Keynote Speakers

Delivering a low-carbon and sustainable future for cities and wider society is not the role of a single profession, a single organisation, or a single government, although all of them must be involved. Instead, alongside individual organisational action, innovations and new technology development, delivering what we need from low-carbon technologies and from a sustainability-driven approach to development will require crystal-clear vision of what needs to be done and the best kind of partnership working to deliver the vision. That partnership working will have to involve all the relevant professions, and commercial, governmental and non-governmental organisations.

In this key-note address, read more… (Jean Venables, a Vice President of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations and Chair of the WFEO Committee on Engineering & Environment, will explore this world-scale challenge, the range of professions and organisations that will need to be involved, and how genuine partnership working has the best chance of delivery. She will draw on her extensive and wide-ranging experience of delivering multi-disciplinary solutions for strategic flood risk management and water level management, in particular the Thames Estuary 2100 Project, from her husband and business partner Roger Venables” experience in developing and operating CEEQUAL, and from her role as an ICE Vice President for five years, as ICE President in 2008-9, and from her current WFEO role. From that experience, she will outline her view of how such partnerships can and need to be created, nurtured and steered.

Examples of the improvements such partnerships need to deliver will include:

• the role and operation of WFEO as a whole, and its work on the contributions from engineers needed for delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• the role of her committee in particular, including two important Codes of Practice, on Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship for Engineers and Principles of Climate Change Adaptation for Engineers, and its connections to the series of COP meetings
• the importance of initiatives such as the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint, and how such vision and policy documents can drive dramatic changes for the better, and
• how actions on a range of individual aspects of urban life can be linked and brought together to deliver those dramatic changes for the better, including
  • water
    • providing clean water and sanitation to the millions still without them
    • reducing wastage of potable water wherever it occurs
    • effective strategic and local flood risk management
    • enhancing the water environment
  • energy
    • changes to the energy mix to deliver low-carbon and lower-polluting energy generation
    • reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP
    • reducing heat island effects
  • improving air quality
  • increasing the extent of blue-green infrastructure
  • improving biodiversity
  • and, overall, improving human well-being

In short, Jean will seek to set the scene for the World Engineering Summit”s discussion of the latest research findings and engineering innovations in support of a low carbon future and sustainable development for and of both cities and rural communities.)

Singapore became an independent nation on 9th August 1965 with a population of 2 million, per capita GDP of US$526 and a territory of 1400 square kilometre. The priority of the Government was the creation of jobs, defending the country, providing education for the young and medical services and building homes for the population. The need to create jobs remain a major preoccupation of the Government. The balance between investment in economic development, social development and national security is carefully managed to achieve optimization at the national level. The process of centralized planning and decentralized execution evolved over time. Examples of large scale systems like the creation of usable space, supply of portable water and the future economic system based on research, innovation and enterprise will be used to illustrate the Systems Approach taken in planning and development of large scale systems.

The Hawaiian Islands are blessed with an abundance of renewable energy sources including geothermal, solar and wind; as well as potential for ocean energy. Generous state and federal tax credits along with some of the highest electricy rates in the country has resulted in the rapid growth of renewable generation over the past decade. Hawaii now has the highest per-capita photovoltaic penetration in the United States and significant commerical wind development on many of the islands. During 2016, approximately 26 percent of electricity generation was from renewable technologies with much of that from wind and distributed solar introducing signficant variability into the system. Even at these modest levels of penetration, instantaneous generation from intermittent renewable resources reached very high levels. Current plans for ongoing development will increase these instantantaneous generation to very high levels, introducing new risks to the system. The Hawaii State Legislature recently enacted even more aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standards, calling for 40% renewable generation by 2030, 70% by 2040, and 100% renewable generation of electricity by 2045.

Achieving these state goals is going to require substantial changes to our energy system including better integration of transportation and electricity, adoption of newly emerging energy technologies, more aggressive use of demand-side flexibility, and new business models that balance compensation for the utility and all other stakeholders and ratepayers. The transportation sector is responsible for up to two-thirds of the states energy demand.

The Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) at the University of Hawaii has been leading an integrated effort involving modeling, testing and evaluation, and demonstration to identify and validate promising energy development pathways leading to higher renewable integration onto the grid. In addition to model studies, projects have included the Maui Smart Grid Demonstration Project to evaluate the use of smart grid technology for peak reduction, the Smart Grid Inverter Project for improved system control at the distribution level, and the demonstration of grid-scale battery energy storage for ancillarly services. HNEI has also expanded its team to for better integration of policy and technical solutions.

In this talk I will discuss the implications of policy on the deployment of the renewable energy technologies in these small grid systems, discuss the development of tools for analysis of renewable generation into Hawaii’s energy grid, and identify potential solutions that will allow progress to continue toward our 100% renewable energy goal.

In a single sheet of paper, an Urban Plan is expected to satisfy the multiple needs of a city and its people. Despite the rapid changing world, the fundamental needs of the city and its people remain relatively constant. Dr Liu attempts to show the key principles used to guide the planning of Singapore to satisfy its multi-needs with special reference on energy consumption.

Increasing vehicle population in land scarce city-state, coupled with the changing social, economic and technological landscapes have brought about new transportation challenges for Singapore. At the same time, such challenges also presents new opportunities for growth and breakthrough in transportation technologies applications and solutions.

With 50 years of engineering excellence, ST Engineering supports the nation’s initiative. ST Engineering takes the lead to understand transportation engineering challenges that has surfaced as Singapore moves towards a Smart Nation. From introducing Autonomous Vehicles to public roads in order to alleviate public transportation challenges, to building smart junctions as part of the infrastructure to increase traffic awareness, ST Engineering is innovating to develop practical and cutting edge solutions. To achieve this, ST Engineering does not work alone but strives to work with Government agencies, Research Institutes, Institutes of Higher Learning and Industries partners to align thought leadership and develop solutions to bring future transportation to Singapore. It will be whole of Singapore endeavor co-creating together and with international partners.

In summary, ST Engineering is committed to overcome these fundamental hurdles to enable faster technology developments and adoption and is willing to devote engineering resources to make things happen.

A seasoned professional with over 16 years of water sector experience in techno-commercial operations, business development of Water and Engineering sector. He is Chemical engineer with merit of having Master degree in Urban water engineering from UNESCO-IHE, Netherlands.

At Bentley Systems, he is associated as a water solutions consultant and looking across South Asia region. He assists utilities, municipal councils and consultants to address water projects challenges for successful implementation of water supply and sewerage projects. He renders honorary services to NGO’s, water policy organizations. He endeavors for successful implementation of sustainable water management pathways across competing priorities of water for eco system, human consumption and economic growth.

Topic: Transforming our world of urban water system | Agenda for sustainable path

Governments endeavor to deliver water with assured quality and quantity to citizens, and treat waste water to protect public health. A significant amount of public money is spent every year for maintaining and upgrading water facilities and waste water management infrastructure. This calls for bold and transformative steps to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path with respect to water security.

It includes judicious use of technology to realize the vision of development of water infrastructure. Technology today offers holistic and smart approach to manage every element of water infrastructure value chain, which is essential for development of nations. It delivers this through:

• Integrated mapping of Urban water systems for successful transition towards water sensitive cities
• Adaptation of technologies for meet urban water project challenges and uncertainties in line with ground reality
• Simplification of hydro-social contracts for advancing water management practices

In recent years, progressive and adaptive approach by project owners and institutions has shown promising results in several countries in Asia. It’s leading to an “e-revolution” in water sector for advancing infrastructure.

Enabling technologies address key project challenges, and complexity across all stages of projects, including planning, construction, operations and asset management. It simplifies the design and analysis efforts of complex water and waste water network systems to deliver project objectives. Engineers develop computer based project replicas with scientific hydraulic and hydrological methods, to help project owners/consultants choose most optimised solutions from CapEx, OpEx or TotEx point of view.

These solutions identify system bottlenecks, necessity of requisite rehabilitation, identification water loss and energy optimisation from comprehensive network maps to device future strategies. Comprehensive waste water network modeling tools help to avoid cross contamination and flooding in urban areas. Engineers get empowered to analyze, design, and operate the systems in line with industries best management practices. This reassures informed decisions to minimise public expenditure, prioritize investments and maximise project outcomes.

Thus, adaptation of holistic technological solutions simplifies the hydro-social contracts needed to effectively expedite sustainable water cities transition. It will empower holistic urban planning with involvement of all project stakeholders to create sustainable water sensitive urban cities.

Paul Stein is Chief Technology Officer at Rolls-Royce and a member of the Rolls-Royce Executive Leadership Team.
Paul joined Rolls-Royce in 2010 as Chief Scientific Officer and for two years acted as the Engineering and Technology Director for the Company’s Nuclear business in addition to his Chief Scientific Officer responsibilities. His most recent role was Director of Research & Technology, accountable for the company’s global investment in R&T, as well as fostering innovation and promoting and sustaining specialist engineering talent.
Paul was Director General, Science and Technology, at the UK Ministry of Defence immediately prior to joining Rolls-Royce. Before that, he was Managing Director of Roke Manor Research and in 2003 was appointed to the Siemens UK Executive Management Board, leading technology and contributing to business strategy.
Paul holds an Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree from King’s College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Topic: Impact of Technology on Future Transport

With today’s ever changing, global demands, every industry is facing the challenge of utilising technological advancements to meet customer needs in the most effective way.
Rolls-Royce, a world leading provider of power systems, understands that constant, thoughtful innovation is essential in meeting these changing demands; taking the best and making it better.
Paul Stein, Rolls-Royce Chief Technology Officer, will discuss the impact technology is having on the transport industry and Rolls-Royce’s move towards electrification and digital solutions.
Paul explains that; “developing the right technologies means looking far into the future and generating a vision of what the needs of our customers will be”.

As Singapore’s lead government agency responsible for the development of industrial infrastructure to support and catalyse the growth of new industries and transform existing enterprises. In his address, Mr Heah will share on JTC’s sustainability initiatives at various stages of its project development, from planning, design and construction to operations, while keeping pace with evolving industry needs and overcoming resource constraints and other challenges in today’s fast-changing environment.

Singapore generated 7.81 million tonnes of waste in 2016. This is enough to fill more than 14,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools and is an increase from 7.67 million tonnes generated in 2015. While about 61 per cent of waste generated is recycled, our four Waste-to-Energy (WTE) plants would still have to incinerate about 7,750 tonnes of waste per day. To meet Singapore’s long-term demand for solid waste management, NEA is currently constructing its 6th WTE plant and is planning to build an Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF) which will be co-located with the PUB’s Tuas Water Reclamation Plant (TWRP).

Strategy Overview
NEA which oversees Singapore’s solid waste management system, has therefore adopted the following strategies to minimise waste generation as well as the land used for waste disposal:-
a) promoting waste minimisation through the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) in the community and industries; and
b) disposing of all incinerable waste at Waste-To-Energy (WTE) plants so as to reduce waste volume by ~90%, while at the same time recovering useful energy.

Solid Waste Disposal Facilities
NEA’s solid waste disposal facilities include two Government-owned WTE plants viz. Tuas Incineration Plant and Tuas South Incineration Plant, Semakau Landfill, and the Tuas Marine Transfer Station. Two other WTE plants, (i.e. Senoko Waste-to-Energy Plant and Keppel Seghers Tuas Waste-to-Energy Plant), are owned by Keppel Infrastructure Trust and operated by Keppel Infrastructure.

New Projects

1. NEA awarded the contract for the development of the 6th WTE Plant to TuasOne Pte Ltd (TuasOne) under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) scheme, using the design-build-own-operate (DBOO) model. TuasOne would develop the 6th WTE Plant and provide a contracted incineration capacity of 3,600 tonnes per day exclusively to NEA for a period of 25 years from 2019 to 2044. The plant would be capable of producing electricity for the plant’s operation and export an excess electricity of 2,880 MWh daily to the grid. The plant construction has commenced since early 2016 and scheduled to be completed by May 2019.
2. Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF)
   NEA is planning the development of an Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF) to meet Singapore’s long term waste management needs. The IWMF will be co-located with PUB’s Tuas Water Reclamation Plant (TWRP) at the 68ha Tuas View Basin site, to maximise process and non-process synergies as well as optimise land use footprint. The IWMF will be equipped with several state-of-the-art solid waste treatment technologies that will enable it to effectively handle multiple waste streams and optimise resource and energy recovery. The waste streams that IWMF will be handling include incinerable waste, recyclables collected under the National Recycling Programme, source segregated food waste and dewatered sewerage sludge from the TWRP. The IWMF is planned to be constructed in phases with the first phase scheduled to be completed by end 2022/early 2023.
3. Semakau Landfill
   Semakau Landfill opened on 1 April 1999 and is currently Singapore’s only landfill facility. Covering an area of 350 hectares, it is expected to meet the country’s solid waste disposal needs up to 2035. An additional 16.7 million cubic metres of landfill capacity was added after its Phase II development was completed in Jul 2015.
4. REMEX Metal Recovery Facility
   In June 2014, NEA awarded a tender to M/s REMEX Mineralstoff GmbH (REMEX) to develop and operate a metal recovery facility, to recover ferrous and non-ferrous metals from incineration bottom ash (IBA) generated by the incineration plants. The 1.4-hectare facility can process up to 1,800 tonnes of IBA per day and has started operations since July 2015.

In this session, Sunseap Group’s Co-founder and Director, Mr Frank Phuan will draw from his extensive experience and industry knowledge to offer insights on the upcoming liberalisation of Singapore’s electricity market in 2018, where 1.3 million electricity consumers, made up of mainly households and businesses will be able to choose their electricity retailer.

Mr Phuan will touch on the importance and significance of the liberalisation of the electricity market and how the firm can extend its offerings (particularly clean energy) to households and businesses. He will also talk about the steps the firm is taking to cope with the increased demand, and outline the various business models that will play key roles in the energy landscape.

In land-scarce Singapore, the need for car-lite urban mobility has acquired a particular urgency. Yet, the journey towards a car-lite Singapore will not be easy. This presentation highlights key ideas that arose from the research collaboration between the Centre for Liveable Cities and the Urban Land Institute on how policy makers can work together with stakeholders from private and people sectors to move cities’ mobility ecosystem towards a car-lite future.

The Building & Construction Authority carried out two extensive R&D roadmapping exercises in Building Energy efficiency and Construction Productivity for the built environment in 2013 and 2016 respectively. These exercises are critical in identifying new and innovative solutions where research and development are needed to further improve our buildings’ energy performances and construction productivity. Jeffery will share the journey in developing these R&D roadmapping exercises which had led to some proliferation of technologies in the built environment.

What are the disruptive trends shaping Singapore’s energy landscape? What role can the R&D ecosystem play in informing policies, nurturing capabilities, and catalysing made in Singapore solutions? How do we build our energy future together?

The presentation will answer some of these questions, and paint a unified Energy Vision to prepare Singapore for a greener, smarter and more resilient grid.

As the public housing agency that houses over 80% of Singapore’s population, the Housing & Development Board (HDB) has a key role to play in supporting Singapore’s commitment to sustainable development. Over the years, HDB has already been driving sustainable development efforts in its towns and estates. The continual use of fossil fuel as a source for power generation is not sustainable, given the depleting supply and the detrimental effects it causes to the environment. Diversification into renewable energy is a more sustainable option. Of all forms of renewable energy, solar photovoltaic (PV) has the greatest potential and offers the greatest scope for large-scale use in Singapore, given the relatively high solar insolation all year round.
As the largest developer in Singapore with significant amount of roof space for solar power generation, HDB embarked on a Solar Capability Building Programme (SCBP) for Public Housing in 2009. The main objectives of the programme were to allow HDB to study the performance of the different types of solar PV panels and technologies, analyse the impacts of different roof configuration and micro-climatic conditions in solar energy production. The programme also seek to gather learning points on the incorporating of solar PV into HDB buildings and to build up the industry’s capabilities in the deployment of solar PV in preparation for grid parity
Over the years, HDB has developed an innovative and sustainable Solar Leasing business model which allowed the solar industry to own, finance, build, operate and maintain solar PV installations, and in turn helped to scale up the deployment of solar PV installation for HDB blocks. HDB is currently the largest stakeholder in the installation of solar PV system in Singapore.
HDB was also appointed as the procuring agency for solar PV installations, taking the lead in the SolarNova initiative, calling for tenders on behalf of the whole of Singapore government to implement solar PV systems on a large-scale in Singapore. Through the SolarNova Programme, HDB will be looking into installing solar PV panels to more than 5,500 of its residential blocks and looking at reducing carbon emissions by 132,500 tonnes annually. The presentation will share the challenges involved for HDB’s solar journey and the key learning points on driving a sustainable model for large scale roll out solar panels in public housing developments.