Sitting on almost 10ha of temporary vacant land, Singapore's first solar farm with an integrated rainwater harvesting system was officially opened by Sembcorp in Tuas on Friday (May 6).
Tapping the country's rainy weather, the facility is expected to collect 170,000 cubic metres of water annually - equivalent to the amount to fill 68 Olympic-size swimming pools - to cool and clean solar panels for optimum performance.
The farm is also highly mobile such that it can be packed up over four months and set up at another site in two months, said Sembcorp Industries' head of integrated solutions (Singapore and South-east Asia) Jen Tan.
The Sembcorp Tuas Solar Farm, a 17.6 megawatt-peak (MWp) facility, will generate enough energy to power about 4,700 four-room Housing Board flats a year.
This will help to avoid about 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year from non-renewable sources, equivalent to planting almost 150,000 trees.
