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SINGAPORE: At first glance, this three-storey structure looks no different from your average building.

On the ground floor, its lights shine, its fans whir, its air-conditioning units hum and employees go about their day-to-day work.

But the building, located at SP’s training centre at Woodleigh Park, is in fact disconnected from the national electricity grid.

Fully powered by renewable energy, it is the first zero-emission building in Southeast Asia powered by green hydrogen, SP Group announced on Wednesday (Oct 30).

READ: Singapore sets solar energy target for 2030 that would provide enough power for 350,000 homes

The Hydrogen Energy System used to power the three-storey building makes use of solar energy captured by solar panels on the grounds of the training centre.

This solar energy is used to conduct electrolysis – where water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen generated from this process is then channelled to tanks where it bonds with special metal alloy powders to form metal hydride.

When electricity is required, the stored hydrogen from the metal hydride tanks is then slowly released and passed through fuel cells to generate electricity.

The process is 100 per cent green, said SP in a press release, with zero carbon emissions.

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READ: PUB to deploy Singapore’s first large-scale floating solar panel system by 2021

“Buildings contribute 40 per cent of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide,” said Mr Brandon Chia, head of SP Group’s Centre of Excellence. “The Hydrogen Energy System provides a safe and compact way of storing green hydrogen which powers the region’s first zero-emission building.

“We believe this can be a significant contributor towards Singapore’s climate change pledge to cut national emissions intensity by 36 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.”

The Hydrogen Energy System, which is housed within a container outside the building and is fully automated, also tackles supply fluctuations and intermittency issues – common shortcomings of renewable energy, said SP.

When there is surplus renewable energy, this energy can be stored in the form of hydrogen in the metal hydride tanks. It can later be converted back to electricity when there is a deficit of renewable energy.

The use of the metal hydride tanks ensures that a large volume of hydrogen can be stored at a lower pressure, addressing the challenge of having a storage system which is safe for deployment in a highly urbanised area like Singapore, added SP.

READ: Greater participation in green workshops, amid calls for more climate change education in schools

Commentary: Climate action is our generation’s 1965

The system was developed in conjunction with Marubeni Corp and Tohuku University in Japan and was commissioned at the end of September. The building was taken off the main electricity grid and connected to the system from mid-October.

“The Group is always looking for new innovations that will be able to bring about, for our customers and for Singapore as a country, a more sustainable lifestyle,” Mr Chia told CNA during a visit to the building.

“We do this first to start building the capability. At this point in time the technology is new so it is comparatively more expensive … Where it becomes viable, we will be there with the capability to enable the deployment in Singapore.”

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/sp-group-first-zero-emission-building-green-hydrogen-12046124

SINGAPORE – A global blockchain-based carbon exchange was launched on Wednesday (Oct 30), offering a marketplace for airlines and other corporate buyers to trade securitised carbon emissions.

The new AirCarbon Exchange, by Singapore-based AirCarbon Pte Ltd, will provide a ready supply of credits, also called EEUs (eligible emission units), for those in the transportation industry to acquire carbon dioxide (CO2) offsets for compliance and voluntary purposes when the list of compliant units is approved.

The carbon credits will be securitised into tokens using blockchain technology, making them highly liquid, fungible and tradable, said AirCarbon on Wednesday.

Each tradable token will be backed by one equivalent tonne of carbon credits.

AirCarbon is applying for the recognised market operator (RMO) licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and aims for the exchange to be fully operational in 2020.

The company also has a fund, the AirCarbon Registration Facility, which provides grants to finance the registration, consulting, issuance and audit fees of CO2-mitigating projects. In exchange for receiving these grants, project developers must commit to list and transact their resulting credits on the AirCarbon Exchange.

The new exchange is a collaboration venture with the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (Seas), and supported by Enterprise Singapore.

Mr Edwin Khew, Seas chairman as well as AirCarbon’s chairman and co-founder, said: “We aim to make the AirCarbon token the easiest and most streamlined instrument for the trading of EEUs globally.”

