of 2GWp solar pv by 2030.