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The Magazine Of
The Institution Of Engineers, Singapore
January 2016 MCI (P) 002/03/2016
Celebrating 50 Years of
Engineering Excellence
THE
www.ies.org.sg
SINGAPORE ENGINEER
COVER STORY:
SUSTAINABILITY
Singapore Aviation Academy
FEATURES:
•Power Generation • Environmental Engineering • Chemical & Petrochemical Engineering
CONTENTS
Celebrating 50 Years of
Engineering Excellence
FEATURES
08 SUSTAINABILITY: COVER STORY:
The building received a Green Mark Platinum Award at BCA AWARDS 2015.
10 SUSTAINABILITY:
Energy efficiency is by far the best way to tackle climate change
It has been described as the low-hanging fruit.
Alternatives for large scale energy storage
This has become an important subject, with the increasing supply of renewable power.
19 POWER GENERATION:
Gas based modular power stations in a diverse and growing power
generation market place
They are characterised by quick response and high availability.
28 PROJECT APPLICATION:
LUMA induction luminaires light up Bhutan’s Thimphu-Babesa
Expressway
The result is a more pleasing and safe motorway and surrounding landscape.
29 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING:
Rotterdam unveils ‘Smog Free Tower’
The technology could help reduce pollution in cities.
CEO
Angie Ng
[email protected]
Publications Executive
Queek Jiayu
[email protected]
Media Consultants
Roland Ang
[email protected]
Desmond Chander
[email protected]
Published by
The Institution of Engineers, Singapore
70 Bukit Tinggi Road
Singapore 289758
Tel: 6469 5000 Fax: 6467 1108
Cover designed by Stephanie Kwan
32 CHEMICAL & PETROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING:
Chief Editor
T Bhaskaran
[email protected]
Publications Manager
Desmond Teo
[email protected]
12 POWER GENERATION:
Founded in 1966
Cover image by
the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
Best practice tames the energy beast
Energy efficiency can help companies improve their profits and production flexibility, and
reduce carbon emissions.
35 CHEMICAL & PETROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING:
IChemE Awards recognise achievements in chemical engineering
The entries were characterised by their excellence and innovation.
36 PROFILE:
Remote-entrepreneurship
What started as a business school project has become a leading enterprise in its sector.
REGULAR SECTIONS
02 MESSAGE
04 IES UPDATE
37 EVENTS
39 NEWS
The Singapore Engineer is published
monthly by The Institution of Engineers,
Singapore (IES). The publication is
distributed free-of-charge to IES members
and affiliates. Views expressed in this
publication do not necessarily reflect those
of the Editor or IES. All rights reserved. No
part of this magazine shall be reproduced,
mechanically or electronically, without the
prior consent of IES. Whilst every care is
taken to ensure accuracy of the content
at press time, IES will not be liable for any
discrepancies. Unsolicited contributions
are welcome but their inclusion in the
magazine is at the discretion of the Editor.
Design & layout by 2EZ Asia Pte Ltd
Printed in Singapore
January 2016 THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER
01
MESSAGE
Message from the
Chairman, Mechanical
& Electrical Engineering
Technical Committee
On 12 December 2015, after more than 10
days of deliberations at the Paris Climate
Change Conference, 195 countries agreed
to take appropriate actions and make the
necessary investments, in order to achieve a
low carbon, resilient and sustainable future for the world.
The Paris Agreement has succeeded in persuading so many nations to
strive towards a common cause which is to limit the rise in global temperature this century to well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
In fact, the efforts are expected to limit the temperature rise even further,
to not more than 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels - a target that is said
to offer greater safety against the worst effects of climate change.
In Singapore, as a response to the challenge of climate change, the
green building movement was initiated in 2005. In 2015, it passed the
10-year milestone.
Led by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), this effor t has
produced impressive results and even greater ambition, going forward.
Today, 30% of buildings in Singapore, in terms of gross floor area, are certified
green buildings.
Whilst the environmental necessity has always been recognised, it is only
of late that the economic advantages of green buildings have become more
apparent.
BCA believes that we can do more to meet the target of greening at least
80% of all buildings in Singapore, by 2030.
This will, however, require the efforts from not only building developers
and owners, but also the efforts from their tenants and associated building
users.
As par t of their contribution to achieve this objective, scientists and
engineers alike will be engaged in the development and applications of new
products and technologies, especially those that would encourage increased
energy efficiency.
Er. Joseph Toh
Chairman
Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Technical Committee
IES Council Members
2015 / 2016
President
Er. Chong Kee Sen
Deputy President
Er. Edwin Khew
Honorary Secretary
Dr Boh Jaw Woei
Honorary Treasurer
Er. Koh Beng Thong
Vice Presidents
Er. Chan Ewe Jin
Er. Ng Say Cheong
Dr Richard Kwok
Er. Seow Kang Seng
Prof Yeoh Lean Weng
Immediate Past President
Prof Chou Siaw Kiang
Past Presidents
Er. Ho Siong Hin
Er. Dr Lee Bee Wah
Assistant Honorary Secretary
Mr Joseph William Eades
Assistant Honorary Treasurer
Er. Joseph Goh
Council Members
Mr Dalson Chung
Prof Er Meng Joo
Dr Goh Yang Miang
Ms Jasmine Foo
A/Prof Lee Poh Seng
Dr Lim Kok Hwa
Mr David So
Mr Mervyn Sirisena
Er. Emily Tan
Mr Tan Sim Chuan
Er. Teo Chor Kok
Er. Joseph Toh
Er. Alfred Wong
Dr Zhou Yi
Honorary Council Members
Er. Ong Ser Huan
Er. Tan Seng Chuan
02
THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER January 2016
IES UPDATE
IES UPDATE
Record number of Singapore
engineering projects feted at
regional conference
For the Gala Dinner’s performance segment, the Singaporean
delegates contributed an a capella rendition of Mandopop singer
Wakin Chau’s “Friends” (Peng You)
All five were conferred the ASEAN Outstanding
Engineering Achievement Award, a testament to
the quality of local engineering
Weather Air-conditioning Without Compressors by NUS & King
Abdullah University of Science &
Technology, Saudi Arabia
•Samwoh Eco-Green Building – First
Building in the Region Constructed
Using Up to 100% of Recycled
Concrete Aggregate by Samwoh
Corporation Pte Ltd
The event also saw five eminent
Singaporeans being made AFEO
Honorary Fellows, in recognition of
their outstanding services, greatness
of spirit, integrity and devotion to
the engineering profession, IES and
Singapore. They are:
•Prof Cheong Hee Kiat, President,
SIM University
•Mr. Brian Chang, Chairman, Blue
Capital Pte Ltd
•Er. Ong See Ho, Deputy CEO
(Building Control), BCA
•Er. Ng Say Cheong, Director (Upgrading Construction Management),
Building Quality Group, HDB
•Er. Tang Kin Fei, Group President &
CEO, Sembcorp Industries Ltd
The conference was held in
Presidents of the various ASEAN engineering bodies pose for a group photo with Penang Governor Dr Abdul
Rahman Abbas (centre, in songkok) and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng (centre, in suit).
Seminar on Deep Sewer Tunnels
in Hong Kong
by Er. David Ng
Representatives of the five project winners receiving the commemorative certificate and trophy from Dato’ Ir. Lim Chow Hock, AFEO Chairman and President of the
Institution of Engineers, Malaysia. Clockwise from top left: A*STAR, HDB, JTC Corporation, NUS and Samwoh Corporation.
In a remarkable first for Singapore,
a total of five engineering projects
across multiple domains clinched
the prestigious ASEAN Outstanding
Engineering Achievement Awards
2015, presented at the 33rd Conference of the ASEAN Federation
of Engineering Organisations (CAFEO) in November last year.
Conferred by AFEO, the annual
awards pay tribute to engineering
achievements that have demonstrated
outstanding skills and made significant
contributions to engineering progress
and quality of life in ASEAN.
04
All the winning projects had been
nominated by IES from recipients
of the IES Prestigious Engineering
Achievement Awards 2015.
“IES is proud of our local engineering
teams for bringing honour not only
to themselves, but to the Singapore
engineering fraternity. The winning of
five awards adds jubilation to Singapore’s 50th birthday and recognises
the outstanding engineering work
being conducted here,” said Er. Chong
Kee Sen, President of IES, who led a
33-member contingent representing
Singapore.
The five winning projects were:
•Speak to Me in My Language by
Institute for Infocomm Research,
A*STAR
•Towards Better Living and Greater
Sustainability through “Smart Planning”- Urban Environmental Modelling (UEM) by Building Research
Institute, HDB
•Jurong Rock Caverns by JTC
Corporation
•Innovative Hybrid Membrane Dehumidifier (MD)-Indirect Evaporative
Cooling (IEC) System For All-
Speaker Prof John Endicott delivering his lecture
during the seminar.
On 30 Nov 2015, the IES Civil and
Structural Technical Committee
(Geotechnical Division) organised an
evening seminar titled “Mining Deep
Sewer Tunnels in Hong Kong – What
went wrong in Stage 1 and how it
was addressed in Stage 2A”. Held at
the IES Auditorium, it was attended
by close to 100 participants.
The key speaker for evening was
Penang from 23 to 26 November
2015. Since 1982, the annual CAFEO has been hosted with rotation
by 10 ASEAN member countries
including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Philippines, Thailand,
Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and
Myanmar. TSE
Professor John Endicott, a recognised
global expert on geotechnics and
tunnelling. He is an Adjunct Professor
at the University of Hong Kong and
the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology. Also an AECOM Fellow, he has visited Singapore regularly
since 1975 to offer his advice on local
underground projects.
Armed with photos, charts and
diagrams, Prof Endicott elaborated
to the audience on the construction
of deep sewer tunnels in Hong Kong,
100 metres below sea level. Work for
the first stage encountered delays
due to factors like excessive inflow of
water, soil subsidence and a lengthy
arbitration case. The project was
delayed by six years.
Drawing on the lessons learnt,
changes were made to the Stage 2A
contract. Other measures were also
put in place, such as widening the scope
of ground investigation and improving
the construction methods used.
Prof Endicott also highlighted some
important data points related to the
hydro-geological aspects of the project.
For example, ground monitoring conducted during the tunnel excavations
indicated that there was an extreme
spatial variation in drawdown effects
along the length of the tunnel. This
was attributed to localised differences
in the surrounding geological structure.
The talk ended with an interactive
discussion on various issues of design
and construction of deep excavation
and bored tunnelling. A plaque was
then presented to Prof John Endicott
as a token of appreciation for taking
the time to share his valuable experience
with IES members. TSE
Full attention given during the session by
the speakers.
Prof Endicott (fourth from right) in a group photo
with members of the organising team.
05
IES UPDATE
IES UPDATE
1966
The PWD Sports Club (renamed PWD-BCA
Club in 1999), then located at Kallang, was
where IES held its inaugural meeting.
February – The Overseas Joint
Group approaches the Pro
Tem Committee for a discussion on the future of the two
organisations. It was agreed
that there should be only one
national independent engineering body.
Back to the Future:
The IES Story
It is through the efforts of dedicated individuals like Er. Dr Hiew, Er. Gin,
and many others that local engineers finally have a voice.Without
their expertise, the Singapore Story would have been very different.
The first of a six-part series, The Singapore
Engineer looks at various aspects of IES’ storied
history in the lead-up to our Golden Jubilee
celebrations
Engraved onto this plaque are the names of
the IES Founder Members, each an illustrious
engineer and ardent supporter of IES in their
own right.
Part I: In The Beginning
1953
The Overseas Joint Group
was formed in place of the
defunct Engineering Association of Malaya. Its members
benefited from the colonial’s
government recognition of UK
engineering qualifications.
“
1957
Concerned with the lack of
representation for local engineering graduates, some
30 Singaporean engineers
formed the Malayan Society
of Engineers (MSE).
1959
MSE joins the Johor
Branch of the Institution
of Engineers, Malaya. After
self-government, local engineers were appointed to
take over many public departments. Amongst them
were Er. Kenneth Gin and
Er. Dr Hiew Siew Nam.
1965
MSE merges with the IEM in
January. The Pro Tem Committee for IEM Singapore Branch
[IEM (S)] was formed in April.
However, registration for the
Singapore Branch was delayed
until August. With Singapore’s
independence, IEM (S) was
split from IEM.
May – The Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) was
legally registered. A letter was
sent to IEM members living in
Singapore and members of the
Overseas Joint Group inviting
them to the inaugural meeting
of IES.
1 July 1966
IES was born.
116 engineers gathered at
the PWD Spor ts Club, then
located at Kallang, for the first
general meeting. The Constitution was drawn up and the
first Council members took
office, with Er. Gin as Founding President and Er. Dr Hiew
as Honorary Secretary.
(The Institution of Engineers, Singapore will be) a new
independent national engineering body that will represent all
engineers in the Republic of Singapore.
– extracted from the IES Pro Tem Committee’s letter to
IEM members living in Singapore, as well as the
Overseas Joint Group, May 1966
06
January – IEM Council is unable to approve office-holding
rights for Singapore members
and IEM (S) representation on
the Council, though it is not
opposed to the conversion of
the Singapore Branch into a
separate independent Institution.
IES Green
Building @
Bukit Tinggi
to open in
February
IES has faithfully operated from
its current premises for the past
29 years. Come 16 February
2016, the Institution will usher in
a new era when the IES Green
Building @ Bukit Tinggi officially
opens.
Bearing witness to this transition will be Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for
National Security, Mr Teo Chee
Hean. He was also the guestof-honour back during the new
building’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Formerly occupied by a carpark, the new building has incorporated
state-of-the-ar t
features that make it an environmentally-friendly, comfor table place to meet and work
in, all to benefit the engineering
profession. These features enabled the IES Green Building @
Bukit Tinggi to receive BCA’s
Green Mark Platinum Award.
The Secretariat is in the process of moving operations over
to the new building and looks
forward to serve all members
with renewed vigour in the
months and years ahead.
Founding President Er. Kenneth Gin, in an
undated photo outside the PWD Sports
Club.
07
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
The facility received a Green Mark Platinum Award under the Existing Non-Residential Building
category, at BCA AWARDS 2015.
Established in 1958, the Singapore
Aviation Academy (SAA) is the internationally-recognised training arm of
the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. It offers a wide range of operational and management programmes
that benchmark international standards and best practices to meet the
training needs of the global aviation
community. SAA is an ICAO Regional
Training Centre of Excellence, ICAO
Aviation Security Training Centre,
ICAO-endorsed Government Safety
Inspector Training Centre and ICAO
TRAINAIR PLUS Full Member.
Through its four specialised schools
- School of Aviation Management,
School of Aviation Safety & Security, School of Air Traffic Services and
School of Airport Emergency Services - SAA has trained over 91,000
participants from 200 countries and
territories, since 1958.
By consistently staying ahead of
developments taking place in international civil aviation, SAA is able to
develop new programmes not readily
available elsewhere. SAA also offers
degree and graduate diploma programmes through alliances with reputable national and overseas academic
institutions.
The academy provides a forum
for information-sharing and networking amongst managers and specialists in the international civil aviation
community, by organising workshops,
conferences and seminars, regularly.
It also hosts numerous international
meetings and conferences organised
by international organisations such as
ICAO, APEC and ACI.
PURPOSE-BUILT TRAINING
COMPLEX
The Singapore Aviation Academy’s
US$50 million purpose-built training complex is designed to provide
an ambience of comfort and tranquility conducive for training. It is
equipped with a comprehensive
range of facilities to create a unique
total training environment. These
include state-of-the-ar t audio-visual
aids, customised training and conference facilities and realistic training simulators to meet immediate
and long-term national and international training requirements.
ATS simulators
Among the many advanced training
facilities at the academy is a ‘virtual’
Aerodrome Control Simulator with
a 360° wrap-around screen with
photo-realistic images and fully interactive systems. It is designed to train
tower controllers to handle a variety
of air traffic situations.
Complementing this is a 3rd generation training system that simulates
Changi Airport’s air traffic control system, LORADS III (Long Range Radar
and Display System), which presents
a paperless and highly automated
environment; as well as incorporates
technologies and innovative features
that exploit advances in aircraft navigational accuracy and functionality,
while enabling a significant increase in
traffic handling capacity.
Fire simulators
A comprehensive range of fire simulators has been designed to fully train
and test fire-fighting and safety skills
of participants. The simulators are
maintained at a dedicated fire training ground where participants undergo true-to-life simulated exercises
involving undercarriage fires, internal
aircraft fires, fires at fuel installations,
a vertical fire wall and flashover fires.
Among the wide range of simulators under the School of Airpor t
Emergency Services is the Foam
Tender Driving Simulator.The motion
Daylighting has been maximised in the corridors and in the main lobby of the SAA, thereby reducing energy consumption by artificial lighting.
08
platform simulator allows trainees to
undergo hazardous driving situations
in the safety of a virtual environment.
A controlled-environment Breathing Apparatus (BA) Simulator is also
used to provide rescue training in a
realistic fire environment.
The newest addition to the range
of simulators under the School of
Airport Emergency Services is the
Endless Ladder Simulator. With this,
it enhances the Confined Space BA
Simulator with more training scenarios such as climbing up ladders
based on industrial settings and rescue operations.
The Endless Ladder Simulator
comes with safety features that help
to provide a realistic and safe environment for fire-fighters to train and
improve their core muscles. It will also
help to better understand the fitness
competency of fire-fighters as the simulators will record the results of the
training. Through this, trainees will be
holistically prepared for all strenuous
scenarios while utilising the BA set.
Other facilities
Par ticipants have access to a comprehensive Resource Centre which
houses documents on specialised
aviation topics. Par ticipants can also
make use of the Multimedia Centre
which is equipped with internet stations and audio-visual viewing terminals for online research.
Excellent recreational facilities are
also available within SAA, such as a
training cum swimming pool, gymnasium, as well as tennis, squash and
badminton courts.
KEY GREEN FEATURES OF
THE SAA COMPLEX
The building is expected to achieve an
estimated energy savings of 148,048
kWh/yr and an estimated water savings of 4,536 m3/yr.
The chiller plant system has been designed to achieve an efficiency of 0.65
kW/RT under a Guaranteed Energy
Savings Programme (GESP) contract.
