Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) announces S$20 million scheme to support green building innovation:

Written by: Sally Cameron

In exciting news for Singapore, The BCA will roll out a S$20 million scheme to accelerate the testing of new energy-efficient technologies in Singaporean buildings. “An agency under the Ministry of National Development”, The BCA exists to, “champion the development of an excellent built environment for Singapore.”
The scheme, called the ‘GBIC-Building Energy Efficient Demonstrations Scheme (GBIC-Demo)’, is the latest initiative to encourage the development of green building technologies in Singapore.
In a statement released in March, the BCA said test-bedded technologies should achieve 20% to 40% improvement over the current best-in-class technologies. Examples include air conditioning technologies such as under-floor cooling systems and chilled ceilings.
Technologies will come from successfully-completed research and development (R&D) projects or proven technology – either locally or overseas – that has not yet been widely implemented in Singapore. The scheme will co-fund incurred costs such as equipment, installation, and commissioning. It will also cover the cost of removing technology should the trial be unsuccessful.
The BCA’s Group Director of Research, Tan Tian Chong, said, “The scheme will help mitigate the risks involved in trialling new technologies by co-funding incurred costs. In doing so, we hope to spur wider replication and eventual commercialisation of novel energy-efficient solutions for buildings in the longer term.”

United World College, South East Asia, will be one of the first to participate, with its new high-school block in Dover to be completed in 2017. The BCA will run workshops from March onwards to help identify other potential demonstration projects.

This scheme is one of three key measures under the S$52 million Green Buildings Innovation Cluster programme. The other two initiatives are:

  • The ‘GBIC-National Building EE Repository’, a central database that collects information from the GBIC-Demo projects, existing buildings, and reports from successfully completed R&D projects; and

  • The ‘GBIC-Energy Efficient Research and Development’, which consists of tailored R&D programmes intended to build core capabilities in green buildings.