First solar farm at an SAF military base completed

Energy resilience is Singapore’s next major challenge after water, and solving it will require both sustainable energy generation and demand management, said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing.

Launching Sembawang Air Base’s new solar farm on 30 January, Mr Chan said the project is part of a larger national drive to strengthen Singapore’s energy resilience and could potentially be replicated at other airbases here, such as in Paya Lebar or Changi.

The new solar farm will be able to generate 18 megawatt-peak (MWp) of energy by end-2026. This is equivalent to powering 4,700 four-room Housing Board flats annually, with potential cost savings of about S$1.9 million a year.

With its completion, the Ministry of Defence said it has met its 2021 goal of achieving 50MWp of energy by 2025, thereby contributing to sustainability targets set out under the Singapore Green Plan 2030.

The ministry said it plans to continue installing solar panels across other Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) camps and bases, with the aim of generating about 68MWp in solar energy by end-2027.

In his speech, Mr Chan said every bit that Singapore does to diversify and strengthen its energy mix counts, even though renewables will never make up the bulk of the city state’s energy sources.

But apart from generating more sustainable energy, which the Government will put a lot of effort into, the SAF must also carefully manage its power consumption, together with the larger national effort.

This is as more of the SAF’s systems will become technologically dependent and require energy, he added.

To manage its energy demand, the SAF must work with partners such as the Defence Science and Technology Agency and DSO National Laboratories on areas from upstream design to downstream maintenance.

Other new areas of work for the defence community include diversifying the SAF’s reliance on various energy sources, and managing energy distribution across its operating systems, said Mr Chan.

These efforts also contribute to the SAF’s adaptation to the reality of climate change, he added, noting that unpredictable weather has meant that operating safely has become a big challenge for the military.

“There is no going back thinking that this will pass, and then we will go back to the old ways of doing things, or that we just have to mitigate the interim challenges,” he said.

“What we need to do is to focus our mind and ask ourselves that with climate change – taking it as a given – how will we change our operations? How will we change our training?”

Mr Chan said the SAF will have to work out new work-rest cycles for soldiers, as well as new ways of acclimatising them to operate in different environments.

Calling the solar farm project a milestone for the SAF, he noted that the military had to overcome safety, security, and technical challenges to install solar panels in parts of the airfield.

For instance, Sembawang Air Base is the home base of the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) helicopter squadrons. As helicopters take off and land in more varied ways than fixed-wing aircraft, the operational challenges are much higher, said Mr Chan.

The solution was for the solar panels at the airbase to be mounted on structurally reinforced parts, with the screw piles drilled 20 per cent deeper into the ground and fitted with an extra plate for greater stability.

Another challenge involved aviation safety, said Senior Lieutenant-Colonel Timothy Koh, head of plans and strategy at the SAF Sustainability Office.

To ensure that pilots in the air and personnel in the control tower are not affected by glare from the panels, analysis was done to determine the optimal angle these could be placed at.

“In the long run, this (renewable) energy will allow us an additional source of energy for the base and improve our operational resilience,” he said.

The airbase’s solar farm is the second in Singapore to be built on an airfield. The first was started at Changi Airport in early 2025, with a planned capacity of 5MWp when it is completed in 2026.

Besides the new solar farm, other sustainability initiatives that the SAF displayed on 30 January included a smart utilities monitoring system and an automated wash system for the RSAF’s Chinook helicopters.

With the automatic system, what once took five people to do can now be performed by one operator, said Military Expert 1-2 Ng Jing Wei. 

By incorporating water treatment and recycling water, the process also has 60 per cent water savings compared with manual washing, and saves two hours of work.

Source: The Straits Times ©️ SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.