The building uses energy-efficient
T5 and LED lightings for common
lobbies, corridors and classrooms.
All lifts are equipped with variable
voltage variable frequency motor
drives and the sleep mode function.
Daylighting is maximised in the
main lobby, common corridors and
linkways.
Considerable greenery has been
introduced, with a green plot ratio of
0.7, with trees, palms and shrubs on
Level 1 around the compound and
courtyard.
Water-saving fittings have been installed throughout the building which
has been certified by PUB as a Water
Efficient Building.
All classrooms will be integrated
with the Intelligent Classroom System
for monitoring and control of the
indoor lighting and air-conditioning
system.
PROJECT CREDITS
Building Owner
Civil Aviation Authority of
Singapore
ESD / Green Consultant
Kaer Pte Ltd
ESCO
Kaer Pte Ltd
All images by the Civil Aviation
Authority of Singapore
Lush greenery enhances the tranquility of SAA’s training environment.
09
SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
Energy efficiency is by far the best way to
tackle climate change
by Dr Ulrich Spiesshofer, President and Chief Executive Officer, ABB Ltd
Dr Ulrich Spiesshofer
One might think - after years of focus
on global warming - that all the easy
measures for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions had been taken. And
yet, some surprisingly low-hanging
fruit remains.
I do not mean small fruit, either.
I am talking about big, high-yield
fruit. Consider this: fitting energy efficient electric motors on all pumps
and fans with devices to regulate
their speed would save 3,338 TWh
(3.3 million GWh), roughly equivalent
to the amount of electrical energy
produced in the EU in 2013. The
calculation is derived from the performance of ABB’s installed base of
variable speed drives, which covers
around 20% of the global market and
is estimated to be saving some 445
TWh of electricity annually.
The opportunity is so huge because
electric motors are among the biggest consumers of energy. They
power all manner of equipment
and account for about 40% of all
electricity consumed worldwide.
In the European Union (EU), they
are responsible for about 12% of
total CO2 emissions, second only
to space-heating products (Source:
European Commission).
In recent years, the EU, along with
several other countries such as the
United States and China, has imposed
new rules requiring older, energyhungry motors to be phased out.
These rules, known as Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS),
specify the minimum acceptable
efficiency levels of a product, defining
which products can be marketed and
sold. Typically, these MEPS become
more stringent over time. In the EU,
for instance, rules requiring a higher
To mitigate climate change, we need to produce electricity with lower CO2 emissions, and to optimise the
efficiency of the energy value chain.
10
efficiency class of motors came into
effect in January 2015.
MEPS in Europe and their
equivalents in other countries will
ultimately lead to the upgrading of
the installed base of electric motors.
However, at the current pace of implementation, and taking account of
loopholes and enforcement issues,
they will likely fall short of the energy
savings needed to achieve climate
goals, especially given that global energy
consumption is expected to increase
by 30% over the next 15 years.
One reason is that MEPS specify
the efficiency of individual products,
in this case electric motors, rather
than the efficiency of motor systems.
No matter how efficient a motor
is, if it cannot regulate its speed
according to load, it will always be
operating at full throttle. Legislation is
gradually changing to take account of
this. For instance, EU rules that came
into force in January 2015 specify
that certain (less-efficient) motors
must be able to adjust their speed.
But only around 10% of motors in service worldwide are currently equipped
with (variable speed) drives that allow
them to do this, even though the
energy savings can be substantial - up
to 50% in some cases. This calculation
is also derived from the performance
of ABB’s installed base of variable
speed drives.
Another challenge is to establish
common MEPS globally. Again, progress is being made in this area, with
more and more countries moving
towards harmonised standards, but
much remains to be done. A recent study commissioned by the
European Commission, on ‘Savings
and benefits of global regulations for
energy efficient products’, concluded
that, if the most stringent current
MEPS for product energy efficiency
were harmonised today, global final
energy consumption would be 9%
lower, and energy consumption due
specifically to products would be 21%
lower. This would save 8,950 TWh
of electricity, equivalent to closing
165 coal-fired power plants, or taking
132 million cars off the road.
The clock is ticking on climate change.
The weight of scientific opinion is that
we do not have much more time to
turn the tide on emissions, otherwise
it will not be possible to limit global
warming to 2° C above pre-industrial levels, which is considered the
maximum temperature rise we can
sustain without triggering potentially
catastrophic climate events.
Of all the actions that can be
and are being taken to limit carbon
emissions and mitigate the effects
of climate change, none holds out
more promise than improving energy efficiency. There are numerous
measures that can be undertaken
immediately, without fear of harming
economic growth. Indeed, since most
investments in energy-efficient tech-
nology are paid back within a year or
two through lower energy costs, they
can significantly boost competitiveness and, through the replacement
of old equipment, generate additional
economic activity. Fruit does not hang
much lower than this.
ABB’s 3.5 MW high-efficiency motors and water-cooled medium-voltage drives power and control the huge
pumps at Singapore’s Changi Water Reclamation Plant at high levels of energy efficiency.
ABB inverters to augment solar deployment in
Singapore
ABB will supply more than 800 solar inver ters at
about 400 public housing units island-wide, to power the common facilities with solar energy, contributing to Singapore’s plans to raise the adoption of solar power to 350 Megawatt-peak (MWp) by 2020,
which is about 5% of the projected 2020 peak electricity demand.
The inverters are being supplied through solar
leasing company Sunseap which won the Housing
& Development Board’s (HDB) 38 Megawatt-peak
(MWp) solar leasing tender in late 2014.
Using technologies for optimal energy production, the TRIO solar inver ters will conver t clean
solar direct current (DC) electricity into high-quality
alternating current (AC) with 98.3% efficiency for grid
integration.The average monthly power converted by
the inverters will be 2.4 Gigawatt-hours (GWh).
As the ‘brains’ behind solar photovoltaics and the
grid interface, advanced inverter technology is critical
in enabling the integration of solar power with the
grid and with building automation, energy storage,
electric vehicle charging and smart grids to create a
truly smart city.
ABB offers a comprehensive portfolio of products,
systems, solutions and services along the solar photo-
voltaic (PV) value chain, enabling generation, transmission and distribution of solar power for gridconnected and microgrid applications.
ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility, industry, and transport
and infrastructure customers to improve their
performance while lowering environmental impact.
The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly
100 countries and employs about 140,000 people.
Inverters from ABB will contribute to Singapore’s plans to raise the adoption
of solar power.
11
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
Alternatives for large scale energy storage
INTRODUCTION
Storage of electrical power, for
periods typically between 1 and 24
hours, is of increasing importance to
operators of today’s electricity networks, for a wide variety of reasons
ranging from shor t-term system
balancing and capacity restriction
issues to overall smoothing of the
daily generation requirements. One
way that grid operators can influence
demand is by variable time-of-day
pricing and this, in turn, opens up a
market for customer-focused storage
systems that can take advantage of
price volatility to minimise their electricity costs.
Intermittent renewable power
sources have made the need for
storage capacity urgent. Sources
such as wind, wave and solar power,
in temperate climates, at least, are
12
unpredictable in output. Tidal power
operates on a predictable cycle of
just over 12 hours but still involves
inevitable output variations. Providing ‘spinning reserve’ or longer-term
thermal power generation capacity in
order to match variations in demand
and also in supply, even where controllable hydro-electric capacity is
available, is increasingly expensive
and so oppor tunities for alternative energy storage technology have
arisen. Current energy storage technologies and their characteristics are
summarised in Table 1.
These technologies are described
in the following sections. The options of pumped heat energy storage (PHES) and RedOx flow cell
batteries have been put forward as
very promising technologies but both
suffer from being poorly understood
in terms of what they are and how
they work. For that reason, they are
covered in more detail than the other
options.
STORAGE OPTIONS
Batteries
Traditionally, the familiar self-contained
electro-chemical batteries have been
used, mainly for small-scale electricity
storage. These have high initial capital
costs and offer no real economies of
scale for larger applications due to
their small-scale modular construction. Initial costs are compounded if
they are also limited by the number
of charge/discharge cycles due to
degradation and so need periodic replacement. Other problems include
the conversion losses from alternating current to direct current for
storage and back again for re-use.
Commercial
Scale, orders of
magnitude (MWh)2
Batteries
90-95
0.001 – 100
Small units, repeated.
Limited economies of scale.
‘Advanced’ batteries
80-95
0.001 – 100
Small units, repeated.
Limited economies of scale.
Pumped hydro-electric storage
70-80
>1000
Very restricted geographically.
Flywheeels
80-95
0.01 – 10
Niche application in transport.
Compressed air energy storage (CAES)
60-70
100 – 1000
Only operates in association with
additional power generation.
Cryogenic storage with liquefied gases
50-65
10 – 1000
An example of the technology is that
being developed by Highview Power
Storage in UK.
Hydrogen storage
35-40
1 – 100
Often considered with wind power.
Multiple conversion losses.
100
n/a
Switching, not hardware, generally
required.
Pumped heat energy storage (PHES)
70-75
100 – 1000
Discussed later.
RedOx flow cell batteries
75-85
10 - 100
Discussed later.
Technology
by Pete Lilley, Senior Principal Engineer, Mott MacDonald, United Kingdom and
Duncan James Barker, Senior Principal Engineer & Power Team Manager for
Thailand, Mott MacDonald, Thailand
Intermittent renewable power generation has made energy storage increasingly important
and, as the proportion of renewables continues to increase in most countries across the world,
the role of energy storage will be even more important in the future.
Technological developments in advanced batteries and other alternatives are changing fast.
This article presents a short survey of the alternatives to traditional batteries expected to
be available commercially in the next few years. Of all the potential technology options, only
pumped hydro-electric storage has so far found general application on a large scale and that
is itself limited by capital costs as well as by geographical restrictions.
Batteries are already an accepted part of power systems, so evolutionary development of
more advanced versions may take an advantageous position in future markets. Furthermore,
advances and cost reductions on the back of the expanding market for automotive batteries
in electric cars would be expected to help this technology to maintain or increase its role.
Two other promising alternatives that will be described include:
•Pumped heat energy storage (PHES) which is a new, compact technology that appears
to have great promise if it can be made to operate efficiently at a commercial size.
•RedOx flow cell batteries that have the advantage of being based mainly on low cost
materials and having limited ‘moving parts’ - apart from water pumping - as they use
electro-chemical processes similar to conventional batteries.
This article will concentrate on describing how these technologies work (which may not be
commonly understood) and on their current development, efficiency and cost status.
Approximate
Round-Trip
Effectiveness
(RTE1) [%]
Demand-side management
Comments
RTE is defined as alternating current net electrical power output as a proportion of alternating current electrical input, both
measured at the same voltage level.
2
Capacity numbers mainly taken from figures in X Luo et al. Applied Energy 137 (2015) pp 511-536.
1
Table 1: Current energy storage technologies
One advantage of these types of
batteries is that they are already established and accepted as part of the
current electric power system and
will therefore be difficult to displace.
Despite the conversion losses, the
power recovery ratio (referred to
in this ar ticle as Round-Trip Effectiveness or RTE) is high, at typically
90% to 95%. Another major advantage is their essential passivity, needing no dedicated operators and very
little maintenance attention. It can
therefore be suggested that this
is an aspiration that alternatives
should seek to meet if they are to
capture any significant market share.
‘Advanced’ batteries
Largely because of the features described above, the favourite to replace normal batteries is almost
cer tainly
'advanced'
batteries.
Though initially even higher in cost,
due to the use of less-common materials and structural designs, they are
being developed by a number of
companies and they are beginning
to address some of the barriers to
larger-scale use, notably long-term
operation with minimal degradation.
As their use is increasing, their capital
costs are on a downward path and in
the near future they are expected to
become competitive.
Pumped hydro-electric
storage
Of all the energy storage options,
only pumped hydro-electric storage has found general application
on a large scale, with around 104
GW of installed discharge capacity
in 31 countries worldwide [1], but
it is nonetheless strictly limited by
geographical location. Where there
is significant existing hydro-electric
capacity that can be held in reserve,
back-pumping at times of low demand should provide a relatively
low cost storage solution. Establishing new dedicated pumped-storage
is however rather more capital intensive as well as being restricted to
particular locations where ‘high’ and
‘low’ reservoirs can be constructed in
close proximity. RTE can be high, at
around 80%; and loss during storage
(of the elevated water) is negligible
over the relevant time scales, being
due mainly to surface evaporation.
Flywheels
Flywheels use rotational energy of a
fast-spinning weight to store energy.
Storage capacity is increased by use
of ever faster rotation and increased
mass and so becomes challenging for
bearing and containment design at
large scales. Charging with electrical
energy needs a linear electrical motor with recovery through a high- and
variable-speed generator, so generally
needs to operate on direct current
power and need AC/DC and DC/
AC conversion. For these reasons,
applications of flywheels have been
of small capacity and usually linked
to mechanical drives, such as for city
buses and trams, rather than electrical
power.
Compressed air energy
storage (CAES)
Compressed air and indeed com-
13
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
pressed (medium pressure) steam
have also been used for transpor t applications, through modified reciprocating engines with no
emissions at the point of use. An
example of such application is compressed steam units which were used
for railway engines operating in potentially explosive atmospheres, such
as environments dealing with munitions or chemical works, where no
combustion was permitted. On a
utility scale, compressed air energy
storage (CAES) normally refers to
a specific combination of gas turbine
power generation and large underground air-tight caverns such as those
at Huntorf in Germany where the
process has been demonstrated since
1978 [2]. Gas- or liquid-fuelled gas
turbine power generation involves
compressor, combustion and expansion stages. Shaft power produced by
the high temperature expansion of
combustion products drives both the
combustion air compressor and the
electrical generator, with 50% to 70%
(depending on capacity) of the expander power being required for the
compressor. At times of low electricity
demand, grid power is used to drive
a (modified) compressor and the
compressed air is used to fill the underground cavern. Conversely, when
additional power is required, the air
from the cavern can be used instead
of having to compress atmospheric
air for combustion and so a much
great output can be obtained from
the generator. Huntorf is designed to
charge at 50 MW from the grid for
up to 8 hours, and to have a natural gas-fired peak output boosted to
290 MW for up to 2 hours. The main
losses from the system are thermal
loss from the air compression which
is not recovered. Despite its long history, the Huntorf system appears to
have been replicated at only one other location (McIntosh, Alabama, USA,
1991) most likely due to a combination of relative inflexibility, existence
of suitable caverns and cost.
Cryogenic storage with liquefied gases
Cryogenic energy storage uses the
energy of compressed air in a different way, which makes it more
flexible, independent of caverns,
and potentially more generally applicable. Grid power is used to compress atmospheric air and liquefy it.
Under pressure, the liquid air can be
stored in large above-ground cylin-
Figure 1: Cryogenic energy storage with liquefied air. Image: http://www.highview-power.com
14
ders which have a much lower volume than the equivalent gas storage
in a cavern. When power recovery is
required, the liquid air is allowed to
re-gasify and is expanded through a
multi-stage air turbine. Figure 1 illustrates how the technology works.
Key features to improve the effectiveness of the system include thermal looping heat exchangers both to
minimise the compression power in
the liquefaction plant and to maximise the power output from the
air turbine. In the UK, components
required for a 5 MWe output system have been demonstrated [3] and
complete systems up to 50 MWe
output are at the design stage, with expected RTE >60%. Storage capacity, in
MWh, is dependent on the size and
number of cylinders deployed, which
can be adjusted depending on the
application. Effectiveness in industrialscale applications can be fur ther
increased by co-locating the system
with a source of waste heat to superheat the inlet to the air turbine.
Estimated costs are US$0.340 m/
MWh.
Hydrogen storage
One storage option which has found
some limited application is the pro-
duction of hydrogen by electrolysis
of water during times of low power
demand. This has been seen as particularly suitable for relatively-isolated
wind turbine farms. A hydrogen-fired
fuel cell can act as an electrolyser
when supplied with external power,
with hydrogen and oxygen being
produced at the two electrodes.
Capturing and compressing the
hydrogen for on-site storage gives
the opportunity to re-use it later in
normal fuel cell mode to re-generate
some of the power used in the electrolysis process. The recovery ratio
for this system is fairly poor however
with perhaps 10% to 15% losses in
the electrolysis and compression and
a fuel cell net power generation
efficiency of 40% to 50%, meaning
that the RTE is around 35% to 40%.
An alternative use for the stored hydrogen could be as a fuel for transport vehicles, which may be a more
effective use of resources, depending
on the relative power and transport
fuel prices.
Demand-side management
Demand-side management (DSM)
offers a different approach to these
utility capital projects and also has the
advantages of distributed application
and costs. The principle is that many
users have elements of their power
demand that are not time-critical and
so could be re-timed without affecting their operation. Examples include
refrigeration plant and other thermal
demands where temperature variations are slow. Switching off such systems on a minute-by-minute basis
by the utility operator provides an
additional method of balancing fastchanging grid demands. On a longer
time-scale, agreeing to re-schedule
power-intensive operations, such as
electrical furnace operation, allows
demand change trends on a daily and
diurnal basis to be addressed. These
functions are of great value to the
utility in managing the system so payments to users for DSM can be used
to compensate for the costs of control systems and telemetry and any
residual inconvenience caused. The
challenge is to establish all the necessary control links and to accept the
external influence on users' systems.
It can reasonably be argued that a
form of DSM will become more important with the advent of electric
cars since overnight charging of the
batteries for fleets of such vehicles
will have a strong tendency to reshape the diurnal load curve - perhaps removing the need for incentive
time-of-day tariff variations which
drive the shorter-term prospects
of many of the electricity storage
systems already discussed. More
impor tantly in this context, the slow
charging of distributed electrical batteries is itself not time-critical and so
makes an ideal candidate for DSM.
Calculations have shown that the capacity of electrical vehicle batteries,
installed for their primary purpose of
transport power and so of no cost
to electrical utilities, could, when electric cars are fully deployed, become
entirely comparable with the installed
generating capacity of the electrical
utilities, and so would then become
overwhelmingly significant to the
subject of electricity storage.
