From Semakau to South-east Asia: Singapore’s R&D efforts on grid resilience

First published online at The Straits Times

On the island of Semakau to the south of Singapore, solar panels and a wind turbine generate electricity through a system of interconnected microgrids – one of the largest in South-east Asia – that offers a real-life test bed for how a renewable energy grid may be best devised. Here, they are the lifeblood of the Renewable Energy Integration Demonstrator-Singapore (Reids) – a project initiated NTU that will test how different renewable sources work with energy storage systems like batteries, to help Singapore design smarter, more resilient grids for the future.

“Essentially, this is a demonstration of how an offshore renewable grid will look like in many other countries in the region, where renewables are being integrated with conventional power grids to supplement their power supply, or in remote communities, where the grid has to be a standalone,” said Prof Madhavi Srinivasan, executive director of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU.