Bidders plan to use ‘brown power’ to balance intermittency of solar in Singapore’s clean power tender

The two companies behind a joint bid to supply 100 MWh of solar electricity from Malaysia to Singapore have told pv magazine they initially intend to use fossil-fuel-fired “brown power plants” to balance the intermittency of solar, before switching to battery storage at a later point.

A press release issued on Friday by Hong Kong-based solar developer NEFIN and Singaporean energy company Tuas Power stated the latter business, in general terms, draws on a mix of renewables and “fuel-based sources” to feed the Singaporean grid. The press statement also referred to plans “to jointly bid for the 100 megawatts (100 MW[h]) of zero-carbon electricity,” available under a tender being staged by regulator the Energy Market Authority of Singapore.

A spokesperson for NEFIN said the tender is being held to procure the supply of 100 MWh of clean electricity from Malaysia to Singapore for a two-year trial period, with the successful project, or projects expected to be announced this year and start operations next year.

Distributed solar company NEFIN has joined forces with the Tuas Power electric company held by Chinese state-owned parent China Huaneng Group to bid for supply of the whole 100 MWh.

The NEFIN company spokesperson told pv magazine the power supplied “should be green electricity but is not specifically limited to solar,” before adding: “The intermittency of solar will be addressed in the initial phase by brown power plants, and in the future phase by battery storage.”