Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, and Minister of Culture, Community and Youth, Low Yen Ling, called on youths to seize opportunities in Singapore’s energy transition and to help co-create a sustainable future for generations to come. Building up a competent manpower pipeline will be vital as Singapore presses on with its net zero goals, which will see the energy sector go through a profound transformation.
In her Opening Remarks, Ms Low shared that the nation will press on with the “4 Switches” to achieve its ambition of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This will cause the power sector to undergo a profound transformation.
On Singapore’s clean energy transformation
Further elaborating, she shared that natural gas, the cleanest burning fossil fuel, will continue to be an important energy source. This will act as a transition fuel to ensure energy security, while Singapore explores emerging low carbon alternatives such as hydrogen to help reduce the city-state's carbon footprint.
Being in the tropical sun belt, solar is Singapore’s most viable renewable energy source. Ms Low highlighted that the nation is on track to deploy at least 2 gigawatt-peak (GWp) of solar by 2030, enough to power the annual electricity needs of 350,000 households.
She also shared that the Energy Market Authority (EMA) has been facilitating the adoption of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) to mitigate solar intermittency. The first utility-scale ESS successfully completed its test-bed earlier this year.
One of the key strategies to decarbonise Singapore's power sector will be the development of regional power grids. In that regard, Ms Low shared that Singapore announced its target to have an import capacity of up to 4 gigawatts (GW) of low carbon electricity by 2035.
The need to build up a competent manpower pipeline
As Singapore embarks on strategies to decarbonise the power sector, it is seeing an emergence of new job roles and functions that will be in greater demand.
In tandem with this, Ms Low shared about the ongoing efforts to develop a future-ready workforce. Here, EMA worked with SkillsFuture Singapore to develop a Job-Skills Insights (JSI) to identify the fastest-growing job skills as well as key growth areas emerging in the energy landscape. These include programming and coding, data analytics, process improvement and optimisation and automated process control.
She concluded by noting that there is a need to nurture a constant pipeline of young energy innovators with a keen interest in combatting climate change. To this end, she shared that EMA works closely with the industry to grow this pool of young talents through initiatives such as the Energy-Industry Scholarship and Singapore Energy Grand Challenge.
Passion beyond academic achievements
She was joined by industry speaker Vincent Lau, Chief Technology Officer, Pylon City. Mr Lau shared with the audience his experiences and challenges during his first foray into clean energy. He also encouraged future innovators and entrepreneurs to see opportunities where others see problems.
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