Pumped Heat Energy Storage
(PHES)
This technology uses a closed-circuit
containing argon gas. When the argon is compressed (using input shaft
power) from 1 bar to 20 bar, its
temperature increases from ambient
to 500º C. The gas then releases its
heat content to a carefully-designed
hot thermal storage cylinder. Argon
at 20 bar and ambient temperature
can then be expanded back to 1 bar
at which point it cools to -160º C.
This expansion process will produce a
power output, which can be used to
reduce [by an estimated 35%] the net
shaft power input to the compression
stage operating simultaneously. Another thermal store cylinder is used
to capture the cold temperature and
return the argon to ambient for the
cycle to repeat.
To recover the power input, the
argon cycle is run in reverse, with a
net shaft power output. The ‘revers-
ibility’ of the cycle is ensured by the
reinstatement of the thermal energy
in the two parts of the cycle so that
the power production process operates with the original temperature
differences.
Key components of the system are
shown in Figures 2 and 3, including
the thermal stores.
Unlike containment of gases, or
even liquids (such as stratified hot
water), the thermal medium in the
storage cylinders is crushed rock.
For the hot store, the hot argon
gas is introduced only as far as required to propagate the ‘heat front’,
after which it will leave by automatically controlled side valves. In this
way, the transition zone between
rock at 500º C and rock at ambient
temperature can be minimised, so
nearly the whole storage volume
can be used. This also ensures that
the pressure losses from gas flow
through the rock matrix are kept as
low as possible. Similar arrangements
will apply for the cold store. On discharge, careful and automatic valving is needed so as to maintain the
cycle reversibility as far as is practical.
Limitations on the number and spacing of the valves can be expected to
occur in practice, especially on ‘small’
capacity systems.
Compression and expansion are
understood to be via positive-displacement devices, rather than turbine-type equipment, as this has advantages in the controllability of the
process to keep it reversible, ie by
minimising pressure and heat losses.
At least one UK company (Isentropic Ltd) is promoting this power
storage method [4]. According to
press releases, the company is ‘currently rolling out small (up to 1.5 MW)
and medium-scale (up to 50 MW)
PHES systems for businesses’ (January
2015). These ratings are, of course,
of the net power input (MW) and
not the storage capacity (MWh). The
storage capacity will be determined
by the size of the hot and cold heat
store cylinders and can be increased
at relatively low cost to meet most
15
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
pressed air and re-introducing it to
the air during discharge, the RTE
of the CAES technology is said to
increase to ‘in excess of 90%’. This
development is, however, not yet
demonstrated due to the lack of
current commercial CAES plants or
proposals.
Figure 2: Pumped Heat Energy Storage (charging)
Figure 3: Pumped Heat Energy Storage (discharging)
design capacity requirements, though
the thermal content might be expected to degrade if storage times
exceed several hours.
It is noted that RTE values of 70%
to 75% are indicated for the Isentropic Ltd PHES system though it is
not clear if this applies only to very
large projected installations (ie for
grid use at >100 MW) which they
plan to supply eventually. It would
be instructive to have operating data
from one or more of its pilot and/
or small systems that have been installed and operated. Similarly, the
16
company’s website gives projected
Capex of US$140/kWh but without
indication of the system scale or associated storage capacity compared to
the throughput rating. If it were to be
assumed that this was for a 50 MW system, with perhaps 6 hours of storage
(300 MWh capacity), then the Capex
would be US$42 M.
The hot thermal store also has
applications in association with the
geological cavern CAES which uses a
fired gas turbine and stores the compressor discharge air. By additionally
storing the heat content of the com-
RedOx flow cells
Fuel cells have earned a strong reputation as clean, quiet and efficient
power generation devices. They use
electrochemical processes, similar
to those used in conventional batteries, but, unlike batteries, have
external fuel (hydrogen, or other
gases depending on fuel cell type)
and oxidant (normally air) inputs and
an associated need to reject reaction
products.
However, no ‘combustion’ occurs.
Fuel and oxidant combine chemically
which produces an electrical gradient across a membrane (electrolyte)
which restricts the flow of one of the
reactants.
Fuel cells are characterised by this
oxidation reaction. If run in reverse,
as an ‘electrolyser’, power input can
be used to ‘reduce’ an input material
- usually water - into its component
parts of hydrogen and oxygen. While
this combination can be used as a
storage device, where the hydrogen
output is stored and later re-used in
the fuel cell, as discussed earlier, the
RTE of such a system is rather low
- perhaps 35% with current fuel cell
technology.
An alternative method that has
been under development for many
years is the RedOx (ie reduction/
oxidation) flow cell, which makes use
of specific chemical substances or
compounds which can be stored in
different oxidation states. Vanadium,
as pentoxide V2O5, which forms vanadium ions and vanadous (VO) ions,
each of which can exist in a number
of ‘valence’ (oxidation) states, is a popular choice for these devices, as are
the solutions of sodium compounds
which were used in the development of the 12 MWh ‘Regenesys’
Figure 4: RedOx flow cell (charging)
system in the UK though this failed
commercially [5].
Whatever is used, the main design principle is to have substances in
liquid form (if necessary, suspended
or dissolved in water) and present
them as a fluid flow to each of the
two electrodes of the flow cell, separated by a membrane. Application
of input (DC) electrical energy then
drives charge across the electrolyte
through the membrane to alter the
oxidation states (oxidising one stream
and reducing the other). These electrochemically-altered fluids can then
be physically stored in large tanks at
ambient temperature and pressure.
When power recovery is required,
the fluids are pumped back past the
flow cell electrodes which produces
a DC electrical current as the substances return to their original oxidation states. A typical arrangement is
shown in Figures 4 and 5.
For this system, an RTE of around
75% to 85% has been demonstrated
[6]. The charging/discharging rate
(MW) depends on the size of the
electrochemical cells used while
the storage capacity (MWh) is determined by the fluid tanks sizes.
While the electrochemical device is
expected to have high Capex, the
storage of water (usually) containing
the active substances can be done at
relatively low cost. The technology
has the advantage of no significant
degradation of the stored energy (no
pressure or thermal losses to con-
Figure 5: RedOx flow cell (discharging)
sider) and so would be expected to
lend itself best for long period storage systems. It should be noted that
the Regenesys system was rated at 1
MW for 12 hours to arrive at its 12
MWh capacity.
A number of vanadium RedOx
systems have been demonstrated in
Australia, China, Canada and Japan at
up to 1.5 MW charging capacity [6].
However, capital costs remain high
while the technology is still being developed and optimised so it is only so
far likely to appear in niche applications where it can benefit from a very
wide range of income and avoided
cost streams.
CAN ANY OF THE NEW
TECHNOLOGIES SUCCEED?
There are many parameters involved
with energy storage technology that
will influence whether or not a
par ticular technology will succeed.
These include capital cost; operating costs; economies of scale; losses
during storage; round-trip effectiveness (RTE); and, not least, the ‘value’
of the storage provided to the user
- which will vary with tariffs, countries,
and utility or consumer perspectives.
As already noted, innate conservatism on the part of the utilities and
users will tend to favour the established systems (ie traditional batteries) or systems that are closely similar
to these - which in this case will be
evolutionary development into alternative batteries as more advanced
versions become financially attractive. It is also the case that to succeed, any new technology will have
to focus on fully-automatic and low
maintenance methods of operation
and control, to meet the standards
in this regard, already set and expected by the users.
It is not generally possible, as yet, to
define what the capital cost, for example, per MWh stored, will be for
the new technologies under development. Depending on the system, this
will also depend on the charging and
discharge rates chosen (which are by
no means necessarily the same) and
on the scale of the device. RTE is also
still developing, with projections substituting for demonstrated performance in many cases, but expected
values are perhaps easier to assess.
General financial/technical requirements can be illustrated by a simple
plot of capital cost per MWh of storage against RTE, to select just two
of the key parameters. As shown in
Figure 6, traditional and advanced
batteries have high capital costs per
MWh, but also the highest available
RTE. If we were to assume a linear
trade-off between capital costs and
RTE, what general comparative levels
will need to be achieved for each of
the technologies at the RTEs can be
seen along the horizontal axis. The
‘new’ technologies are all, by definition, still on the way towards commercial development and so Capex
for the present generation is too high
17
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
REFERENCES
[1] http://energystorage.org/energystorage/technologies/pumpedhydroelectric-storage
[2] ‘BINE, 2007, Informationsdienst,
Project info 05/07
[3] http://www.highview-power.com/
[4] http://www.isentropic.co.uk/
Energy-Storage-Systems
Figure 6: Capex targets versus RTE
to be viable. Note that Capex per
MWh stored can also be reduced by
increasing the storage reservoir compared to the charge and discharge
MW ratings but clearly this is limited
by the storage time actually required.
For the present, few, if any, of the
technologies can demonstrate practically that they can enter the area of
possible viability. However, as long
as they can reasonably be in the
‘interesting’ area, they have a chance.
In this simple analysis, technologies
that fail to eventually get below the
line could be regarded as having no
real prospects.
CONCLUSIONS
Electrical storage is becoming increasingly important to electrical utility operators, with the increase in intermittent renewables generation, whether
their outputs are predictable or otherwise. At the same time, price signals
and other system benefits offered
by utilities as one strand of their attempts to match supply and demand
have created opportunities for endusers, particularly at industrial scale,
to consider the profitability of installing their own on-site storage systems.
A wide range of technologies are
under development to meet this
perceived need. It is not yet clear
whether any of them will succeed
in becoming a significant part of the
future supply and demand mix. An
important consideration for the new
technologies must be the ability to
have comparable operational charac-
18
teristics in terms of passivity and lack
of intervention that is already offered,
at a price, by the established battery
technology.
The most promising of the new
systems, in having potential for wide
applicability in terms of relative simplicity (ie ambient temperatures, few
moving parts), are considered to be
the Pumped Heat Energy Storage and
RedOx flow battery technologies,
despite some difficulties of public
understanding. However, even for
these systems, a substantial economic
advantage will be necessary to overcome established technologies.
Finally, it may be that batteries end
up as the solution to the energy storage issue - if not in capital projects by
utilities, then in their distributed role
in demand side management, which
would be made possible by a shift
from fossil fuel-based transport (at
the point of use) to electric transport.
The associated charging of battery
capacity could conceivably remove
much of the need for (other) electrical
storage deployment.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in
this article are those of the authors
only and do not constitute the views
and opinions of Mott MacDonald
Limited.
Tabulation by Mott MacDonald.
All images by Mott MacDonald,
unless otherwise stated.
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/
business/2003/dec/16/utilities
[6] G Kear et al, Int J Energy Res
2012, 36, pp 1105-1120
(This article is based on a paper authored by Pete Lilley, Senior
Principal Engineer, Mott MacDonald, United Kingdom and Duncan
James Barker, Senior Principal Engineer & Power Team Manager for
Thailand, Mott MacDonald, Thailand, and presented at POWERGEN Asia 2015.
POWER-GEN Asia 2015, Renewable Energy World Asia 2015,
and POWER-GEN Asia Financial
Forum 2015 were held at the
IMPACT Exhibition & Convention
Center, Bangkok, Thailand, from 1
to 3 September 2015, as part of
the ASEAN Power Week 2015.
POWER-GEN Asia is the region’s premier conference and
exhibition for the power generation, transmission and distribution
industries.
Renewable Energy World Asia
is a leading conference and exhibition for the Asian renewable and
alternative energy industry.
POWER-GEN Asia Financial
Forum is a conference devoted to
all aspects of financing of all types
of power infrastructure in the ASEAN region.
ASEAN Power Week is organised by PennWell Corporation).
Gas based modular power stations in a
diverse and growing power generation
market place
by Chris Carlisle, Vice President System Design and Delivery, and Kapil Verma,
Senior Power Plant Engineer, Power Plant development and Delivery, Rolls-Royce
Bergen Engines India, New Delhi
The rapid scale up of many middle income power markets, at the same time as an introduction
of higher levels of solar, hydro, and wind renewables can lead to a mismatch between local
power needs and the capacity of the network to meet those needs. Simultaneously there
has been a rapid expansion in the availability and extraction of natural gas, although many
areas lack gas distribution network infrastructure. Medium speed gas engines can provide an
effective and efficient means to erect power stations in more remote areas rich in gas, while
producing significant levels of electrical power to support the national electricity need.
The rapid start up, quick shutdown and fast ramp rates allow for the quick response needed
to meet the variable generation of non-hydro renewables, while the use of multiple units
enables high levels of plant turn down and availability throughout the year. The benefits
become even clearer when seen within the framework of a modular power system where the
use of pre-defined customisable modules allows specific site needs to be accommodated, and
keeps down the overall plant lead time from order to commercial operation date.
SCALE OF RENEWABLE
ENERGY ACROSS THE ASIAN
REGION
The power sector is undergoing one
of the most profound transformations
since it began. Developing economies
are now dealing with rapid industrialisation and the associated need for
increased electrical power. Domestic
and industrial consumers across the
region are also demanding cost-effective,
reliable access to power.
Many countries in the region are
starting from a low base of power
demand and must satisfy the triple
challenge of capacity growth, transmission infrastructure development,
and distribution penetration.
Overall electrical capacity annualised growth rate in the region can
be expected to be 3.6%, up to 2040.
Of this, a 5.2% growth in low carbon
and renewables allows for a much
slower growth rate of 2.7% in fossil
fuel capacity. Indeed, fossil fuels will
reduce as a share of total capacity
from 71% to 56%, bringing the region
close to the average expected global
share of fossil fuels of 52%, by 2040.
Within this change, there is also a shift
in share of the fossil fuel demand towards gas (IEA, 2014).
The capacity growth rate in the
region, excluding China and India, is
expected to be around 4.0%, with
an impressive growth rate of 5.5% in
Figure 1: Forecast capacity growth and share development for non-OECD Asia
19
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
low carbon and renewables. Many
of those countries have low levels
of electricity penetration and lack a
nationally interconnected grid infrastructure.This makes it doubly difficult
to grow variable renewable energy
(RE) faster than the overall electrical capacity growth. In these cases,
large scale off-grid renewables can
be a means to quickly bring power to
consumers, although the delivery of
stable capacity and the future integration into a national network must be
carefully planned.
Within the non-OECD Asia region
as a whole, wind is estimated to reach
12% and solar 9% of capacity, by
2040 (IEA, 2014). This is dominated
by a major increase in wind capacity
within China and a strong increase in
the share of solar in India and China.
The rest of the region will make rapid
progress to a 7% share for wind and
a 6% share for solar, by mid-century,
from a very small base.
These figures are derived from
the IEA mid-point estimate and the
upcoming round of UN Forum on
Climate Change COP 21 discussion
in November will clearly demonstrate
whether the pace of change is rising
or falling.
Recent cuts or removal of fuel subsidies in many developing economies,
enabled by the significant reduction
in oil prices over the last 24 months,
are in line with the expected scenario. More aggressive policies, such
as the April announcement by the
Indian Prime Minister for the increase
in solar commitment from 20 GW
to 170 GW, by 2030, accelerate
these changes.
Regardless of the pace of increase,
it is clear that the scale of variable renewable capacity will increase and it is
likely that the share will also increase.
A rule-of -thumb is given that there
is an economic and operational ceiling on the maximum capacity share
that can be provided by variable
renewable energy that is roughly
equal to the capacity factor (Jenkins,
2015). While there is much discussion
around this suggested maximum economic and technical ceiling, the impact
of the variable renewable capacity, at
much lower levels of penetration, is
already bring felt on networks around
the world.
DESTABILISING EFFECT OF
RENEWABLES AND NEED
FOR BALANCING CAPABILITY
The European Network of Transmission System Operators for
Electricity (ENTSO-E) identifies five
primary reasons for network demand-response imbalance. Of these
reasons, renewable energy variability
can strongly contribute to two, fault
or failure in the network and generating capacity drives two more, and one
is due to the despatching and trading
market for power (ENTSO-E, 2013).
Considering the two RE attributable imbalance drivers, the first is
rapid deviation between demand
and response due to fast variations
in capacity and load. The second is a
slower disturbance caused by forecast errors in RE capacity.
Due to the lack of fuel costs and
a low marginal cost of production,
wind and solar most often have priority in merit order production. This
is increasingly the case in economies
where large investments have been
made and variable RE penetration
increased to significant levels.
As the level of variable RE rises,
the lack of stability begins to impact
the overall capacity demand balance.
Many figures are postulated but a
rule-of-thumb is that above 10% of
capacity, variable RE begins to drive
the network design and generating
mix, especially where it has highest
merit priority. The reason behind
this is the inherent unpredictability
as identified in the two ENTSO-E
imbalance drivers.
Typically, solar PV achieves a capacity factor of 20%-25% and wind
achieves 30%-35%, but this is a highly
skewed distribution in time rather
than a predictable flat capacity factor. Analysis in India (Soonee, 2014),
shown in Figures 3-5, show that there
are significant mismatches between
the diurnal and seasonal demand curves,
and the wind and solar capacity curves.
Since India is a rapidly industrialising
economy extending over 26° of latitude, this data can be taken as representative of the region as a whole.
While some of the fast variation
from the variable RE can be smoothed
by regional aggregation, this requires
significant network upgrade to integrate geographically separated power
units and to allow flexible flows of
power. This also increases the ro-
the needed capacity to balance the
demand when the wind is still, and the
sun obscured. The scale and speed of
action of the balancing capacity is determined by the tolerance of the consumers to frequency deviations.
As electricity penetration increases
and supply stability improves, consumers become more demanding
of the frequency and voltage stability
within the networks.
Nowadays this becomes embedded
into national grid codes to assure the
correct load capacity balance and the
correct design of balancing capacity
to mitigate the effects.
In general, as the synchronous area
in a network increases, and the capacity more distributed, the capacity
can be better matched to the load.
This reduces the size and duration of
frequency excursions.
This can be seen in Figure 6, where
the grid frequency improved over
time as the grid scale, demand response and despatching improved.
The very large scale up of variable RE
planned across Asia has the potential
to significantly increase load capacity imbalance, and decrease the network frequency stability, unless suitable balancing is developed.
Figure 3: All India demand curve, 12 months (Soonee, 2014)
Figure 4: All India wind capacity, 12 months (Soonee, 2014)
Figure 5: Dadri (near New Delhi) solar capacity, 12 months (Soonee, 2014)
Figure 2: Development of highly variable renewables within non-OECD Asia (2012-2040)
20
bustness of the network and helps to
reduce the occurrence and impact of
network driven faults causing imbalance. However, even with aggregation, the slower disturbances caused
by regional wind pattern changes or
seasonal solar changes mean that
variable RE cannot completely match
the demand curve, and there must always be some reliable way to provide
BALANCING
CHARACTERISTICS AND
NETWORK REQUIREMENTS
There are many ways to provide
balancing capacity and grid codes
now seek to specify the capacity
response rather than the type of
generation or technology. The national power board or transmission
operators determine the scale of the
balancing capacity and the speed of
response, based upon three factors:
•The size and duration of the
expected imbalance.
•Any dependency between imbalance drivers.
•The expected speed with which
the imbalance will develop.
Increased variable RE does not
add any new considerations but can
drive, significantly, the scale of the imbalance and the capacity required to
21
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
Figure 6: Frequency ranges for India North-East-West grid (Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, 2011)
overcome that imbalance.
Three response curves have
emerged in several grid codes, as
shown in Figure 7, that seek to cover
the fast and slow imbalances and the
need for block changing capacity.
The Primary Response Level (PRL)
seeks to respond rapidly to shortterm demand response imbalance.
The requirement to achieve 100% of
the committed capacity change within
30 secs requires fast responding spinning reserve, while the sustainment of
the capacity deviation for only a short
period can also allow stored hydro to
meet these requirements. Such a response can be envisaged to support
extensive solar PV, where battery
storage is used to smooth the immediate power loss of sun obscuration
from cloud, allowing time for the PRL
capacity to take over and redress the
imbalance.
The pricing level of PRL capacity
versus base load capacity is an important driver towards the technology
selection. Where the size of the
capacity and the price of PRL are
high, this can enable power plants
specialising in this service. Where
the needed capacity is low and price
comparable to base load, it will tend
to be a marginal service provided by
existing base load resources. In Asian
regional markets, the high planned
penetration of RE will drive a high
PRL capacity need, and it is therefore essential to establish the pricing
mechanisms to stimulate the development of the needed additional
capacity.
Specialist PRL generating plants
must have the following characteristics to minimise the required
PRL tariff:
•Low fixed cost as a percentage of
total cost per kW at 100%, which
reduces the need to run at 100%
to give fixed cost dilution.
•High and consistent levels of efficiency across the operating band
offered for PRL. This ensures that
the variable cost of producing pow-
Figure 7:Typical common balancing capacity response timing
22
er at 100% negative PRL capacity is
broadly the same as that at 100%
positive PRL capacity.
The Secondary Response Level
(SRL) responds to longer term demand response imbalances that cannot be met by PRL capacity due to
either duration or scale. The requirement to achieve 100% of the committed capacity change within 300
secs requires either spinning reserve,
or power generating units capable of
rapid start and ramp up, followed by
potential shutdown within 15 minutes.
Such a response can be envisaged to
support extensive solar PV and wind
capacity, where weather conditions
change abruptly, such as in the passing
of a weather front.
Where SRL is offered using fast
starting machines, it is desirable that
the units are able to secure extended
operation in a merit order production environment, to gain some additional dispatch and to deliver fixed
cost recovery. Where SRL is offered
as an additional service using spinning
reserve then the two characteristics
stated for PRL also apply.
The Tertiary Response Level (TRL)
is available to provide capacity to
meet planned or known demand
changes. This typically meets known
imbalances such as the setting of the
sun, which terminates solar PV capacity and increases demand from
lighting. It can also be a longer term
solution to major capacity outage.
Typically, TRL operates at mid-merit
and can be expected to run for between 8 and 16 hours per day. As
such, it is essential that equipment
used for this purpose is able to
star t and to achieve best efficiency
quickly, so as to maximise the return
against tariff.
Given the highly distributed nature
of RE, the power flows within the network will change significantly, based
on the time of day and the contribution share from the RE sources.
Furthermore, the network must also
be able to manage the changes in dispatch as the RE capacity varies and
the balancing capacity is brought on
line. In response to the imbalance
drivers described earlier, the following features are generally required to
manage and overcome the issues:
•Multiple HV transmission routes
from one region to another, to
provide redundancy in the event
of network or capacity outage.
This also provides the capacity
to transmit power in the event of
network congestion, and to avoid
RE curtailment.
•Upgrade and design of main
power transformers for backfeed
/ two-way power flow, to allow
medium voltage RE power to be
distributed locally and regionally,
as well as allowing grid feed to
power local needs in the event of
RE capacity falling.
•Establishment of 5 minute despatching using automated regional
despatch centres, which ensures
that the optimal generators are on
line and that the overall efficiency
of generation is maximised.
•HVDC links are used to reduce
transmission losses but can also
serve to isolate those parts of the
grid with high frequency changes.
Although isolation is not generally
preferred, this can allow a frequencyunstable network to progressively
recover.
Such features are now seen in
most power development plans in
the region such as the overall Indian transmission development plan,
shown in Figure 8.
Further to the capacity and network balancing, the other primary
way to handle imbalance is on the
demand side. Two primar y options
are available, load shifting and demand side balancing.
In load shifting, consumers are encouraged to move their consumption from high demand times to low
demand times on a permanent basis.
This is generally achieved through
tariff encouragement and was used
to good effect in European domestic
consumer pricing, and is often used to
encourage smelters and steel works
Figure 8: Perspective transmission plan for RE capacity (Power Grid Corporation of India, 2011)
to shift production to lower demand
periods. However, load shifting is a
very planned mode of demand response and while this may allow
some matching towards solar PV
capacity profiles, it cannot deliver the
complete needs of a system with a
high variable RE capacity.
The more complex option of demand side balancing requires that
consumers allow some curtailment
of their demand on an automated
basis, as required to reduce overall
demand and re-stabilise the frequency.
At present, this is limited to large consumers where the necessary control
and communication integration can
be cost-effective, or the use of crude
measures such as rolling black outs.
The ‘Internet of Things’ promises the
technology to enable true demand
side balancing in a dynamic way, with
small curtailment being taken by a
large number of consumers. Such
curtailment could include the temporary raising of air conditioning system
temperatures, or the stopping of refrigerator systems for short periods.
The forms of demand curtailment,
technology, pricing, and incentives are
still being explored.
In the immediate future of the
power markets in Asia, it is likely that
we will see some level of capacity
balancing emerge, while the grids are
being upgraded to deliver a more RE
capable network. Demand balancing
is likely to remain with large consumers only, or in extremes, take the form
of already used rolling blackouts.
23
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
GAS AVAILABILITY IN ASIA
AND POTENTIAL REGIONS
FOR GAS POWER AS A
BALANCING FORCE
Gas is utilised as a significant contributor to clean power and clean
industrial production. In the context
of a forecast of the global demand
increase for gas of 39% up to 2040,
the share of that global demand taken
by non-OECD Asia is estimated to increase from around 17% to 23%.
In 2012, the non-OECD Asian region was almost in balance with regard to gas production and demand.
While there was a significant deficit
between production and demand
in China and India, there was an excess of production in countries such
as Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
This left the area with a net import
requirement of just under 2% of the
demand. Overall regional demand
is expected to grow at CAAGR of
3.8%, up to 2040.
The demand is driven by significant
growth in all gas consuming sectors in
China and India, and the emergence
of gas as a major fuel in the rest of
the region. However, this is against
an annual growth rate in gas production of two-thirds the growth rate of
demand. The result of these changing
patterns of production and demand
is that the regional deficit will grow to
around 32% of the demand by 2040,
leaving the region as a significant net
importer of gas.
The regional share of gas demand
taken by power generation is expected
to remain stable at around 37%.
However, the gas share taken directly
by industry will increase from 21%
to almost 30%. This increase in share
Figure 9: Gas demand deficit projection for nonOECD Asia (IEA, 2014)
24
from industry, coupled with overall
increased demand for gas and the
large future regional deficit, presents
a major challenge for economic
development. If the economic
benefits of development are to be
shared equally, then it is impor tant
that industry is established across
the region rather than as a simple
expansion of existing centres.
Reviewing night-time light intensity
as a facsimile for economic activity
Figure 10: Global night time light intensity (NOAA, 2010)
Figure 11: Gas connectivity comparison between the European region and the Asian region to the same scale
(ITA, 2008)
(Figure 10), and comparing that to
the oil and gas pipeline infrastructure
(Figure 11), the correlation in Asia between pipeline locations and economic
activity is striking. Conversely, the very
high and distributed light intensity in
Europe correlates well with the extremely dense pipeline infrastructure.
It can be inferred that there is a strong
connection between economic activity and the local availability of liquid and
gaseous fuel in pipelines or harbours.
The majority of plans for expansion
of the pipeline networks are based
on gas, as it is economically moved
at high pressure with low losses.
This will enable gas moved through
the pipelines to be used as industrial feedstock and as fuel for power
generation.
It is a clear goal stated by many
governments to reduce the carbon
intensity of their expanding economic
activity and to increase the geographical diversity of that economic activity.
The addition of grid scale variable RE
to the network supports the first
goal. Unfortunately the location of
suitable sites for variable RE, and the
desirable sites for industrial expansion
often do not coincide. If the electricity networks can be improved as discussed earlier, it is practical to place
the needed balancing power stations
close by the new centres of electrical
demand. In these cases, the required
gas pipelines can serve both the industrial and power generation needs,
and there is an avoidance of the construction of a pipeline network with a
density as seen in Europe.
Here, there are now two major and
parallel infrastructure development
programmes to support clean economic development. The addition of
RE as a commitment to control CO2
emissions requires electrical infrastructure development. The regional
gas deficit, and increased demand
requires LNG importation terminals
to be constructed and a gas distribution infrastructure to meet the needs
of new industrial areas. Gas-based
power can operate at the convenient nexus between both of these
developments, balancing the inherent
instability of variable RE through the
new electrical networks, and drawing
upon the new gas infrastructure
being built for industrial growth.
GAS RECIP PROJECT
DEVELOPMENT TO MEET
COMING DEMANDS
With more gas becoming available
in the region, either piped or transported as LNG and regasified, it is set
to increase as a share of energy consumption in the region, from around
8% today to 13% by 2040, with a
compound growth rate of 3.7%, well
ahead of the overall power generation
energy consumption growth rate of
2.5% (IEA, 2014).
A most effective use of gas in
power generation is as part of a reciprocating engine or a combined
cycle gas turbine solution. As the reliable availability of gas has improved,
the continuous power reciprocating
engine market has shifted towards
pure gas engines. In 2014, for the first
time, the market share of pure gas
reciprocating engines, in the largely
continuous power market of >3.5
MW units, exceeded the combined
share of HFO and dual fuel engines
(DGTW, 2015).
Many papers have been presented
demonstrating the advantages of
large reciprocating engine-based
power, and in an era of de-regulation
and increase in the number of IPP
projects, the 50 MW-200 MW market in this region is well served by
the technology. Typically, this scale of
power project replaces existing high
speed reciprocating power stations,
or provides for rapid additional local/
regional capacity. The final technology
choice often comes down to a choice
between combined cycle gas turbine
plants and large reciprocating plants,
in either open or closed cycle.
To cover some of the advantages
of gas-based reciprocating engines
as they apply to some of the challenges within this region, outlined in
this ar ticle:
Rapid build and commissioning
Once financing is in place and notice
to proceed given, time becomes criti-
Figure 12: Fuel share of global reciprocating engines by MW (>3.5 MW units)
Figure 13:Two engine pipe modules loaded to a 40 ft standard trailer for shipping
25
POWER GENERATION
POWER GENERATION
cal. In a recent Indian public tender,
two developers offered reciprocating
solutions with a project timeline of
14 months to COD, whereas the
CCGT solution required 18 months.
Although there were specific considerations in this project, such a difference
is often found. Where regions suffer
from irregular power supplies, the
reduced timeline can allow for faster
local economic development.
The shorter lead time of the
core reciprocating engine reduces
project duration. However, it is the
use of repeated modular elements
for the plant design that enables
parallel working at site to reduce
build duration. The use of pre-tested
modules shipped to site reduces onsite construction time and the risk
of extended plant commissioning
duration. Furthermore, the size of
the individual power units means that
major items such as auxiliary modules,
chimneys, cooling, and charge air
systems can be completed and tested
in a factory environment, broken
down for shipping in standard 40 ft
containers and delivered to site, ready
for installation and operation.
Phased development
Financing remains a major challenge
in the region, par ticularly for IPP.
Using a phased development approach
can allow an IPP to gain experience
while providing better matching of
capital expenditure to revenue. This
improves cash flow and provides a
stable base for further expansion.
For a medium speed reciprocating
plant, a phased approach might be
construction in two to three phases,
each of three to five engines. The
phasing may be dictated by the capacity of local grid connections, the
gas supply and allocation, or simply
by the financing risks. With relatively
small additional investment at the
outset of the project, suitable sites
can be developed with this phased
expansion capability built into the site
and power plant infrastructure. Such
foresight allows for the engineering
phase to be largely removed from the
later phases, with commencement of
26
dispatch in as little as 8 months after
contract.
Gas engines exceed 48% thermal
efficiency and as a result, they are
entirely practical for base load applications where they replace existing open cycle gas turbines, or high
speed engines, with engine efficiencies of 35%-45%. As total efficiency
becomes more critical than capacity,
the addition of combined cycle steam
turbines, as a further development
phase, can lift the overall plant efficiency
to more than 50%. Planning for this
upgrade at the start of the project
allows for the space and services and
has small additional cost (Figure 15).
Flexible power output and
responsiveness
It is the flexibility and cleanliness of
gas engine based power that is attracting most attention in the market
place. The improved turndown ratio
of a plant running multiple smaller
units versus one or two large gas turbines is well known. This comes from
both the high levels of part load efficiency of the gas engine and a more
simple mode of operation by simply
switching off un-needed units.
Modern medium speed gas engines are able to start, synchronise,
and ramp up to 100% load within 5
minutes from a hot standby condition.
This meets the requirements for secondary response level. Even faster
start and loading is possible from a
hotter standby condition. Where grid
suppor t services are monetised, a
well-designed three-or four-section
engine plant can offer a full range of
frequency suppor t services.
The plant can offer, simultaneously
with different engines, tertiary response
level with open or combined cycle,
secondary response level in open
cycle through start from hot standby
and shutdown, as well as primary support level in open cycle. The relatively
flat fuel consumption curve across
the power range allows for high levels of turndown in primary response
without significantly degrading plant
efficiency. The proportions of PRL,
SRL and TRL offered for despatch can
be adjusted in minutes to meet the
ever changing capacity requirements
and pricing structures.
In a recent public tender, the
benefits of the medium speed gas
engine solution became clear when
flexible 2 hour pulse cycles and 8 hour
peaking cycle performances were required alongside the more regular 24
Figure 15: Modular development in three stages (five gensets, five gensets, combined cycle)
Combined
CCGT heat rate
Medium speed
cycle gas
variance from
gas recip plant turbine plant
MS
2 hour pulse cycle
1881 kcal/kWh
2377 kcal/kWh
+26%
7 hour peaking
cycle
1899 kcal/kWh
1940 kcal/kWh
+2%
72 hour running
1899 kcal/kWh
1736 kcal/kWh
-8%
Table 1: Comparison between heat rates for different operating cycles
hour and 72 hour 100% running. The
pulse cycles can be considered a form
of SRL and TRL.
Referring to Table 1, due to the
start-stop cycles for the CCGT steam
system, both the pulse and peaking
cycle must be run in open cycle. As
a result, the overall plant efficiency
suffers. It is only when the plant runs
for extended periods that the steam
system can be brought on line and
that the efficiency improves to better than the gas engine plant. The
proposed medium speed solutions
in this case were open cycle. The
comparative combined cycle heat
rate for 72 hours for the medium
speed plant would be 1746 kcal/kWh,
almost matching the efficiency of the
CCGT plant.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on current government
policies, there is expected to be a
rapid and sustained growth in overall
power generation capacity within this
region over the next quarter century.
Variable RE, such as wind and solar,
will provide an increasingly larger
share of the capacity.
The addition at scale of variable
RE can exacerbate network stability
problems due to the inherent mismatch between the capacity that
they provide and the demand on
the network. The progress made to
stabilise regional networks and to
reduce frequency excursions can be
threatened unless suitable balancing
capacity is added to the network to
handle variable RE-driven instability.
The characteristics of balancing capacity are well defined in developed
economy grid codes, and it can be
expected that similar requirements
will emerge in regional grid codes as
they are developed. To handle the
required power flows that variable
RE imposes, there is also a significant
upgrade required to the T&D networks. The upgrades are well-known
but must be carefully planned as part
of an expansion and robustification
programme.
Gas is well suited as fuel to suppor t balancing needs. However,
over the next years, the region will be-
come a major importer of gas as consumption grows at a faster pace than
production. To achieve the joint goals
of increasing geographical diversity
of economic activity, and a reduction in the carbon intensity of the
economy, significant gas infrastructure
will be required to be built alongside
enhanced electrical network infrastructure to dispatch variable RE to
industrial centres. This can allow for
gas-based balancing power stations
to be located at the new industrial
zones, while balancing the effects of
variable RE.
For gas-based balancing, pure gas
engines offer a path to deliver quickly
new capacity in areas remote from
the coast. The modular design and
construction of gas engine power
plants allows for better matching
of financing and revenues while being able to deliver the needed grid
support services. The start-stop and
loading performance, and the high
level of part load efficiency, even in
open cycle, enable this type of plant
to match the needs of the region.
REFERENCES
Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (2011 March), Notes for 15th
CAC meeting - Grid Securirty: need
for tightening frequency band and
other measures, New Delhi, India.
DGTW (2015 May), Diesel and
Gas Turbine World 39th Power
Generation Order Survey.
ENTSO-E (2013 June 28), Supporting
Document for the Network Code
on Load-Frequency Control and
Reserves, Retrieved May 15, 2015,
from ENTSO-E: www.entsoe.eu
IEA (2014), World Energy Outlook,
IEA.
ITA (2008 May 6), World oil, gas, and
products pipelines, Retrieved Jun 2,
2015, from Theodora.com, http://
www.theodora.com/pipelines/world_
oil_gas_and_products_pipelines.html
Jenkins J (2015 May 28),Grid Constraints
on Renewable Energy, Retrieved June
16, 2015, from The Energy Collective:
http://theener gycollective .com/
jessejenkins/2233311
NOAA (2010), National Geophysical
Data Centre, Retrieved Jun 05,
2015, from National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Centre, http://maps.
ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/dmsp_gcv4/
Power Grid Corporation of India
(2011), Transmission Plan for
Envisaged Renewable capacity.
Soonee S K (2014 June 27), Minutes
of the 41st Forum of Regulators,
Annex II, New Delhi, India.
NOTE
Charts as noted are based on IEA
data from the World Energy Outlook 2014 © OECD/IEA 2014, IEA
Publishing; modified by Chris Carlisle,
Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG.
Licence: https://www.iea.org/t&c/
termsandconditions/#d.en.26167
(This article is based on a paper authored by Chris Carlisle, Vice President
System Design and Delivery, and Kapil
Verma, Senior Power Plant Engineer,
Power Plant development and Delivery,
Rolls-Royce Bergen Engines India, New
Delhi, and presented at POWERGEN
Asia 2015.
The paper won a Best Paper Award,
under ‘Track 2: Clean and Flexible Operation’ at POWER-GEN Asia 2015.
POWER-GEN Asia 2015, Renewable
Energy World Asia 2015, and POWERGEN Asia Financial Forum 2015 were
held at the IMPACT Exhibition & Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand, from
1 to 3 September 2015, as part of the
ASEAN Power Week 2015.
POWER-GEN Asia is the region’s
premier conference and exhibition for
the power generation, transmission and
distribution industries.
Renewable Energy World Asia is a
leading conference and exhibition for
the Asian renewable and alternative
energy industry.
POWER-GEN Asia Financial Forum
is a conference devoted to all aspects
of financing of all types of power infrastructure in the ASEAN region.
ASEAN Power Week is organised by
PennWell Corporation).
27
PROJECT APPLICATION
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
LUMA induction luminaires light up Bhutan’s
Thimphu-Babesa Expressway
Rotterdam unveils ‘Smog Free Tower’
A collaboration between Dutch designers and researchers has resulted in the construction of
a 23 ft metal tower in Rotterdam, that is capable of purifying air.
Since everything in earth’s system cycles and recycles into
a new use and the carbon cycle is responsible for trees,
human bodies, and diamonds, why not take advantage of
nature’s cycling to turn human-created carbon dioxide and
carbon monoxide into gemstones?
This was the thinking behind Dutch ar tist and innovator Mr Daan Roosegarde’s design of the Smog Free
Tower. The founder of Studio Roosegarde was hit with
the urgency of dealing with the smog problem when he
was in Beijing.
LUMA induction street lights (under its JK Lighting brand) have been installed along the Thimphu-Babesa
Expressway.They provide white, pleasant light.
The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked countr y situated at the
eastern end of the Himalayas, and
bordered to the north by China and
to the south, east and west, by India.
Bhutan’s landscape ranges from
subtropical plains to the sub-alpine
Himalayan heights in the north where
some peaks exceed 7,000 m in height.
The country has a population of
about 800,000.
Bhutan’s capital and largest city is
Thimphu. It has an international airport at Paro, about 40 km south west
of the capital.
Lighting for the ThimphuBabesa Expressway
The Thimphu-Babesa Expressway
was recently completed as a 6.2
km project, to connect the capital
Thimphu with Babesa, a city south of
the capital.
For the expressway, Bhutan’s
Ministry of Works & Human Settlement
(MWHS) decided to use ‘induction’
lamps which produce white light
which is more pleasant after sunset
and reveals the road better, compared
to yellow sodium light.
According to well-established
findings of the International Commis28
sion on Illumination (CIE in French),
human vision under low lighting levels (scotopic vision) at night is better
under white light than under yellow
light.
Another advantage of induction
lamps is that they have a life span of
more than 60,000 hours, ensuring
that the street lights are maintenancefree for many years.
The Singapore office of LUMA
Group Lighting approached Bhutan’s
MWHS through the appointed
suppliers B M Nagano of Singapore
and Nana Enterprise of Thimphu. As
a trial, about 10 induction street lights
were installed for several months. The
results were found to be good by
the MWHS and the installation also
received favourable comments from
the driving public.
Accordingly, the MWHS made
the decision to go ahead with the
installation of induction street lights.
The Thimphu-Babesa Expressway
is now lit up by about 400 Luma
ZD10-100E lanterns (under its JK
Lighting brand). The expressway
and surrounding landscape look
pleasant and safe for both motorists
and residents at night.
The expressway was previously lit with sodium
lanterns that produce yellow light.
PROJECT DATA
Project
Thimphu-Babesa Expressway
Length of expressway
6.2 km
Number of carriage-ways
Dual with central reservation
(two lanes on each side)
CONSEQUENCES OF POOR AIR QUALITY
Due to very poor air quality, Chinese authorities recently
had to shut down hundreds of factories in Beijing and ban
2.5 million cars from the roads, to ensure blue skies during
a big military parade.
Black carbon, ozone and methane, frequently described
as short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), not only produce
a strong global warming effect, they contribute significantly
to the more than seven million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution, according to a recent
repor t released by the World Health Organization.
Quick action is needed to reduce these harmful
emissions now.
ROAD LIGHTING DATA
No of induction luminaires
400
Average illuminance of road
10 lux
Luminaire type
ZD10-100E
Wattage
100 W
Colour of light
5000 K Cool White
Lamp life
60,000 hours (maintenancefree for many years)
Other advantages
•Immediate re-strike after power
failure
•Fog penetration
Smog particles
Smog cubes
By 2019, the global air quality control systems market
is projected to reach US$ 60 billion, growing at a CAGR
of 5.8% for the 2014-2019 period. The market provides
solutions for the treatment of gases and pollutants and
initiates the release of cleaner air.
The Asia Pacific region has the largest share of this
market, followed by America and Europe. The strong
demand in Asia Pacific follows the extremely high levels of
air pollution in the region, with Beijing and Delhi being the
two cities notorious for their thick and dangerous waves
of tainted air caused by smog, ash and aerosols.
This pollution is changing weather patterns and climate
conditions around the globe.
THE SMOG FREE TOWER
Mr Daan Roosegaarde
Mr Bob Ursem
The Smog Free Tower, said to be the first of its type in the
world, was unveiled in Rotterdam Park in September 2015,
as part of the Smog Free Project developed by Mr Daan
Roosegaarde and his team of designers and engineers
at Studio Roosegaarde, in collaboration with Mr Bob
Ursem, Scientific Director of the Botanic Garden, Delft
University of Technology, who has gained recognition for
his patented inventions for collecting fine dust and ultra
fine dust, and ENS Europe which was responsible for the
calculations and construction.
The tower, which resembles a giant vacuum cleaner, is
equipped with environment-friendly and patented ozonefree ion technology that filters the dir ty air. It uses
technology similar to that for indoor air purifiers but is
reinforced for outdoor use. Created specifically for public
parks, the 7.0 m x 3.5 m modular system is made of lightweight aluminium and has a slightly tapered sculptural
form. The giant smog-sucking vacuum cleaner uses patented,
low-energy ionisation technology.
The tower produces smog-free bubbles of air and releases
it into the public space, allowing people to breathe and
experience clean air for free. The tower cleans 30,000 m3
29
reduce the smog in the whole city, based on 10 nm or
larger sized particulate matter and including the elementary
carbon of gas exhausts.
According to Mr Ursem, Rotterdam’s filter can easily be
scaled up to help alleviate Beijing’s smog. The tower is
not only a local solution, but also a sensory experience
for a clean future. The experience that the tower provides is a huge incentive for citizens, NGOs, the cleantech industry, and governments to work together to free
all cities from smog.
A computer programme calculates the needed devices and number of applied UFDRS units for cities. Such
calculations have been done for Rotterdam and they can
be performed for other cities, as well.
Mr Ursem points out that New York City is already one
of the first cities to show an interest in the system, with
an order for 12 street-cleaning cars featuring the air filter.
There will also be a pilot air-filter project in Eindhoven, and
negotiations are taking place for a similar project in Paris.
Yet, while smog filters may offer some respite to suffering
residents of booming cities, no one technology or tactic
can be as effective as working on the root causes of air
pollution.
The Smog Free Tower
of air per hour, runs on green wind energy and uses the
same amount of electricity as a water boiler.
Mr Roosegaarde says that the Smog Free Tower was
launched to demonstrate the possibility of a clean future.
The Smog Free Tower is part of a bigger picture, namely
the Smog Free Movement, built with contributions from
the #SmogFreeMovement crowd on Kickstarter, and
support from the City of Rotterdam, Port of Rotterdam,
DOEN and Eneco.
Technology and operation
The Smog Free Tower draws in par ticulate matter polluted air from all surrounding areas, with the use of
innovative and patented particle capture technology.
The capture technology is based on a high voltage source
that sends electrons to hit particles 10 nanometres (nm)
in diameter and larger, knocking off electrons from the airborne particles, converting them into positively charged
particulate matter.
The ultra-fine dust and fine dust particles drift off from
the high voltage charged electrode, and follow the field
lines towards the grounded counter electrode, and
become fixed through chemical bonding at the counter
electrode. The tower uses little electricity and is safe.
Tested at the highest KEMA test qualification in the
Netherlands, the system was also European-cer tified as
a safe device in 2008. The clean air that is blown out
again creates a 'Smog Free Park'. People can inhale the
clean air, that is, in terms of particulate matter 10 nm or
30
larger in diameter, 70% cleaner than the air in open air
settings in the rest of the city, and 99% cleaner than the
air indoors.
Equipped with an applied ventilator, the tower requires
1,700 W to operate daily - which is the amount of electricity required for a water boiler. The electrical chargebased capture system, the actual charging of particulates
and fixation to the grounded counter electrode, use only
a few Watt-hours of energy. The tower currently runs on
wind energy powered by Eneco, and is also able to run on
solar energy.
SCALING UP TO MEET GLOBAL NEEDS
The Smog Free Tower is not intended to clean a whole
city of smog. This single tower is a device to show that it
is possible to clean the air in a small area. Larger devices
have been created and installed elsewhere and show a far
more significant reduction on a large scale. A large-scale
unit, called the ‘titan version’, purifies a whole factory plant
and its vicinity.
The system has been tested in a parking garage facility,
with two equal units, and it purifies the air at the parking
garage and the shopping mall on top of the garage. People living in the vicinity of the Ultra Fine Dust Reduction
System (UFDRS) equipped parking garage have indicated
that the impact of the clean air can be felt within a circumference of about half a kilometre.
An estimation to purify a city can be done using existing parking garages available in every city. For example,
Rotterdam needs about 46 of these parking garages to
WIDE RANGE OF APPLICATIONS
The dirt collected from the filter is normally cleaned by
scraping the captured particulates off the grounded plate,
every couple of months, depending on the concentrations
of fine dust and ultra-fine dust.
Mr Roosegaarde has taken his artistic vision further and
converted the collected smog particles into jewellery such
as rings and cufflinks!
The Smog Free Tower project and the Smog Free Park
device using this tower, designed by Studio Roosegaarde
are not the first applications of the Fine Dust Reduction
System (FDRS). Besides parking garages and factory plants,
the FDRS is also used in poultry farms, pig stables, homes
and offices, as an indoor portable device called 'Embrace'.
Future plans include multiple applications in hospitals,
school playgrounds in urban cities, freeways and tunnels,
as well as in fog removal and in the creation of permanent
fog-free spaces in open air areas to secure traffic.
(More information can be obtained from the Netherlands
Foreign Investment Agency. Contact: Ms Suzanne Sweerman,
Executive Director, South East Asia, Tel: +65 6739 1135,
Email: [email protected], or Ms Adeline Tan,
Senior Project Manager, Tel: +65 6739 1137, Email:
[email protected] or visit www.investinholland.com)
Reducing health risks from pollutants
A recent World Health Organization (WHO)
repor t highlights the urgent need to reduce
emissions of black carbon, ozone and methane as well as carbon dioxide - which all contribute to
climate change. Black carbon, ozone and methane
- frequently described as shor t-lived climate
pollutants (SLCPs) - not only produce a strong
global warming effect, they contribute significantly
to the more than 7 million premature deaths
annually linked to air pollution.
The report, ‘Reducing global health risks through
mitigation of shor t-lived climate pollutants’,
produced in collaboration with the Climate and
Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Shor t-Lived
Climate Pollutants, reveals that interventions to
cut SLCPs can reduce disease and death and contribute to food security, improve diets and increase
physical activity.
Four interventions rated medium to high in
terms of improving health, reducing SLCP emissions
and preventing climate change.
•Reducing vehicle emissions by implementing
higher emissions and efficiency standards could
reduce black carbon and other co-pollutants
from fossil fuels.
•Policies and investments that prioritise dedicated rapid transit such as buses and trains
and foster safe pedestrian and cycle networks
can promote multiple benefits, including safer
active travel and reduced health risks from air
and noise pollution, physical inactivity, and road
traffic injuries.
•Providing cleaner and more efficient stove and
fuel alternatives to the approximately 2.8 billion low-income households worldwide dependent on primarily wood, dung and other
solid fuels for heating and cooking, could reduce
air pollution-related diseases.
•Encouraging high and middle-income populations
to increase their consumption of nutritious
plant-based foods, could reduce heart disease
and some cancers, and slow methane emissions
associated with some animal-sourced foods.
Jewellery made with smog particles
31
CHEMICAL & PETROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Best practice tames the energy beast
by Sunil Patil, Director of Business Consulting, APAC Engineering, AspenTech
Energy management is essential to the sustainability and profitability of an operation. Second to raw
materials, energy is the largest expense in most chemical and refining processes. Those refineries
and petrochemical companies who invest in energy efficiency gain a competitive advantage through
improved operating margins, production flexibility and better carbon footprints.
Mr Sunil Patil
Improving energy consumption should
be seen as a business opportunity
and embedded within all aspects of
the enterprise. External and internal
factors make energy optimisation
an on-going challenge in any operation. Energy sources, supply and costs
are changing and evolving. Feedstock
shifts impose adjustments in operating strategies. Sales contracts impose
constraints. Environmental regulations
and taxes can force operating shifts
whilst equipment ages with time and
its condition impacts operating effectiveness (ie heat exchangers age and
get fouled).
So, how can refineries and petrochemical companies keep energy
efficiency at the forefront of their
thinking, in the midst of business complexity and uncertainty?
Tackling energy inefficiency is divided into supply-side and demandside areas. On the demand-side, there
are various strategies for reducing energy demand. Fundamentally, making
more efficient use of all heating and
cooling sources presents opportunities in a plant. This is known as heat
integration and is tackled during design, but also in any operating facility.
Demand can be reduced through
better operation and maintenance of
process equipment. Heat exchangers
encounter a variety of operating chal-
32
lenges ranging from fouling on heat
transfer surfaces, vibration and hydraulic issues. Process strategies can
have a significant impact on energy
use, for instance, adjusting operating
temperatures, tuning and adjusting
the column tray and flow. Reducing
process variability (through optimisation and real-time control) can significantly improve efficiency. On the
supply-side, actively managing the
available utility sources based on their
temporal pricing and supply typically can achieve enormous savings.
In summary, there are four strategic
opportunity areas for energy savings:
• Better design of new facilities
• Capital investment to revamp processes for energy efficiency
• Improvement in operating and
maintenance strategies
• Effective management of utilities
for either lowest cost or lowest
energy use
It is a combination of these four
elements that industry needs to address to respond effectively to the issues in energy efficiency and carbon
footprints.
DESIGN FOR ENERGY
EFFICIENCY
Process engineering design faces a
range of design objectives starting
with yield and quality targets, feedstocks, flexibility to handle changes
in feedstock and product over time,
safety and emissions compliance, operating stability and capital cost minimisation. When energy efficiency is
relegated in the priority list, there will
be a negative impact over the life of
the plant.
The enemy of energy-efficient
designs is time. Most projects today,
whether large or small, are under
huge schedule pressure. The most
proven or easiest-to-design process
(from a functional point of view) gets
developed. Incorporating heat integration (pinch) analysis into this early
stage can yield important lifecycle
benefits. Energy-efficient processes
not only save lifecycle costs, but also
capital through reduction in required
ratings. This will help to also save hot
and cold utilities.
Ways to improve energy optimisation at the early design stage include:
•Intuitive heat integration (pinch)
analysis and optimisation software
embedded within the process simulation enables the conceptual designer to rapidly investigate, screen
and select better designs from an
energy point of view.
•Detailed heat exchanger modelling within the process simulation
enables the conceptual designer
to look at trade-offs between heat
exchanger size, efficiency and operability, to achieve the best trade-offs
between capital and operating cost.
• Optimisation of the interaction between heating and cooling block
and key process units, such as
separation columns, using optimisation methods within leading
process simulators (eg Aspen
Plus and Aspen HYSYS).
Energy conservation is important,
not only to large bulk petrochemical
and fertiliser processes, but also to
new bio-conversion processes seeking commercial viability. Liquid Light
[1] is a start-up company which is
commercialising patented bio-tochemicals processes and Pan Pacific
[2] is a company addressing conceptual process design of algal biofuels
production. Both organisations have
made use of these early design ap-
proaches to improve the economics
of their novel processes. Braskem has
developed an innovative energy efficient process for synthesising isopropanol from sugarcane by utilising the
above approach. A 30% energy saving
is achieved in the early stage of process design with the right combination of process knowledge and software tools like energy analysis inside
Aspen Plus [8].
REVAMPING EXISTING
FACILITIES
Diverse opportunities are available
to improve energy use in existing facilities and many of these alternatives
also fortuitously improve yields. The
same tools, which are available during
front end design, are similarly available to the engineer looking at energy
conservation and plant improvement.
Several of the key opportunity areas
are heat exchanger reconfiguration,
replacement and addition of heat
exchanger, more aggressive preventative maintenance strategies to reduce
heat exchanger fouling, and process
changes in operating parameters and
configuration to improve efficiency.
A comprehensive energy analysis of an existing process facility may
identify dozens of individual opportunities for improvement, some of
which involve significant capital expense and others involve trade-offs
in production, achieving both energy
reduction and yield improvement. LG
Chem, in a recently published case,
gained both energy savings and a
10% yield improvement through column integration and better process
sequencing [3].
