Introduction

The power generation sector accounts for about half of the total fuel consumption in Singapore.  This energy is used to generate electricity, which is then used to power Singapore homes and industries.

Given the large amounts of fuel consumed by the power generation sector, improving energy efficiency in power generation would have a significant impact on the overall energy efficiency in Singapore.  Improving energy efficiency not only mitigates the environmental impact of the fuels used, it also allows the power generation companies to increase their revenues by increasing the amount of electricity they can deliver to the end consumer with the same amount of input fuel.

Power Generation Efficiency

Since the liberalisation of the electricity market, the power generation companies have moved towards the increased use of natural gas combined-cycle turbine technology.  From 2000 to 2006, the electricity generated by natural gas has increased from 19% to 78%.  As a result, Singapore’s overall power generation efficiency has improved from 38% in 2000 to 44% in 2006. 

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Electricity Generated by Natural Gas	19%	29%	44%	60%	69%	74%	78%

Besides switching fuels, power generation companies can also adopt technologies that would allow them to extract more useful energy from the fuels burnt.  Such technologies are already available, and have been successfully implemented in other countries.  For example, cogeneration and trigeneration technologies can help companies significantly increase the overall efficiency of generating power and utilities like steam and chilled water.

Cogeneration and Trigeneration Technologies

In the power generation process, a significant amount of heat is produced from the fuel combustion process.  In many power plants, this heat is not captured and is thus wasted.  In co-generation (also known as combined heat and power), the waste heat is captured and used to generate steam, which can then be piped to companies and buildings that require heating.  The use of cogeneration can increase the energy efficiency from about 50% to more than 75%.  The efficiency of trigeneration plants can be even higher, when chilled water is also produced using the waste heat.