The Housing & Development Board (HDB) of Singapore has tendered 50 MW of grid-connected solar projects to be developed under the SolarNova program. Once developed, the entire power produced from the projects will be used to support the energy demands of 848 HDB blocks and 27 government sites in Singapore.

The SolarNova program is designed to aggregate demand for solar energy across public sector agencies to enable those with lower solar photovoltaic demand to enjoy solar energy at a lower cost due to economies of scale.

This is the third tender to be launched under the SolarNova program and it represents a 25 percent increase in capacity over the previous two SolarNova tenders, which called installing 40 MW of solar PV systems each. Compared to the previous tenders, more HDB blocks have also been identified for this tender, according to a HDB release.

In addition to the agencies that have already participated in previous tenders – such as HDB, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and the National Environment Agency – this tender is also poised to elicit first-time participation from the Building & Construction Authority, the Institute of Technical Education, the National Heritage Board, and Sport Singapore (SportSG), bringing together a total of eight government agencies on board for the program.

The tender will close on January 31, 2018, and the capacities are expected to be awarded by the second quarter of 2018.

“HDB plays a key role in supporting Singapore’s collective efforts to promote sustainable development. Today, HDB is the largest stakeholder in solar PV installations, having committed to fulfil over 60 percent of the 350 MW of solar capacity that Singapore has planned to achieve by 2020. To allow government agencies to leverage HDB’s economies of scale, we have aggregated the demand across agencies under the SolarNova program, jointly with the Singapore Economic Development Board.  This has helped to spur solar adoption across the whole-of-government.  With this third SolarNova tender, we are on track to achieve our goal of rolling out 220 MW of solar panels across 5,500 HDB blocks by 2020,” said HDB Chief Executive Officer Dr. Cheong Koon Hean.

The HDB has provided a list of blocks and sites where the proposed solar projects will be developed.

The adoption of solar PV systems in Singapore has accelerated over the last three years with cumulative solar installations reaching 129.8 MW in the first quarter of 2017, according to the Energy Market Authority of Singapore.

Image credit: Housing & Development Board (HDB), Singapore