Clean energy projects to gain from $655m in green funds secured by S'pore

These initiatives in Asia can reduce about 350,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year

- Shabana Begum

The US$510 million (S$655 million) that Singapore recently secured for green investments in South-east Asia and South Asia will fund a range of solar energy projects and a scheme that turns agricultural waste into electricity.

These green initiatives — which can reduce about 350,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year — were announced by Singapore's Ambassador for Climate Action Ravi Menon on Sept 9.

The solar energy projects will include battery storage that can capture and store excess electricity for future use. The bio-energy project in several South-east Asian countries will use agricultural waste and feedstock instead of planet-warming fossil fuels to produce cleaner electricity.

Mr Menon said the investments will be made in the coming months, but did not disclose the countries in the region and South Asia that will benefit from the greener electricity.

Other projects include those related to electric vehicles, as well as water and waste management, he said at The Sustainability Dialogue by the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore.

These green projects tend to be less bankable and are not readily backed by private finance players.

The details of the projects come a day after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the amount of funding raised by the national climate finance initiative.

The amount was the first to be commercially secured under the Financing Asia's Transition Partnership (Fast-P).

The aim of Fast-P — a blended finance initiative by MAS — is to bring together public, private and philanthropic capital to help finance Asia's decarbonisation, with the aim of eventually raising up to US$5 billion.

"US$510 million is a lot of money but trivial compared with the scale of financing needed for Asia's transition," said Mr Menon, who noted that Asia faces a shortfall of at least US$800 billion annually in climate financing.