OPERATIONS AND
MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES
A range of operating practices and
strategies are available to collectively
improve the energy use within a plant.
These include:
Visibility of energy use KPIs
Visual KPI dashboards representing
plant performance are the starting
point for operational improvement.
When all operators, maintenance
personnel, planners and managers
understand the impact of their actions on plant energy use and costs,
it gives each individual in an operating
environment ownership of the energy challenge.
Heat exchanger maintenance
Heat exchanger fouling imposes
both energy and yield penalties.
Tuned process and heat exchanger
models can be used in combination
with real-time plant data to predict
heat exchanger fouling and to drive
improved maintenance schedules that
reduce plant outages and energy use
whilst increasing yields. Organisations,
such as INEOS [4] and Dow Chemical [5] have documented significant
revenue impact from these strategies.
Efficient production / energy
planning and scheduling
Establishing a link between production and energy scheduling ensures
secure energy supply for plants, reduces the need for flaring of surplus
fuel gas and venting of surplus steam,
and helps forecast possible bottlenecks. Better daily scheduling and
reacting to changes quickly with enhanced execution is crucial.
Aspen PIMS, Petroleum Scheduler and Aspen Utilities Planner are
the tool sets that provide a comprehensive ability to synchronise the
production planning, scheduling and
energy planning for these complicated objectives. Supply-side management in the production planning
process, energy costs and emissions
targets are becoming an integral part
of planning. Operational benefits can
be gained by planning for inbound
and outbound energy use (ie process
equipment and facilities energy use,
feedstock scheduling, purchase of external utilities versus use of internally
available sources). State-of-the-art
forward-planning tools, such as Aspen
PIMS, can help evaluate the trade-offs
between production, energy sources
and costs and emissions, enabling a
true optimal operation to be defined.
Aspen Utilities Planner software can
help plan the optimal utilities system’s set up and also advise operations personnel on actions they can
take on a real-time basis to improve
energy and economic performance.
Rompetrol has realised significant values and improved the bottom line of
refinery operation by adopting the
approach above, to close the gap
between hydrocarbon planning and
energy planning [6].
Real-time optimisation
combined with advanced
control
Advanced process control (APC) can
manage a process to reduce variability
and enable the plant to be run closer
to its desired performance. This in
turn can reduce the overall energy
budget for the process and better
manage emissions within permitted
limits. Aspen DMC3 software is a new
generation of advanced process control that makes an advanced control
system more intuitive and maintainable. Real-time optimisation can be
combined with advanced process
control to further achieve energy
reduction. By running an analytical
process model continuously against
plant data, operating strategies can be
continuously revised based on actual
plant performance. Fertiliser manufacturer, Profertil, is an example of an
organisation that achieved millions
of dollars in annual benefit, from this
strategy [7].
EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
OF UTILITIES
The priority that companies place
on energy management fluctuates
in concert with trends in energy
prices and price uncertainty. This is
a short-sighted view. In the longer
term horizon, investments in energy
minimisation will pay off over an asset’s lifecycle. By achieving the same
outcomes through less energy usage,
organisations can implement more
efficient processes and embrace advanced technology to improve performance. Energy improvement has
the side benefit of improving process
yields. It also has sustainability benefits. Process plants, as major energy
consumers, will be increasingly under
regulatory and public scrutiny related
to their carbon footprint.
For many enterprises, the value
of energy reduction on profitability
is usually evident. The challenge is in
clearly identifying opportunities for
improvement and their capital and
operating implications. State-of-the-art
process simulation, analysis, planning,
33
scheduling, optimisation and control
software optimise energy usage by
managing operations across the enterprise. Capital savings can be made
by implementing more energy-efficient operational measures, resulting
in increased production and reduced
emissions.
Adopting best practice improves
the way companies source, trade and
use energy. Operating existing utilities
with minimum cost and maximum
reliability delivers the optimum production plan while considering everchanging environmental, organisational and technical constraints. Managers
can use best practice to make calculated, measured and sustainable decisions, while meeting regulations and
improving production standards. By
considering total energy and utilities
systems, leading energy management
software tools provide a process
organisation the perfect solution to
taming the energy beast, from design
through operation, and help dramatically improve margins.
REFERENCES
[1] Zhu Yizu (2013): Liquid Light, presented at OPTIMIZE 2013, Boston,
IChemE Awards recognise achievements in
chemical engineering
The National University of Singapore (NUS) was the winner in three categories at the
Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Awards 2015 Dinner, held at the Shangri-La Hotel,
Singapore, on 22 October 2015.
Energy management is essential to the sustainability and profitability of refineries and
petrochemical companies.
MA, May 2013.
[2] Dunlop Dr Eric (2012): Pan Pacific, presented online in a public AspenTech webinar, October 2012.
[3] Yoo Sungchi (2013): LG Chem,
presented at Aspen Technology and
Innovation Forum, Seoul and Tokyo,
December 2013.
[4] Pes and Peyrigain (2006): INEOS,
Aspen EDR User Meeting, Cologne,
GY, December 2006.
[5] Kolesar Dave (2010): Dow
Chemical, Aspen Global Conference,
Houston TX, May 2010.
[6] Iulian Lemnaru etc, Rompetrol:
Aspen PIMS™ & Aspen Orion™/
MBO Users’ Conference, 2005.
[7] Raspanti C (2010), Profertil: AspenTech Global Conference, 2010.
[8] Webinar with Braskem: Guarantee the Optimal Solution to Energy
Management with Activated Energy
Analysis, 5 November 2014.
Process safety leadership matters at Hazards 26
Registrations are now open for
Europe’s leading process safety
conference, Hazards 26, which
will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland,
from 24 to 26 May 2016.
First staged in 1960, Hazards is
widely regarded as Europe’s leading
process safety conference.
Organised by the Institution
of Chemical Engineers (IChemE)
in association with the Mary Kay
O’Connor Process Safety Center,
in Texas, USA, Hazards 26 will focus
on the crucial topic of leadership
and competence in process safety.
Over 350 delegates are expected
to participate in a programme that
will feature leading speakers from
industry, academia and regulatory
34
bodies.
This year’s conference will welcome former Chief Executive of
Shell UK and Chair of the COMAH
Strategic Forum, Ken Rivers. Vice
President of Process Safety at BP,
Cheryl A Grounds will also be a
keynote speaker, reflecting on her
30-year career in process safety,
and Alan Chesterman, Apache
North Sea Senior Manager, will
discuss the prevention of offshore
major accident hazards in the UK
continental shelf.
This year’s event received a record-breaking number of abstracts.
Newly honoured Dame Judith
Hackitt, IChemE Past President
and Chair of the Health & Safety
Executive (HSE) said, “Process
safety conferences such as Hazards
26 provide an important reminder
that safety is of the utmost importance in our industry. We are all
responsible for our own safety and
for the safety of those around us regardless of role, seniority or job
title”.
IChemE’s Safety Centre will host
a free-of-charge workshop at the
event. The session will be led by
Centre Director Trish Kerin and Dr
Sam Mannan from the Mary Kay
O’Connor Process Safety Center.
It will focus on the current status
of process safety worldwide with the aim of building a future
roadmap for the discipline.
IChemE Awards forms part of IChemE's Global Awards
programme which celebrates excellence and innovation
in chemical engineering.
IChemE’s Deputy Chief Executive, Mr Justin Blades, was
on hand to host the evening and announce the winner of
the Research Project of the Year Award, from a shortlist of
nine. A team from NUS received the trophy for its work
‘Carbon capture using innovative adsorbents’. The project
also won in the Sustainable Technology category.
Dr Han Gang from NUS was named Best Young Chemical Engineer in Research. His latest work on cleaner water
and energy production has generated considerable excitement among the membrane science community.
Singapore Polytechnic won in the Education and Training category with its entry ‘Innovative Teaching of Chemical
Process Safety’. The trophy was presented by the former
Chairman of IChemE’s Singapore Board, Mr Steve Puckett.
Glaxo Wellcome Manufacturing took the Process Safety
award, sponsored by ABB Consulting, for its first venture
into continuous manufacturing of active pharmaceutical
ingredients. The project delivers a significant reduction in
the number of process steps and improved safety performance. The Singapore-based operation is part of the
multinational pharmaceutical company GSK.
IChemE’s Singapore Board Chair, Mr Joe Eades, expressed his satisfaction at the quality of the entries. He
said, “Singapore is home to nearly 600 IChemE members
and we are proud of their success stories in industry and
academia. Our awards dinner provides a platform to recognise and celebrate these achievements, clearly demonstrating that chemical engineering matters in Singapore”.
Mr Eades presented two other accolades during the
dinner. Prof Neal Tai-Shung Chung received IChemE's new
Plants to fuel project wins design prize
A team from Imperial College, London, has been
named winners of the 2015 Macnab-Lacey Student
Design Prize, for its design of a biomass-to-liquid technology which turns plant waste into fuel.
The prize is awarded annually, by the Institution of
Chemical Engineers (IChemE), to the design project
that best demonstrates how chemical engineering
practice can contribute to a more sustainable world.
The nine members of the team are all final year
Underwood Medal, and Modec’s Technical Safety Engineer,
Mr Ahmad Firman Masudi, was presented with a certificate confirming his new status as IChemE's first Associate
Member (Process Safety) in Singapore.
Research Project of the Year Award
(Singapore) sponsored by Johnson Matthey
Winner: ‘Carbon capture using innovative adsorbents’,
National University of Singapore
Highly commended: ‘Clean water and renewable energy
production’, National University of Singapore
Education and Training Award (Singapore)
sponsored by the IChemE Education & Training
Special Interest Group
Winner: ‘Innovative teaching of chemical process safety’,
Singapore Polytechnic
Process Safety Award (Singapore) sponsored
by ABB
Winner: ‘Continuous API manufacturing project’, Glaxo
Wellcome Manufacturing Pte Ltd
Highly commended: ‘SJI goal zero: no leaks journey’, Shell
Jurong Island
Sustainable Technology Award (Singapore)
sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline
Winner: ‘Carbon capture using innovative adsorbents’,
National University of Singapore
Highly commended: ‘Marine ballast water treatment system’, Coldharbour Marine
Young Chemical Engineer in Research Award
(Singapore) sponsored by Shell
Winner: Han Gang, National University of Singapore
Highly commended: Aghayeva Nazilya, Sumgait State
University and Jinsong He, National University of Singapore
chemical engineering students at the college.
They were mentored through the project by Dr
Denis Dugwell, Distinguished Research Fellow, Depar tment of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College.
The concept tackles a real-world issue of a possible
fuel crisis, as well as the need to reduce CO2 emissions
in the atmosphere.
IChemE’s Sustainability Special Interest Group, which
administers and judges the competition, was impressed
by Imperial’s strong analysis of alternative processes
using sustainability principles.
35
EVENTS
PROFILE
Remote-entrepreneurship
Energy leaders at SIEW 2015 conclude
discussions on Global Energy Transitions
From business school project to commercial success
Mr Joseph Ong envisioned an F&B enterprise, based on
his ground-breaking concept called ‘remote-entrepreneurship’, as part of his MBA project at the Manchester Business
School in Singapore.
He went on to convert his ideas into action, resulting in
the creation of One Rochester Group which has become
one of Singapore’s largest lifestyle F&B enterprises.
Especially since Mr Ong’s achievement is based on the
fundamental premise that one can star t a successful
business without having to leave one’s job (remoteentrepreneurship), it has attracted a great deal of interest
and Mr Ong has consequently become a highly soughtafter speaker at seminars and talks.
Mr Ong graduated from Nanyang Technological University
with a Bachelor's degree. He has also studied at the
Manchester Business School in Singapore and obtained an
MBA (Distinction) from the University of Manchester.
Mr Ong began his working career in finance, 20 years
ago, with positions in Ernst and Young, KPMG and
Ar thur Andersen. From 2004, he worked for Symantec,
becoming the youngest Vice President (Asia-Pacific and
Japan) in 2013.
It was while he was working for Symantec that he did
his MBA, as part of which he conceptualised and set up
the One Rochester Group.
He has taken his interest in sharing his knowledge a step
further, by writing the book 'REMOTE-ENTREPRENEURSHIP - A Revolutionary Approach to Entrepreneurship
with Significantly Less Risk and Higher Chance of Success'.
The book describes an approach to entrepreneurship
that has not been so thoroughly examined before.
Presented in two major parts, which address the theory
and practice of remote-entrepreneurship, it looks at the
10-year journey of Mr Ong’s business experiment and its
eventual success, whilst he continued to work in a multinational company.
The book has received considerable praise from
various quarters, ranging from academia, private sector
business, entrepreneurs and investors.
Manchester Business School in
Singapore
Manchester Business School in Singapore (MBS
Singapore) believes that executive learning is not
only key to the success of ambitious and aspiring
professionals, it must also complement their busy
executive lifestyles and provide relevant rewards.
The top quality, flexible and portable Manchester
Global MBA Programme include face-to-face
workshops combined with online learning, to
form a highly effective blended learning approach.
As part of the six global executive centres located
at Manchester, Dubai, Shanghai, Hong Kong,
Singapore and Sao Paulo, students in Singapore
have the option of attending workshops in two
other centres outside their own, providing them
with additional networking opportunities.
Students benefit from the best efforts of the
academic and administrative staff and from the
resources provided.
MBS Singapore strives to provide a comfortable,
yet effective learning environment that enables
students to connect with one another, within a
cultural melting pot. The idea-sharing, inspiration
and networking make the experience more
valuable and rewarding.
Mr Joseph Ong speaking at the MBS Singapore Centre.
The audience at the evening talk.
36
Minister S Iswaran delivering the opening remarks
The audience at the Opening. Keynote Session.
Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, presents
the Opening Keynote Address.
The 8th annual Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW 2015) was
held from 26 to 30 October 2015 at
Sands Expo and Convention Centre,
Marina Bay Sands. The event sawmore than 28,000 top energy leaders,
representing businesses, governments
and international organisations, from
60 countries, sharing insights and perspectives on the theme ‘Global Energy Transitions’.
In a special message, Mr Ban Kimoon, Secretary-General of the United Nations said SIEW’s theme ‘provides the opportunity to reflect on
the major volatility in oil prices and
the critical importance of alternative
energy options’.
Diverse views from energy
thought-leaders were shared at SIEW
2015’s anchor events - the SIEW
2015 Opening Keynote Address and
Singapore Energy Summit:
“Following the great plunge in oil
and gas prices, we are on track for the
largest fall in upstream investment in
dollars terms ever in 2015 and there
are real risks of further cuts in 2016.
The longer the squeeze on investment goes, the greater the risks to
future adequacy of supply - there is
no room for complacency on energy
security”, said Dr Fatih Birol, Executive
Director of the International Energy
Agency, as he delivered the SIEW
2015 Opening Keynote Address.
Celebrating achievements in the
energy sector, the Singapore Energy
Award was presented at SIEW 2015.
Mr Neil McGregor, Senior Managing
Director of the Enterprise Development Group at Temasek and former
CEO of Singapore LNG Corporation,
and the Housing & Development
Board (HDB) were conferred the
award for their contribution to Singapore’s energy sector.
Commemorating
Singapore’s
Golden Jubilee, the Singapore Energy
Story Exhibition was officially opened
by Mr S Iswaran, Minister for Trade &
Industry (Industry). Commissioned
by the Energy Market Authority, the
exhibition provided a glimpse into
Singapore’s energy history and past
milestones, and plans to ensure a
sustainable energy future. The Opening Ceremony was attended by Singapore’s energy pioneers, the Union
of Power & Gas Employees (UPAGE),
heads of generation companies and
students.
After SIEW, the Singapore Energy
Story Exhibition was displayed at the
Artrium@MCI located at the Ministry
of Communications & Information
(MCI) from 23 November to 17 December 2015.
Adding their voices to SIEW 2015,
some 300 youths participated in
Youth@SIEW activities. Students from
secondary schools, junior colleges, Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs)
and universities took part in a lively
Q&A session with Minister S Iswaran
during ‘In Dialogue with Youth’. The
popular Youth Energy Showcase profiled 13 innovative energy projects
such as an intelligent building energy
management system, a battery rejuvenating charger and a stretchable
generator to harvest wave energy.
SIEW 2016 will be held from 24
October to 28 October 2016 at
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
Minister S Iswaran presents the Singapore Energy
Award to Mr Neil McGregor (image on top) and to
the representative of HDB (image below).
37
EVENTS
NEWS
Smart greening solutions and innovations
unearthed at GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015
GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015 and International Skyrise Greenery Conference 2015 were officially opened
by Mr Lawrence Wong, Minister for National Development. At the Official Opening are, from left, Mr Aloysius
Arlando, CEO, SingEx Holdings; Mr Kenneth Er, CEO, National Parks Board, Singapore; Mr Lawrence Wong,
Minister for National Development, Singapore; Mr Goh Eng Lam, Chairman, Landscape Industry Association
of Singapore; and Mr Damian Tang, Chairman, International Skyrise Greenery Conference Committee and
Chairman and President, Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects.
GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015 was
held from 5 to 7 November 2015 at
Singapore EXPO Exhibition and Convention Centre.
Organised by SingEx Exhibitions (SingEx), in partnership with
the National Parks Board (NParks),
Landscape Industry Association (Singapore) (LIAS) and the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects (SILA),
GreenUrbanScape Asia hosted 170
exhibitors and brands from 23 countries, and close to 60 distinguished international speakers.
The event, which was officially
opened by Mr Lawrence Wong, Minister for National Development, featured three days of intense high-level
discussions and networking among
international delegates and attendees.
GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015, the region’s leading platform for urban design,
landscape and greenery, included an
exhibition and the International Skyrise
Greenery Conference (ISGC), and also
saw the introduction of GreenUrbanScape Asia Congress this year,
The event successfully attracted
over 3,000 attendees from 32 countries from the Asia Pacific, Europe and
United States, including buyer delegations from China, Indonesia, Taiwan
and Vietnam. The delegations found
the programme effective as they
managed to meet their business objectives within a short time-frame and
38
established links for collaboration not
only within Singapore but also in Asia.
