Living Labs

In recent years, NTU has embarked on large-scale solar energy expansion efforts across campus. However, in a tropical climate like Singapore’s, solar panels are susceptible to performance degradation due to prolonged exposure to intense heat and sunlight.

To tackle this challenge, Professor Nripan Mathews (Principal Investigator) and Dr Stanley Wang (Project Manager) from Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), are leading the field testing of a solar panel regeneration device on campus.

Through integrated regenerative robotics and machine learning, the ERI@N research team has developed a robotic device that improves the solar panel efficiency of old installations while minimising future performance degradation. The robot automatically rolls over panels restoring up to 5% of lost performance under five minutes and minimising/preventing further degradation. An NTU spin-off company, EtaVolt, is exclusively licensed to commercialise and scale up this technology. 

Approximately 18,000 solar panels at NTU will be “rejuvenated”, maximising their current performance. This test bed is set to optimise NTU’s solar energy production and advance the university’s commitment towards maximising solar deployment on campus.  

Cool paint coatings have emerged as a promising solution to mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect, a phenomenon where urban areas experience warmer temperatures than their outlying surroundings. 

At ERI@N, a research group led by Associate Professor Ng Bing Feng and Associate Professor Wan Man Pun has formulated a cool paint that outperforms existing commercial variants in reflecting sunlight and releasing heat through the atmospheric window, effectively lowering surface temperatures and surrounding ambient temperatures. Studies show that it can make pedestrians feel up to 1.5°C cooler and reduce nighttime temperatures by 2.5°C.

The researchers aim to replicate similar results in NTU campus, applying their cool paint to the rooftops, side walls and pavements of NTU blocks S2.1 and 2.2. This test bed aims to create a more comfortable thermal environment for staff and students while reducing energy consumption needed for cooling the buildings.

Cool paint will additionally be applied to the rooftops of blocks N1 and N2, alongside existing solar panels. This is a pioneering effort that will evaluate the complementary effects of cool paint and solar panels – specifically, whether combining cool paint and solar panels can significantly improve the overall output from solar panels. 

Climate change is intensifying the effects of drought on plants and soils, requiring more frequent irrigation to sustain plant health. Further compounding this issue, excessive soil drying leads to poorer soil penetration of water, making irrigation efforts less effective.

To address these challenges, a research team led by Professor Lam Yeng Ming, President’s Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, has developed RetenSol-G, an eco-friendly microgel that boosts irrigation efficiency, soil moisture retention, and plant drought resilience.

RetenSol-G is easy to use — just add it to irrigation water before watering plants. Upon watering, the microgels swell to several hundred times their original size, and act as tiny reservoirs within the soil. During dry conditions, they gradually release stored water for plant roots to absorb, then reswell with each subsequent rainfall or watering, allowing the cycle to repeat. Made from plant-based materials, RetenSol-G naturally degrades over time into organic matter.

At NTU, RetenSol-G will be field tested in select plots of land, including at The Hive and Yunnan Garden. This test bed aims to reduce irrigation frequency by as much as 25% to 50%, thereby reducing water usage on campus while promoting healthier, more resilient landscapes. 

Buildings account for nearly 40% of global energy use. In Singapore’s hot and humid climate, where over half of a building’s energy consumption goes to air-conditioning, mechanical ventilation, and lighting systems, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms can not only be used to provide further insights into building energy consumption and control, but they also enable building digitalisation transformation to facilitate building integration with smart grid solutions.

A research team from ERI@N, led by Associate Professor Wan Man Pun, will be field testing an AI-based Model Predictive Control (MPC) system at The Arc, one of NTU’s flagship buildings. MPC will be deployed across all six storeys of the Arc building, aiming to achieve at least 20% cooling energy savings while improving thermal comfort for occupants.

By leveraging on AI and a digital twin of the building, MPC captures the building dynamics under the influence of factors such as weather changes and occupancy patterns and predicts the building’s cooling demands in advance. It then optimally calibrates air conditioning, lighting, and shading systems to enhance energy efficiency and occupant comfort. This innovative solution redefines energy management in buildings, paving the way towards higher building energy flexibility for smarter, greener operations. 

To support the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) development of test requirements and standards to deploy AVs in Singapore, the Energy Research Institute at NTU (ERI@N) is leading the Centre of Excellence for Testing & Research of AVs – NTU (CETRAN). The 1.8ha facility is located at CleanTech Park.

While CETRAN does not directly develop new technologies for AVs, it will generate fundamental research on how these systems should operate, develop testing requirements, and establish an international standard for AVs.

Find out more about CETRAN here.

The Renewable Energy Integration Demonstrator - Singapore (REIDS) is a Singapore-based R3D (Research, Development, Demonstration and Deployment) platform dedicated to designing, demonstrating and testing solutions for sustainable and affordable energy access-for-all in Southeast Asia as well as the future of urban electricity distribution. REIDS fosters systemic research and development in the broad energy arena in support of Singapore corporate and public stakeholders, thereby strengthening their position on the rapidly growing renewable energy and microgrids markets.

Along with the research and development, the testbed also provides the partners unique opportunity for demonstration of their technologies as the facility is continuously visited by companies as well as decision-makers from all across the globe. 

Find out more about REIDS here.