Sembcorp Industries (Sembcorp) and the Energy Market Authority (EMA) has officially opened the Sembcorp Energy Storage System (ESS). With this, Sembcorp ESS has become Southeast Asia’s largest ESS spanning two hectares of land in the Banyan and Sakra region on Singapore’s Jurong Island.
The facility was commissioned in six months with operations started in December 2022 ,said EMA in a statement. It has also become one of the fastest in the world of its size to be deployed, besides the largest in SouthEast Asia
In a statement, EMA further said the utility-scale ESS with a maximum storage capacity of 285 megawatt-hours (MWh) is capable of fulfilling the power needs of around 24,000 four-room HDB households for a day in a single discharge.
The Sembcorp ESS is an integrated system with over 800 large-scale battery units. It has a rapid response time to store and supply power in milliseconds, making it suitable for Singapore’s tropical climate which is necessary in mitigating solar intermittency caused by changing weather conditions.It can also provide reserves to power grid.
Speaking on the occasion, EMA Chief Executive Ngiam Shih Chun said, ”This large-scale ESS marks the achievement of Singapore’s 200MWh energy storage target ahead of time. It will complement our efforts to maximise solar adoption by storing and delivering energy given the intermittent nature of solar power.’’ He hoped that ESS would also enhance our power grid stability and resilience by managing mismatches between electricity demand and supply.
