Solar Panels for Commercial and Residential Buildings

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for National Development whether the Ministry will consider making it mandatory for commercial and residential buildings to install and operate solar panels on their roofs, with exceptions granted only on a case-by-case basis.

Mdm Speaker, solar energy is one of the renewable energy options that we are adopting. However, there are constraints that limit this wide-scale deployment.

First, there are competing uses for roof spaces, such as rooftop greenery, as well as facilities, such as water tanks, lift machine rooms and antennas. Second, the cost-effectiveness of solar panels depends on the location of the building, and the exposure of the rooftop to direct sunlight.

Hence, instead of a mandatory requirement for all buildings, we take a practical approach in scaling up the deployment of solar panels on such building rooftops. The public sector takes the lead by aggregating demand for solar deployment across Government agencies. With demand aggregation, we plan to increase solar generation capacity to 350-megawatt peak (MWp) by 2020, with solar panels deployed on around 5,000 Housing and Development Board (HDB) blocks and 100 Government buildings. In addition, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Green Mark Scheme encourages the adoption of renewable energy sources, which include solar power. To date, about 20 MWp of solar panels are due to be installed in our Green Mark projects.

Madam, just one supplementary question for the Minister of State. I thank him for his reply. Is the Ministry monitoring the experience of other countries in the world that are making this mandatory, at least for some categories of buildings? I believe this is either being considered or has already been implemented in some cities in America, India and France. So, will the Ministry be monitoring their experience and try to draw some lessons when reviewing this at some future point in time?

Madam, I thank the Member for his question. Indeed, we are always watching what other people are doing and trying to adopt best practices and also to see how the technology evolves as far as solar photovoltaic panels are concerned. But, today, because of the competing uses on limited rooftop space, and the bigger challenge being the fact that rooftops can be shaded by a building nearby, I think, commercially, it would not make sense for us to mandate that across all buildings, because then you would have installed the solar panels and not get any use out of them. Hypothetically, even if we were to install panels across all our rooftops, that would probably only satisfy about 10% of our total electrical demands. So, it would not have been able to fulfil the total needs of the country.