Close to S$14 million of confirmed
and expected sales were generated,
emphasising GreenUrbanScape Asia’s
increasing significance as a platform
for industry players to make meaningful connections that drive business.
Highlighting the success of the
second edition of GreenUrbanScape
Asia, Mr Adrian Sng, Director (Project Management) of SingEx Exhibitions said, “We are heartened by
the response to GreenUrbanScape
Asia 2015, especially the inaugural
GreenUrbanScape Asia Congress, International Skyrise Greenery Conference, the hosted buyer programme
and technical tours. This reflects the
growing concerns and interest in the
urban greenery, landscape and design
industry, and the need for industry
platforms for knowledge transfer, focused discussions and business networking to explore opportunities in
Asia”.
Dr Leong Chee Chiew, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, and
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of
the National Parks Board, Singapore,
said, “To fulfil Singapore’s City in a
Garden vision, we have embedded
the built urban environment within a
pervasive network of gardens, parks,
nature reserves, park connectors and
tree-lined streetscapes. As we adopt
innovative ways like skyrise greenery to intensify greenery in our city,
GreenUrbanScape Asia and the two
conferences - the inaugural GreenUrbanScape Asia Congress and the
International Skyrise Greenery Conference - provide useful platforms to
share and discuss key technologies
and solutions that will help Singapore
and other cities build a sustainable
environment through urban greenery
and landscape architecture".
Attended by over 260 delegates,
GreenUrbanScape Asia Congress
was kicked-off by Prof Leo Tan, Director (Special Projects), Department of
Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science,
National University of Singapore. He
shared about the history of greenery
in Singapore, and how the approach
to ‘flipping the paradigms’ and going
against the conventional method of
doing things have contributed to the
city becoming an international icon of
urban greenery and landscaping despite our limited water and land resources.
Attesting to the success of
GreenUrbanScape Asia 2015, Mr
Veera Sekaran, Managing Director
of Greenology who was a returning exhibitor, remarked, “A lot more
companies from Singapore and Asia
should come and participate at
GreenUrbanScape Asia as the exhibition is not just about landscaping
– it is about future-proofing urbanisation and greenery. New technologies
were showcased at the event that I
believe will help the industry progress
towards the future”.
The next GreenUrbanScape
Asia will be held in Singapore in
November 2017.
Visitors and exhibitors interacting at the exhibition.
Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore partners REC
for solar installation project
Aerial view of the APBS solar installation.
Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore
(APBS), a HEINEKEN operating
company, and Renewable Energy
Corporation (REC) recently announced the establishment of a
par tnership that will see the homegrown brewery make the leap towards utilising solar energy.
Through a Power Purchase
Agreement (PPA), REC, a leading
global provider of solar energy solutions, will be providing clean energy for APBS’ facilities. The agreement will see REC’s award-winning,
high-performance TwinPeak panels
mounted across three rooftops at
APBS, making it HEINEKEN’s first
solar installation project in the Asia
Pacific region and also its largest
rooftop installation worldwide. It
will also represent one of REC’s
biggest carbon-saving initiatives to
date.
At 2.196 MWp, this solar installation will be approximately four
times the size of typical corporate
solar installation projects.
Scheduled to run for the next 25
years, the PPA will see APBS generate approximately 2.3 million kWh
of clean energy annually. Generated
through 8,038 REC solar panels that
are made in Singapore and span
an area equivalent to three FIFA
football fields in size, the resulting
renewable energy will help APBS
mitigate 1,500 tonnes of carbon
emissions annually and reduce its
carbon footprint by approximately
20%.
“At APBS, sustainability is very
much a business imperative. This
launch is a milestone in our journey
towards Brewing a Better World,
and through our PPA with REC,
places us at the forefront of sustainability within the manufacturing industry here. We hope this par tnership will pave the way for the future
adoption of clean energy initiatives
within the various commercial industries”, said Mr Kenneth Choo,
Managing Director, HEINEKEN Asia
Pacific.
“The PPA model will change the
way businesses view renewable
energy. Through this model, REC
absorbs the investment and maintenance costs of installing solar systems on rooftops. Building owners
need only pay for the consumed
solar energy generated from their
roofs at an agreed rate which is
fixed for the next 25 years", said
Mr Steve O’Neil, Chief Executive
Officer, REC.
A close-up of the solar panels on the roof-top.
“We are delighted that APBS has
embarked on this journey with us.
The adoption of solar technology allows our partner companies to operate in a responsible and sustainable
manner for both people and the environment, and we believe this to be
the first of many such future partnerships as we help shape the future of
sustainable energy adoption here and
in the region”, he added.
Committed to its vision that every
person benefits from electricity generated directly from the sun, this project marks a milestone in REC’s efforts
to meet current and future demands
of the industry in Singapore and the
region. A leading global provider of
solar energy solutions, REC helps organisations, large and small, achieve
their energy needs through competitively priced, efficient and sustainable
solar products.
39
NEWS
NEWS
A new standard template for financing energy
efficiency retrofits for buildings
To help building owners overcome the initial financial
barrier to retrofit their buildings, the Singapore Green
Building Council (SGBC) has collaborated with the
Building and Construction Authority (BCA) to develop
a standard EPC (energy performance contract) template for building owners and EPC firms. The EPC template was developed in consultation with several established EPC firms and building owners. The standard
template assists in accelerating the retrofitting process
by clearly spelling out the key conditions of contract
for both the building owner and the EPC firm, so that
building owners can better focus on the critical component in any EPC - the energy savings guaranteed.
The EPC template complements the Building Retrofit Energy Efficiency Financing (BREEF) scheme by BCA
which offers financing to building owners, Management
Corporation Strata Titles (MCSTs), Special Purpose Vehicles and EPC firms, for energy efficiency retrofits.
In an EPC, the EPC firm will guarantee specific energy savings for the building over a set period of time,
either in monetary terms or a savings percentage. The
EPC firm can either provide financing to under take all
the necessary works to complete the retrofit of the
building, or the building owner can finance the retrofit.
For the first option, the building owner will not need to
incur an initial financial outlay to star t saving energy. In
both cases, the cost of these works will be offset by the
energy savings resulting from the retrofitting.
“With this standard template, building owners can
ease into building retrofit projects, allowing their buildings to become more energy-efficient and with a
healthier environment for their occupants. Having in
place an EPC will also allow building owners to focus on
other aspects of the building, knowing that the building’s
energy efficiency and performance are in the hands of
professionals”, said Mr Chia Ngiang Hong, President of
SGBC.
As buildings present a tremendous oppor tunity to
reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of climate
change, this new EPC template is part of SGBC’s commitments made during Buildings Day at COP21 in Paris.
“As Singapore remains committed to reduce its
emissions through its Intended Nationally Determined
Contributions, retrofitting existing buildings through an
energy performance contract can lower the carbon
emissions intensity of buildings and create a more sustainable and greener built environment”, Mr Chia added.
In the latest BCA Building Energy Benchmarking Repor t 2015, a study on 83 existing buildings which are
cer tified to have met the Green Mark Gold rating or
higher showed that retrofitting existing buildings can
save up to S$41 million annually.
40
“There is a strong business case to retrofit energyinefficient buildings. The EPC provides a market solution
to help building owners achieve energy savings and it
has been gaining popularity over the years. It is now
timely to launch the standard template contract, putting together the best practices. We hope that this will
inspire confidence in building owners to make the decision to embark on energy-saving initiatives”, said Dr
John Keung, CEO of BCA.
Sim Lim Tower, Ngee Ann City and Treetops Executive Residences are proof of older buildings that have
gleaned tremendous benefit from EPCs.
Thirty-six-year-old Sim Lim Tower has achieved 41%
savings in electricity bills (excluding that of tenants)
with average monthly energy savings of approximately 86,000 kWh, since the retrofits were completed in
March 2015 under an EPC arrangement.
Mr Lee Ong Chun, Chairman, MCST of Sim Lim
Tower, said, "The retrofit has improved our building’s
energy performance, efficiency and occupants’ comfor t.
In achieving the BCA Green Mark GoldPlus Award, the
entire exercise has added value and enhanced the image
of our building. The EPC firm can help to oversee the
efficiency upkeep of the retrofitted works to ensure the
same efficiency is maintained at all times, hence sustaining long-term energy savings”.
Twenty-five-year-old Ngee Ann City, an iconic building along Orchard Road, is expected to enjoy estimated
energy savings amounting to more than 20% of electricity bills (excluding that of tenants) or equivalent to
more than six million kWh per year, through its energy
efficiency retrofits.
Mr Eric Chan, General Manager of Ngee Ann Proper ty Management Pte Ltd, said: “Under the EPC, energy
savings generated will be sufficient to pay for these retrofits over the term of the contract. After the contract
ends, we will still continue to enjoy energy savings and,
at the same time, be able to do our par t to protect
the environment by reducing our carbon footprint. The
retrofits also enhance the building asset in terms of its
value. Any prospective buyer is willing to pay more for
an energy-efficient building as the operating expenses
will be kept to its minimum”.
Treetops Executive Residences, a 16-year old residential building, has reaped energy savings of 52%
percent after its retrofit.
“By having an EPC with a professional vendor, the
energy savings and measures that have been proposed
can be constantly measured and guaranteed”, said Mr
Tay Hock Soon, General Manager of Treetops Executive
Residences.
“The team can also give professional advice on how
the targets can be achieved and ensure that the im-
provement in energy efficiency is sustained in the longterm, even upon completion of the retrofits. As the expert in this area, the EPC firm can also advise on new
and better green initiatives that tap on the latest technology advancements to push for greater sustainability. This
green retrofit has also helped us to anchor our brand
position as an eco-friendly building in an increasingly
competitive market”.
The standard template EPC can be purchased from
SGBC in early 2016. EPC firms certified under SGBC’s Singapore Green Building Services (SGBS) labelling
scheme will use this contract in their EPC projects.
Mr Lim Fatt Seng, Managing Director of SGBS-certified
Comfort Management Pte Ltd and the project lead for
the EPC template, said, "This standard template comes
at an opportune time as building owners are increasingly looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their
existing buildings, especially older buildings. With this
template, there will likely be a greater and faster take-up
for EPC projects, which will benefit building owners, the
occupants and our future generations".
THE SINGAPORE GREEN BUILDING
SERVICES LABELLING SCHEME
First launched in 2012, the Singapore Green Building
Services (SGBS) labelling scheme aims to enhance green
building performance through the building industry’s delivery of related services. Understanding the role services
play in the construction value chain, the SGBS gives recognition to building consultants committed to building green.
Enhanced recognition under Green Mark 2015
With the introduction of Green Mark 2015, more emphasis is given to SGBS-certified firms. Under the Green
Mark for New Buildings (Non-Residential), SGBS-certified service providers, particularly Energy Performance
Contracting (EPC) firms, will be able to help green building projects accrue additional Green Mark points by
being part of the project team and/or by implementing
suitable projects that can guarantee operational system
efficiency for a minimum of five years.
Key assessment criteria
For SGBS certification, the following are assessed:
•Demonstration of key staff competencies and development
•Having green corporate practices in the entire business
value chain
•Supporting of the green building community
•Excellent track record in the delivery of green building
projects
SGBS label categories
•Architecture
•Mechanical & Electrical (M&E) Engineering
•Quantity Surveying
•Environmental Sustainability Design (ESD)
•Energy Performance Contracting (EPC)
SGBS-CERTIFIED EPC FIRMS
Name of Firm
Website
Barghest Building
Performance Pte Ltd
www.bbp.sg
Building System &
Diagnostics Pte Ltd
www.bsd.nforce.com.sg
Carrier Singapore Pte Ltd
www.carrier.com.sg
Cofely South East Asia
Pte Ltd
www.cofely.com.sg
Comfort Management
Pte Ltd
www.comfort.com.sg
DTZ Facilities &
Engineering Limited
www.dtz.com/singapore
E2green Pte Ltd
www.crescendas.com/businessportfolio/technology/e2green.html
G-Energy Global Pte Ltd
www.genergy.com.sg
Johnson Controls (S) Pte
Ltd
www.johnsoncontrols.sg/content/
sg/en.html
Kaer Pte Ltd
www.kaer.com
Siemens Pte Ltd
www.siemens.com/entry/sg/en/
Trane Distribution
Pte Ltd
www.trane.com
BREEF
BCA has been promoting the adoption of Green Mark
standards for existing buildings by encouraging building
owners to retrofit buildings which have yet to obtain the
BCA Green Mark certification.
However, high upfront cost and difficulties in securing loans have often been cited as the top few barriers
towards the adoption of energy efficiency (EE) retrofits.
Thus in 2011, BCA introduced the Building Retrofit
Energy Efficiency Financing (BREEF) scheme, in collaboration with participating Financial Institutions (FIs). The
scheme helps facilitate loans to building owners for the
EE retrofits, with BCA sharing 60% of the default risk
with the participating FIs.
Eligibility
The BREEF scheme is a financing programme designed
to provide credit facilities for commercial building owners, residential and non-residential MCSTs, EPC firms and
Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) and Special Purpose
Vehicles (SPVs), to carry out EE retrofits under an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) arrangement. The EPC
can ensure that a minimum level of energy savings can be
achieved. The scheme also provides credit facilities for the
purchase and installation of energy-efficient equipment.
Scheme conditions
The credit facilities can only be used for EE retrofits of
existing buildings, which will help the buildings achieve
the minimum Green Mark certification standard, and the
certification must be maintained for the period of the
loan tenure.
41
NEWS
NEWS
Call to action to create ‘Age of Food Efficiency’
At its World Cold Chain Summit to
Reduce Food Waste, held in Singapore recently, Carrier, a world leader
in high-technology heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration solutions, delivered a call to action to begin ‘The
Age of Food Efficiency’.
The conference, which was held
for the first time in Asia, attracted
131 delegates from 33 nations, including global leaders in the supply
chain private sector, academia, and
government, to discuss and develop
scalable, sustainable solutions to expand and improve the cold chain to
reduce food loss and waste.
Carrier is a part of UTC Climate,
Controls & Security, a unit of United
Technologies Corp.
Keynote speakers at the twoday conference included Dr Joseph
Mpagalile, Agro-food Industries Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO);
Didier Coulomb, General Director of the International Institute
of Refrigeration; and Clementine
O’Connor, Sustainable Food Systems Consultant, United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP).
Top takeaways from the
summit
• The summit endorsed the new
United Nations Sustainable Development 12.3 Goal that calls for
halving food waste, at retail and
consumer levels, as well as reducing food losses along the entire
global food supply chain, by 2030.
• The FAO is considering a new
Cold Chain Coalition to fight food
waste in developing countries.
• The International Institute of Refrigeration estimates 23% of food
loss and waste in developing countries is due to the lack of a cold
chain. For perspective, Ethiopia has
just 2 litres per person of refrigeration compared to 344 litres per
person in the US.
42
At the event, Carrier presented a donation of S$10,000 to ZeroWasteSG, a not-for-profit and non-government
organisation in Singapore dedicated to eliminating the concept of waste. In the picture are, from left, Mr John
Mandyck, Chief Sustainability Officer, UTC; Mr Eugene Tay, Executive Director, Zero Waste SG; Mr David Appel,
President, Carrier Transicold & Refrigeration Systems; and Mr Chiou Fun Sin, President, Global Container Refrigeration.
• A new, independent study shows
that greenhouse gas emissions associated with food waste could see
a 10-fold net reduction if developing countries have the same level
of cold chain implementation as
the developed world. This is powerful evidence that a green cold
chain can be effective not only in
feeding more people, but taking a
bite out of the astounding 3.6 gigatons of CO2 associated with food
waste, every year. If food waste
were a country, it would be the
third largest emitter of greenhouse
gases.The study confirms that clear
improvements are achievable.
• According to Prof Judith Evans of
London South Bank University, in
developed countries, 42% of food
waste happens at the household
level, confirming the need for
greater consumer awareness. The
UK awareness campaign ‘Love
Food Hate Waste’ is credited with
generating a 21% reduction in
household food waste since 2010,
she shared.
•The US Green Building Council’s LEED green building standard
could be an effective model for
consideration for a green cold
chain standard.
“One third or more of the food
we produce each year is never eaten,
Also at the event, Carrier presented a donation of S$10,000 to
ZeroWasteSG, a not-for-profit and
non-government organisation in Singapore dedicated to eliminating the
concept of waste, to help promote its
‘Save Food, Cut Waste’ campaign.
“We know there are many reasons why food is lost or wasted - but
among them is the lack of or the underdevelopment of the cold chain”,
said Mr John Mandyck, UTC Chief
Sustainability Officer and co-author
of ‘Food Foolish: The Hidden Connection Between Food Waste, Hunger and Climate Change’.
“Refrigeration is the best technology to ensure food safety for perishable goods and prolong their shelf
life. That is why this summit is so important, as it helps connect a global
dialogue on how we can sustainably
grow the cold chain - which in turn,
can reduce food waste and feed a
growing population with fresh foods
containing necessary micronutrients
for good health and development”,
he added.
“Over the last 20 years, we have
experienced the ‘Age of Energy Efficiency’, taking the same power base
and spreading it more efficiently
to urbanise in a sustainable manner. Energy efficiency has gone far,
with more to go. It is now time for
the ‘Age of Food Efficiency’, using the
same food supply base that produces
enough to feed 10 billion people enough for those on the planet today
and enough for those that will join
us in 2050 - and in the process avoid
more production and environmental
emissions that come with it. The potential to extend food supplies, with
the help of an improved green cold
chain, is extraordinary”, Mr Mandyck
said.
Carrier
Founded by the inventor of modern
air-conditioning, Carrier is a world
leader in high-technology heating,
air-conditioning and refrigeration solutions. Carrier experts provide sustainable solutions, integrating energyefficient products, building controls
and energy services for residential,
commercial, retail, transport and
food service customers. Carrier is a
part of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a unit of United Technologies
Corp, a leading provider to the aerospace and building systems industries
worldwide.
Trend Micro and ASUS partner to deliver a new
level of smart home security
Participants at the World Cold Chain Summit to Reduce
Food Waste. Hosted by Carrier, the event was held in
Singapore, recently.
yet more than 50% of the wasted
food can have its shelf life extended
by the cold chain”, said Mr David Appel, President, Carrier Transicold &
Refrigeration Systems.