This will be the world’s first global blockchain-enabled, multi-stakeholder carbon trading hub, representing carbon trades worth more than US$100 billion (S$136 billion), said Mr Khew.

Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Koh Poh Koon on Wednesday minted the new exchange’s first AirCarbon digital token at its launch during the Asia Clean Energy Summit 2019, which is part of the Singapore International Energy Week 2019 held at Marina Bay Sands.

In setting up the exchange, there had been partnerships and discussions with industry stakeholders which include airlines, green project developers, sustainable technology providers, multilateral institutions, impact investors and regulators, Mr Khew added.

Mr Satvinder Singh, assistant chief executive officer of Enterprise Singapore, noted that international regulations and the increased focus on sustainability will lead to greater demand for carbon offsetting activities globally.

“Enterprise Singapore stands ready to support solutions providers like AirCarbon to grow in Singapore and address the needs of corporates to offset their carbon emissions, starting from the aviation industry,” Mr Singh said.

UK-based First Derivatives designed the front-end trading solution to power the exchange.

AirCarbon also operates the AirCarbon Fund, an investment fund which invests in carbon-mitigating projects such as reforestation, methane capture and carbon emissions reduction. Through these projects, the fund also generates Corsia-compliant tradable carbon offsets, which are then listed on the exchange.

Fintech and financial services group RHT Holdings is an investor in AirCarbon, an RHT spokesman told The Business Times. Chief executive of RHT Holdings Jayaprakash Jagateesan is an AirCarbon board director. He wrote earlier this month that Singapore businesses need to get creative in reducing their carbon footprint and helping to mitigate climate change.

Correction note: An earlier version of this article stated that the carbon credits will be approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation (Corsia). ICAO has clarified that there are no emission units eligible or approved under Corsia yet as the council has not made a decision on the matter.

Even as Singapore moves to green its fuel mix, the country should also see how its energy usage can be managed, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing yesterday.

In charting Singapore’s progress towards a future with a sustainable, reliable and affordable supply of energy, managing energy demand was also important, Mr Chan said.

“I think we need to see how we can save on our usage of energy,” he added. Key to this is design, he noted, citing the unnecessary cooling of an entire hall to keep its occupants comfortable.

Said Mr Chan: “If you look at a typical audience hall, we just need to cool 2m up from the ground level to provide thermal comfort to the audience. Much of the cooling for the rest of the building is probably unnecessary.”

The importance of design also applies to the broader scale, he said, from the design of individual buildings to clusters of buildings, industries, and residential areas.

For example, technology can be harnessed to determine exactly how much cooling is needed.

And in Singapore, the direction a building faces could have significant impact on its occupants’ energy consumption, not just because of where the sun rises and sets, but also depending on where the wind is coming from, said Mr Chan.

“So how we design the precinct to make full use of the natural ventilation to reduce the cooling needs will be both an opportunity and a challenge,” he added.

Singapore also has the opportunity to refresh the entire island’s infrastructure in the next 50 years, he said, unlike other urban cities which grow as an urban sprawl, randomly and organically.

Efficient design could minimise the energy wasted in transporting people and goods across the island, and get rid of the “tidal effects” of traffic patterns, he said.

This essentially refers to the surge of people travelling in one direction to get to work – usually from north to south and east to west in the mornings – and back home in the other.

Said Mr Chan: “But if we can progressively redesign the entire Singapore, we will get rid of this tidal effect, which will lead to a much more efficient use of our transportation system and network, and certainly the amount of energy that we will need for the entire system.”

But even as Singapore continues to explore new technologies, and build new buildings with zero carbon footprints, the challenge would be to find cost-effective ways of retrofitting existing buildings and precincts and make them energy-efficient, he said.

“That is the area where the Energy Market Authority, together with (industrial developer) JTC, are looking at new capabilities to see how we can help existing… sites convert into much more energy-efficient sites.”