Green Districts: The City District as a Power Station

Speaker: Dr. Steffen Lehmann, UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific; Chair and Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Newcastle; Executive Director, s_Lab, space Laboratory for Architectural Research and Design (Berlin-Sydney)

Venue: SEI Training Room, #06-00, Environment Building 40 Scotts Road Singapore 228231

This presentation discusses the need to retrofit the existing cities and de-carbonise the energy supply, on a district-scale. Low-emission energy generation technologies can turn the city districts themselves into power stations, where energy is generated close to the point of consumption.

Localised energy generation using renewable energy sources (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal), and complemented by distributed heating and cooling systems, has a huge potential to reduce the built environment’s energy demand and emissions. Such decentralized, distributed systems, where every citizen can generate the energy needed, will eliminate transmission losses and transmission costs (which always occur with the large grid and inefficient base-load power stations) for the local consumer.

The concept can be considered for both existing and new buildings: Small power generators are positioned within communities to provide electricity for local consumption, and the waste heat they produce is captured for co-generation (for CHP; or for tri-generation, when waste heat also produces chilled water for cooling); used for space conditioning via a local district heating or district cooling system. New energy principles look at capturing and harvesting waste heat and waste water streams, and how the strategic arrangement of programme within mixed-use urban blocks can lead to unleashing such unused energy potential.

This presentation will illustrate that a low-emission future is feasible, and how cities will adapt, if countries are to meet international obligations such as those outlined in international emission agreements. However, there is urgency; without incentives, policy directions and updating the building codes, the stationary energy demand across all sectors is projected to increase further.

For details and registration, visit the SEI website.

Source: SEI

Key Issues for a Successful Copenhagen Climate Change Summit: The Role of Emerging Countries in Asia

Speaker: Dr Bindu N Lohani, Vice President (Finance and Administration), Asian Development Bank

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

The international community is facing one of the biggest challenges to human development in recorded history – the challenge of climate change. And nowhere in the world will communities and economies be impacted as heavily as in the Asia and the Pacific. Burgeoning coastal and urban populations, poor environmental management, and heavy dependency on subsistence agriculture compound existing development challenges in a region where more than 900 million people in the region still live on less than $1.25 a day. Asia is vulnerable. For example, the economy-wide cost of climate change for Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and VietNam could reach 6.7% of GDP per year by 2100. For meeting the climate change targets by 2050, both developing and developed countries should be involved.

Dr Bindu Lohani will outline recent developments that increase our understanding of climate change drivers and impacts, globally and on Asia. There have been several ongoing debates around the subject of climate
change. In this context, Dr Lohani will discuss the four key issues which need to be included in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, in particular, the role of emerging countries in Asia, to have a meaningful post-Kyoto Protocol framework for climate change.

For details and registration, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

Developing Renewable Energy and Carbon Abatement Projects in Southeast Asia

Venue: Seminar Room II, ISEAS

Speaker: Mr William I Y Byun, Managing Director, AsiaRenewables Pte Ltd, Singapore

AsiaRenewables Pte Ltd is an energy and infrastructure company focusing on the economic growth opportunities provided by renewable energy, carbon abatement, and industrial infrastructure projects and investments. AsiaRenewables acts as an end-to-end project developer and investor. It has offices in Singapore and Beijing and a project site office in Chennai, reflecting its focus on the Asian emerging markets of China, India and South East Asia.

Mr William Byun will speak on some of the practical challenges and opportunities in developing renewable energy and carbon abatement projects in Asia including:

• some of the political, social, and economic factors in renewable energy development;
• the real role of carbon credit markets in financing renewable energy projects;
• where “borderline” Annex I countries like Korea may be heading in terms of renewable/climate change; and
• some thoughts on where Southeast Asia could position itself for the UN Climate Change Conference in December 2009 in Copenhagen.

For details and registration, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

Possible Environmental Crises Facing Singapore and Appropriate Responses: The Case of the Poh Ern Shih Buddhist Temple

Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

Speaker: Mr Lee Boon Siong, Honorary President and Director, Poh Ern Shih Temple

The Poh Ern Shih Temple (Temple of Thanksgiving), built in 1954, is an ecologically friendly Buddhist temple located at Chwee Chian Hill, off Pasir Panjang Road, Singapore. In 2000, the Directors decided that the temple had to be redesigned to deal with the rising costs of water, electricity and an over-dependence on fossil fuel. It was noted that environmental degradation had been increasing over the decades and that adopting ecologically friendly technologies was the way to go in the age of rising global temperatures and climate change.

This seminar will focus on Poh Ern Shih Temple’s efforts to protect the environment. The temple takes advantage of Singapore’s abundant sunlight to produce: (i) Electricity by employing three different kinds of solar energy cells – Polycrystalline, Monocrystalline and Amorphous Cells (ii) Hotwater from Solar Heat Collector Cells in Solar Panels, and (iii) Night Lighting of its landscaping and common corridors with batteries charged by electricity collected from hybrid sets of wind/solar energy units.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s abundant rainfall has made it possible to (i) Irrigate the temple grounds (ii) Generate electricity via the deployment of Micro Hydrogenerators for charging the batteries of in-house motorized wheelchairs and lighting for its landscaping and common corridors as well as (iii) Conserve, collect and convert the rainwater to drinkable water by deploying Reverse Osmosis Techonology in Portable Filtration/UV Units available overseas in the event of natural disasters.

Finally, the temple is able to leverage on the abundance of a renewable resource, bamboo, (i) to reduce the culling of our valuable forests by deploying bamboo for all the temple’s new furniture wherever possible since it is readily available from neighbouring states and is a 5-year renewable resource as compared to a 100 year old or 300 year old oak or teak tree and (ii) to reduce the pollution from the steel industries, by making all its in-house new wheelchairs from bamboo.

For details and registration, visit the ISEAS website.

Source: ISEAS

High-Performance Green Buildings, Malaysia

Organised & Managed By: My Events International

Augmenting savings, profitability and productivity through sustainable designs

Although green building initiatives in Malaysia are still at infancy stage, yet the awareness of its financial and tangible benefits is increasing. The need for lower operational cost is the main reason for companies to adopt green concepts.

The government is also committed in promoting green concepts with the establishment of Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry, under the leadership of Datuk Peter Chin. In addition, according to Works Minister, Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, future government buildings will be incorporating green concepts. The launch of Malaysia’s very own green rating tool, Green Building Index, has brought sustainability development in Malaysia to a higher level. Read more