Remarks by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy, Trade and Industry (Trade) Gan Kim Yong at the Singapore Industry Decarbonisation Forum

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

1. Good morning. It is a pleasure to join you at the inaugural Singapore Industry Decarbonisation Forum.

2. Manufacturing is a key pillar of Singapore’s economy, contributing around 20 per cent of GDP and employing one-eighth of our workforce. As we move towards a low-carbon future, we must help our industries make the transition successfully, so that they can continue growing and providing good jobs.

3. Their transition is also essential to achieving Singapore’s climate goals.

a. Our industries account for around 65 per cent of our emissions, including emissions from the electricity they use.

b. We cannot achieve net zero by 2050 without reducing these emissions significantly.

4. But we must also keep these industries competitive while decarbonising them.

5. Singapore’s constraints make this challenging.

a. We have limited land and renewable energy resources, alongside industries with complex operating requirements.

b. Low carbon technologies that work elsewhere may not always be suitable here.

6. To develop technologies suited to our needs and help bring them into use, we established the S$800 million Decarbonisation Grand Challenge, or DGC, under RIE2030 earlier this year. The DGC supports promising technologies across the innovation journey – from research and development, to translation, scale-up and demonstration.

7. To achieve lower emissions through these investments, we must work closely with industry to develop solutions that meet its needs, prove that these can be scaled, and enable companies to deploy them.

Develop solutions around industry’s needs

8. We should first focus on problems companies need to solve.

9. Under the DGC, we will be launching a S$143 million Industry Decarbonisation Funding Initiative.

a. This Initiative will support the development of technologies that show the most promise in addressing our industries’ key decarbonisation challenges, such as capturing carbon more efficiently from industrial flue gas, or converting captured carbon into useful products such as chemicals.

10. To give companies a direct role in shaping this research, we will set aside up to S$100 million within this initiative for a new programme called Decarbonisation Research for Industry, Ventures, and Enterprise, or DRIVE.

a. Under DRIVE, companies will take the lead in defining the decarbonisation challenges they want solved.

b. They can tap on Singapore’s deep research capabilities to co-develop solutions, with DRIVE co-sharing the R&D investment to take promising ideas further.

c. DRIVE will be open for applications today, and we welcome companies to bring us your bold ideas.

11. Meeting our industries’ needs also means drawing on ideas and technologies from beyond Singapore.

12. Our collaborations with climate and clean energy investors and accelerators will help accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies and support the implementation of the DGC.

a. We are already working with partners such as Temasek, Energy Impact Partners, Breakthrough Energy and SG Growth Capital.

b. Through the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Advanced Energy and Decarbonisation Office, we have also formalised new partnerships and collaborations with Main Sequence Ventures, Extantia and Rocky Mountain Institute.

c. These partners will help identify promising technologies and connect innovators to programmes such as DRIVE.

d. Their global perspectives will also inform our funding priorities.

Prove and scale solutions with industry

13. But identifying promising technologies is only the beginning.

14. A technology that works in the laboratory still needs to be scalable under actual industrial conditions, before companies commit to adopting it.

15. This requires industry to remain closely involved beyond the initial research, working with researchers and technology developers to test and improve their solutions.

16. We are now helping projects supported under our earlier Low Carbon Energy Research programme take this next step.

17. Today, I am pleased to announce that five of these projects will receive follow-on funding under the S$65 million Low Carbon Energy Research Scale-up Grant Call.

18. This second phase will build on strong outcomes from the earlier research, enabling them to scale their technologies and trial them in real-world industrial settings.

a. For example, a carbon capture technology co-developed by NUS will now be piloted at PowerSeraya, while A*STAR and Cora Environment will scale up and pilot a carbon mineralisation technology at Cora’s energy-from-waste plant.

b. These trials will allow researchers and companies to assess how the technologies perform in actual operations, and what further improvements are needed before wider deployment.

19. To facilitate and support more projects of this kind, we are also building shared infrastructure.

20. The S$62 million Low-Carbon Technology Translational Testbed, or LCT³, is a national test-bedding platform on Jurong Island, hosted at A*STAR ISCE².

a. It will provide facilities for companies and researchers to test and scale technologies under industry-relevant conditions, without each having to build their own pilot facilities which may be costly.

b. Construction is underway, and we have secured LCT³’s first three industry users: IHI Corporation, Amogy and Metha8.

c. Through research collaborations with A*STAR, IHI will work on converting carbon dioxide into sustainable aviation fuel; Amogy on producing hydrogen from ammonia; and Metha8 on an integrated methanol-to-power system.

d. These projects will advance different technology pathways that could help address Singapore’s industrial decarbonisation needs. LCT³ will support their progress towards demonstration and commercial deployment.

Enable industry to deploy solutions

21. Successful testing gives companies greater confidence in a technology. But putting it to use may require reliable supplies, workable commercial arrangements and an appropriate regulatory framework.

22. Biomethane is one example.

a. It is a renewable gas produced from organic waste, which can be used as a low-carbon alternative to natural gas.

b. It is also compatible with our existing gas infrastructure.

23. We established a regulatory sandbox last year, which will allow us to work through the supply chains, commercial arrangements and regulatory framework needed for adoption.

a. Today, we are taking the next step with the appointment of Keppel Energy, Sembcorp Utilities and Tuas Power Generation as approved aggregators to import and supply biomethane into Singapore.

b. The sandbox will help pave the way for wider biomethane adoption, supporting up to 300 megawatts of capacity from 2028.

Conclusion

24. Across all these efforts, our goal is the same: lower emissions from our factories and plants, and keep industries competitive and continue to provide good jobs.

a. While the Government will support this effort, the industry’s participation will be essential – defining the problems, working with researchers, and deploying viable solutions.

25. I encourage you to use this Forum to meet our researchers, discuss the challenges your companies face, and explore new partnerships.

26. Let us turn these discussions into projects that help our industries make a successful transition to a low-carbon future.

27. Thank you.