“Only 10% of worldwide perishable foods are refrigerated today, so
there is immense opportunity to cut
food waste and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, by implementing or improving the cold chain. As a
leader in high-technology refrigeration solutions, Carrier actively contributes to the development of the
cold chain by providing a communication platform, like this Summit, where
all stakeholders have the opportunity
to share, learn and build sustainable
cold chain solutions to reduce food
waste”, he added.
Trend Micro Incorporated, a global
leader in security software and solutions, recently announced that it has
expanded the partnership with ASUS
for the new ASUS Smart Home
Gateway which will come equipped
with a Trend Micro security development kit (SDK), designed to establish
safe connections between smart devices, apps, and cloud services. The
two companies had collaborated
previously to create the Trend Micro
Smart Home Network solution for
wireless routers.
“As IoE becomes ubiquitous, the
chances of connected devices, such as
IP cameras, smart lighting, and refrigerators, getting hacked will increase,
as well. Should there be no security
measures in place, personal privacy
and safety will be at risk. With this in
mind, Trend Micro developers have
committed thoroughly to enhancing
in-house security to defend against
advanced threats. We are excited to
collaborate with ASUS once again to
integrate the Trend Micro SDK and
ASUS Smart Home Gateway. This
solution will filter and intercept malicious intrusions and attacks to protect the entire home network. We
hope our partnership will set an example for more vendors to emphasise IoT security for home-owners.
We would be most keen to partner
with more hardware makers to provide more custom smart home solutions that deliver comprehensive
protection for the connected home
environment”, said Mr Steven Hsu,
Director of Global Consumer Sales
Enablement & Business Development
at Trend Micro.
“Trend Micro has long been developing the most advanced security
protection technologies”, said Mr Jim
Yeh, Senior Director, Smart Home
Department at ASUS.
“We are elated to once again work
with them to bring our security solutions to the next level. By embedding
the Trend Micro SDK within the ASUS
Smart Home Gateway, this development offers well-rounded security
features for energy-saving homes”, he
added.
Trend Micro
Trend Micro Incorporated, a global
leader in security software, strives to
make the world safe for exchanging
digital information. Built on 26 years
of experience, Trend Micro solutions for consumers, businesses, and
governments provide layered data
security to protect information on
mobile devices, endpoints, gateways,
and servers, as well as data stored
in the cloud. Trend Micro provides
smart protection with innovative security technology that fits an evolving
ecosystem while remaining simple to
deploy and manage. A cloud-based
global threat intelligence system, the
Trend Micro Smart Protection Network infrastructure powers all Trend
Micro solutions, with additional support from more than 1,200 threat
experts around the globe.
43
NEWS
NEWS
National Instruments holds NIDays 2015 in
Singapore
National Instruments (NI), a leading provider of solutions that enable
engineers and scientists to solve engineering challenges, hosted its annual NIDays Graphical System Design Conference in Singapore, on 16
October 2015. Attended by more
than 300 engineers, educators and
scientists, NIDays 2015 featured over
15 hours of technical content across
18 sessions and three applicationspecific tracks focusing on Embedded
Systems, Automated Test and RF, and
Measurements.
“Our customers are faced with
the demand to create increasingly
complex and intelligent engineering
systems in the Industrial Internet of
Things (IIoT) realm. From connected
machines that drive greater efficiencies at factory floors or smart grids
that deliver sustainable energy, National Instruments continues to demonstrate our commitment to support
engineers and scientists in accelerating innovation and productivity with
our platform-based approach”, said
Mr Chandran Nair, Vice President for
Asia Pacific, NI.
“NIDays also provides an excellent opportunity to network and
connect with peers and domain
experts from both the industry and
academic institutions. We are excited to kick off NIDays 2015 in Singapore, and look forward to working with engineers and scientists in
the region to overcome escalating
complexity and make the Internet
of Things a reality”, added Mr Matej
Krajnc, Managing Director, ASEAN
& ANZ, NI.
At the morning keynote, speakers
from NI’s leadership team including
Mr Charles Schroeder, Vice President of Product Marketing for RF
and Wireless Communications, Mr
Chandran Nair, and Mr Matej Krajnc,
shared on how NI’s latest suite of
products is equipped to help speed
up test, reach measurement decisions
44
From left, Mr Chandran Nair, Mr Matej Krajnc and
Mr Charles Schroeder, from NI.
NIDays 2015 was attended by more than 300
engineers, educators and scientists.
faster, and enable smarter machines
in real-world IoT systems.
NIDays 2015 also served as a
platform to honour outstanding engineers and scientists in the region,
who play a critical role in addressing
technological challenges in areas such
as energy, advanced manufacturing,
wireless test and other high impact
research and development initiatives,
with the 2015 Engineering Impact
Awards.
The regional event series continued its route and was later held
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangkok,
Thailand; and Manila, Philippines.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE
PRODUCTS AT NIDAYS 2015
At NIDays 2015, held in Singapore,
NI announced the introduction of
high-performance test applications,
and a hardware and software boost
to its existing line of instruments
and automated test applications, including system design software LabVIEW 2015.
LabVIEW 2015
NIDays 2015 delegates were able to
test the latest version of LabVIEW,
which delivers marked speed improvements, development shortcuts
and debugging tools, to empower
developers to efficiently interact
with the systems they create.
Through the reuse of the same
code and engineering processes
across systems, LabVIEW is set to
accelerate engineering productivity,
with its impressive collection of features, to help developers save time
and money against the backdrop of
technology advancement, evolving
requirements, and increased timeto-market pressure.
LabVIEW has been used across
a wide variety of industries to drive
higher performance and product quality. LabVIEW 2015 further
equips engineers with support for
advanced hardware such as the new
Quad Core Performance CompactRIO and CompactDAQ Controllers, 14-slot CompactDAQ USB 3.0
chassis, Single-Board RIO Controllers, Controller for FlexRIO, eightcore PXI Controller, and High Voltage System SMU.
LabVIEW 2015 also reduces the
learning curve for employing a software-designed approach to quickly
create powerful, flexible, and reliable systems. With three applicationspecific suites that include a year of
unlimited training and certification
benefits, developers have unprecedented access to software and training resources to build better systems
faster.
At NIDays 2015, NI announced the introduction of
LabVIEW 2015.
JTC Aviation Two @ Seletar Aerospace Park
JTC Aviation Two @ Seletar Aerospace Park (SAP) caters to the demand from aerospace companies seeking small to medium spaces from 150 m2 to 1,500 m2
within the SAP. The development comes fitted out with
industrial floors of high specifications. Key features include double volume ceiling height, flexible unit sizes,
contiguous space, large floor plates (up to 1,500 m2),
ground and basement parking lots, loading bays accommodating up to 40 ft container trucks, and shared amenities such as a food cour t. Standing at 11 storeys high,
JTC Aviation Two is the tallest building in SAP, underscoring JTC Corporation’s (JTC) commitment to land
intensification.
Designed for sustainability
From the onset, the planning and design of JTC Aviation
Two has put long-term sustainability, resource efficiency
and social responsibility as key design principles.
These principles are achieved through strategies such
as utilising passive design to reduce energy demand, increasing efficiency through careful selection of systems
with low energy consumption, and the use of highly efficient mechanical and electrical systems. Together, these
strategies will achieve energy savings of more than 30%,
without affecting the building’s functional performance.
Aviation Two’s façade and roof design will reduce
heat gain through the use of high performance glazing
and insulating materials. Its walls are insulated to ensure
minimal heat transfer into the indoor environment. In
addition, the building’s massing and layout are oriented to reduce solar heat gain. The reduction of heat gain
through the building’s envelope can reduce its cooling load
demand and minimise the need for mechanical cooling
JTC projects win international accolades
JTC’s Jurong Rock Caverns (JRC) was one of the
five engineering projects from Singapore that won
the ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement
Awards 2015, at the 33rd Conference of the ASEAN
Federation of Engineering Organizations (CAFEO
33), held from 22 to 26 November 2015, in Penang,
Malaysia. Conferred by ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organizations (AFEO), the annual awards
pay tribute to engineering achievements that have
demonstrated outstanding skills and made significant
contributions to engineering progress and quality of
life in ASEAN.
Located 150 m below the ground, and 130 m beneath the seabed, JRC is the deepest known underground public works endeavour in Singapore to-date.
Meanwhile, at the MIPIM Asia Awards 2015, announced on 1 December 2015 in Hong Kong, JTC’s
Designed for sustainability, JTC Aviation Two @ Seletar Aerospace Park won a
Green Mark Platinum Award, under the New Non-Residential Building category, at
BCA AWARDS 2015.
systems. The building is also equipped with features such
as a high-efficiency chiller plant with a system efficiency of
0.546 kW/RT, a regenerative lift, and water-efficient fittings.
Its lighting system will also incorporate LED lighting and
motion sensors. With all these features, the ETTV for the
building will be less than 40 W/m2 (the achieved ETTV is
11.79 W/ m2).
Recycled materials such as recycled concrete aggregate
(RCA) and washed copper slag (WCS) have been used to
replace coarse and fine aggregate for concrete used in the
main building elements. Green building materials have also
been used extensively in this project, such as low VOC
(volatile organic compounds) paints and adhesives.
All images by JTC Corporation
Fusionopolis 2 clinched the award for ‘Best Mixed
Used Development’. The development won for its
innovation in housing Singapore’s largest R&D cleanroom facility and laboratory units, along with office
and retail space. It is also the first building in Singapore
to achieve a vibration-sensitive standard of VC-E to
support nanoscale device R&D.
Fusionopolis 2 wins the award for ‘Best Mixed Used Development’ at
MIPIM Asia Awards 2015.
45
NEWS
NEWS
Singapore Polytechnic launches real-world hangar
to mark a new milestone in engineering education
Singapore Polytechnic (SP) recently
opened the AeroHub, a new aerospace training facility. The purposebuilt facility is another milestone in
SP’s engineering education.
A ceremony held to mark the
opening of SP AeroHub was graced
by Ms Low Yen Ling, Parliamentary
Secretary, Ministry of Education and
Ministry of Trade and Industry, and
Mayor of South West CDC.
With a space of 4,660 m2, the
state-of-the-art, four-storey AeroHub
is equipped with facilities typically
found in an industry aircraft hangar.
These include a virtual simulator
training room and an aeronautical research and development centre.
The hangar will also house SP’s
newly acquired King Air B90 turboprop and Hawker 700 turbofan aircraft, along with a fleet of A4SU Super
Skyhawk and UH1H Huey helicopter.
These aircraft will be used to provide
experiential learning for the students
doing a Diploma in Aeronautical En-
gineering (DARE) or a Diploma in
Aerospace Engineering (DASE). It
will help students to appreciate and
acquire in-depth knowledge and
skills on aircraft structures, avionics
and engines.
Integrated learning experience
The AeroHub will house the Aeronautical and Aerospace Electronics Engineering laboratories and facilities under
one roof, and synergise the teaching
and learning activities for DARE and
DASE, including research & development and industry partnerships.
This unique integration will present
more opportunities for students from
various engineering courses to interact and learn from each other, and
jointly work on multi-disciplinary SP
as well as aviation industry projects.
Non-engineering students can also
be part of this learning experience so
that they can develop an appreciation
of aerospace engineering.
Students will not only hone their
technical skills, they will also acquire
The new AeroHub at SP
46
‘soft skills’ such as collaboration, communication, creativity and leadership.
This will ensure that they are well
placed in the aviation field, delivering
real-world solutions.
An example is the pair of portable,
basic flight simulators, that was successfully built by a cross-disciplinary
team of 20 DARE and DASE students for the Republic of Singapore
Air Force.
Boeing patents world’s first innovations by SP students
The AeroHub also marks a successful partnership between SP and
The Boeing Company (Boeing), the
world’s largest aerospace company.
Boeing has patented three novel inflight solutions that were jointly developed by an integrated team of six SP
students, from a range of Engineering,
Business and Design diplomas. This is
the first such collaboration involving
Boeing and an education institution in
Singapore. Boeing has also included
the six SP students as co-inventors of
these patents.
Over five weeks, the students
worked with Boeing researchers and
multiple teams of cabin crew to conduct in-depth user-centric studies.This
allowed the students to have a better
understanding of Boeing’s needs and
various challenges affecting the safety
and productivity of the cabin crew.
Based on the findings, the team conceived the following enhancements:
• A redesign of the air larders to
facilitate easy retrieval of items by
cabin crew
• A new galley sink with removable
covers that creates more workspace
• A lock system with visual indicators
that alerts cabin crew if a compartment is unlocked
These patents will be part of a
suite of fittings for new Boeing plane
models in the future.
Acknowledging the innovative patents, Ms Cynthia Vandewall, a Boeing
representative said, “These patents
are a testament to the SP students’
breadth of creativity and industrycentric skills. We are impressed with
the students’ commitment to continually deliver ideas that will best elevate air travel experience. We look
forward to more such successes with
SP students in the coming years.”
Ms Jess Chew, a Diploma in Interior Design graduate, who worked
on one of the Boeing patents, said, “It
was an invaluable learning experience.
Through working with the engineer-
Ms Low listening. A student explains how a UAV works.
ing students, I have learnt how to incorporate engineering concepts into
my future design projects. Working as
a team has also empowered me to
generate new ideas and to approach
problems from different perspectives”.
Enhanced partnerships with
leading industry partners
There will also be further collaborations with key aerospace industry
players in 2016.
Seventy SP students from DARE,
DASE and Diploma in Mechanical Engineering will be on enhanced internships with over 10 aviation companies.
They will work on close to 20 reallife industry projects with companies
such as Bombardier Aerospace, Pratt
& Whitney, SIA Engineering Company,
Singapore Jamco Services, ST Aerospace and Thales.
During the 16- to 18-week internship, students will be mentored by experienced engineers from each company. They will follow a structured
learning plan jointly developed by SP
and the company.
Students will enhance their technical skills as they learn how the various parts of an aircraft work and how
they are designed for optimum performance. This is coupled with a better
understanding of the various industries
and possible career options which they
can explore upon graduation.
An exemplary enhanced internship
involved the first batch of four DARE
and DASE students who underwent
a pilot attachment at Bombardier
Aerospace, the world’s leading business aircraft manufacturer.
The students spent 16 weeks creating a VIP Design Workshop, the first
in Southeast Asia. During their internship, they were mentored personally
by Bombardier’s General Manager, Mr
Simon Wayne, and experienced engineers. The next batch of SP engineering students will get a chance to work
on similar projects at Bombardier.
At Thales, a French company that
designs and builds electrical systems,
students will be on a different learning journey. They will design, develop
and integrate a series of data management and monitoring systems and
software, which will help improve the
productivity of aerospace engineers.
SP’s Principal and Chief Executive
Officer, Mr Tan Choon Shian, said, “This
new facility will further promote the
culture of multi-disciplinary learning
among our students. This will enable
them to deepen their skills, gain mastery and find a purposeful pathway in
engineering after graduation”.
Singapore Polytechnic
Established in 1954, Singapore Polytechnic (SP) is Singapore’s first polytechnic. It has 10 schools that offer 48
full-time diploma courses for close to
16,000 students. SP adopts a proven
creative teaching and learning framework and offers students a holistic,
authentic and industry-relevant curriculum, innovative and vibrant learning spaces, and enriching overseas
programmes.
SP staff and students with Boeing representative Ms Cynthia Vandewall (on extreme right) at the Boeing
hangar in Seattle, USA.
47
NEWS
App helps drivers to find available parking places
Continental, the international automotive supplier and
technology company recently launched Park&Go @SG, a
mobile app to help drivers navigate efficiently to available parking spaces in all major enter tainment, retail,
commercial, government buildings and Housing & Development Board (HDB) car parks in Singapore. The
app, which will be of great help in minimising traffic
congestion, is much more than a journey planner. It includes a map and a navigation system to help drivers
locate currently available parking spaces and give parking lot predictions, and an SMS service to inform them
of the price for the selected parking space on arrival.
In line with Park&Go @SG, Continental also announced
the launch of Continental Backend Platform, the backbone of the mobile app. The backend application ecosystem was developed by Continental’s Interior Division
to serve the company’s overall backend requirements
for the ‘Connected Car’, as well as generic requirements
for other connected applications.
Park&Go @SG
Park&Go @SG was developed by Continental in collaboration with A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research
(I²R) and Technische Universität München (Technical
University of Munich, TUM CREATE) at which an ITS
Lab was set up in April 2014 to research, study and
carry out test-bedding of a whole range of communications, information and automotive innovations and
technologies, to improve the safety, efficiency, and performance of transpor t systems in Singapore.
The Park&Go @SG mobile app is the result of this
collaboration between the three par tners.
With Park&Go @SG, drivers will be able to find
available parking places in advance, thereby overcoming
the problems of congestion and availability of limited
parking in commercial and residential areas, which are a
usual occurrence. With the mobile app, drivers will be
able to effectively plan their journey ahead and minimise their difficulties in locating available parking spaces.
The prediction methodology used in identifying
parking space is unique and Continental has launched
a patent for the mobile app. To add robustness to the
app’s software integration and enhanced capabilities,
Continental’s design engineers have included a chain
of additional services such as free navigation and an
SMS service to inform drivers of parking charges at
the parking location upon arrival. Also planned is information such as availability of handicap accessibility and
washing bays for HDB car park venues, in the future.
The Park&Go @SG app is developed for Singapore
with the active collaboration of HDB and Land Transpor t Authority (LTA).
48
The Park&Go @SG mobile app is currently available
to the public in the Android version, free-of-charge.
Continental will also be launching the iOS version.
Continental Backend Platform
Continental Backend Platform plays a pivotal function
as it acts as a central database for collecting real-time
data from external sources such as LTA, HDB and
other third-par ties like washing bay vendors, for the
Park&Go @SG app, for
instance. Apar t from its
central role of providing ‘live’ data to Park&Go
@SG, Continental Backend Platform will act as
a key enabler of Smar t
Mobility in the foreseeable future. This is par t of
Singapore’s Smar t Nation
initiatives as it provides a
highly reliable and secure
backend
environment
which can be trusted by
The new app provides free parking
OEMs, third-par ty opguidance in a simple and convenient
erators and consumers.
manner.
As one drives, the navigation feature helps to easily locate available parking space.
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