Speeches
Speech by Minister for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing for Opening Ceremony of MINDEF/SAF’s First Solar Farm on 30 January 2026 at Sembawang Air Base
30 January 2026
Introduction
A very good morning to all of you, commanders, men and women of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) colleagues, Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) colleagues, and of course, our partners who built this solar farm. Today, indeed, is a milestone for the SAF. Perhaps I should also share with you a story on why it is a milestone for me. Before that, I officially declare the solar farm open.
It is a milestone for the SAF because I believe this is the first large-scale solar farm that we have in the SAF. Of course, prior to that, we have tried various other smaller projects to get the concept right. But I should tell you why this is also personally something that is close to my heart.
I remember a few years back, before I came back to MINDEF and before MINDEF embarked on this project, we were all talking about how to generate more energy for ourselves and how to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel. Someone had asked me, “Where else can we put solar panels?” My answer at that point in time was that across the whole of Singapore today – above HDB flats, schools, roofs, and everywhere that we think of that we can put solar panels – we have pretty much done so. I had said that there were only three other places that I was still thinking about and hoped that we would have a solution.
The three places were cemeteries, roads – because roads occupy about the same amount of space as our HDB landtake – and airfields. It was not an easy challenge because, coming from a military background, I know that installing solar panels in an airfield has its own risks and limitations. We have to take into account the safety requirements and light reflection. There are quite a few technical challenges that we have to overcome, and that is why, personally, I am very happy to see the SAF embarking on this.
Proof of Concept for Future Applications
This is more than just a project for the SAF. It is also a proof of concept for a larger issue, which is that if we can overcome some of the safety, security and technical challenges to install solar panels in places or parts of the airfield, then potentially this concept can also be enlarged to other airfields or air bases. It does not mean that we can do this for each and every one because each and every air base will have its own unique requirements and operational challenges, but to be able to start off with Sembawang Air Base is something of an achievement.
One can also make the argument that for Sembawang Air Base, it is perhaps even more challenging than, say, Paya Lebar Air Base or Changi Air Base, because for air bases that cater to fixed-wing aircraft, the general approach for the planes is quite well determined. For a helicopter air base, the directions of approach are much more varied, and that is why the operational challenges are also much higher for Sembawang Air Base. On that note, I should congratulate the team from Sembawang Air Base, our DSTA engineers and our partners, for making this possible. Thank you all very much for allowing this to happen and to be able to show the proof of concept.
Singapore’s National Energy Resilience Strategy
Having said that, today’s project is also part of a larger national drive for us to strengthen our energy resilience. I know some people will make this argument that even if we cover the entire Singapore with solar panels, you will not be able to meet a certain percentage of our overall energy use. That is one way to look at it, but there is also another way to look at it. Every bit that we can do to diversify our energy needs; every bit that we can do to strengthen our energy needs, every bit counts, and that is what we are determined to do.
While the solar panel efficiency today is about 20 to 30 percent, there is nothing to say that with technological advancements, the efficiency of the solar panel cannot generate a higher amount of energy per square metre or per square foot. I think we also have some people doing interesting work in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to see how we can enhance the efficiency of our solar panels, and with that, we will be able to generate even more renewable energy to diversify our reliance on fossil fuel. Diversification will continue to remain critical.
This comes to another story. In the last 50 years, water was our most binding constraint – if you like – to our own development. From 1965, the day that we were independent, water was an existential issue. Today, we have the technology to purify water, to do reverse osmosis, so we have NEWater and so forth. But what that has done is that it has shifted our dependence on pure water to what we call the dependence on energy. So if in the last 50 years, our biggest challenge was water from the resource perspective, in the next 50 years, our biggest challenge will be clean, sustainable and renewable energy. If we can get enough clean, renewable and sustainable energy, then we do not have to worry so much about water because, today, we already have the technology to do so.
Going forward, this quest for energy resilience is not just something that the SAF will work on. It is also something that the whole country will have to work on. That is our next Big Hairy Audacious Goal, or the BHAG. How do we in the next 50 years become much more energy resilient?
Supply and Demand Management
Besides the generation of sustainable energy – which we will put in a lot of effort – the other part of the SAF’s work, together with the larger national effort, must be how we manage our power consumption. Generation of energy is about supply. What we need to do very carefully in the SAF is also what we call the demand management, and that will require new expertise from how we design our system upfront to minimise the need for energy. Increasingly, there will be more and more systems that will require energy across all our various platforms.
It is important for us within the SAF, together with our DSTA and DSO partners, to look at how we do our demand management from upstream design to downstream maintenance. With that, we will be able to strengthen our demand management and supply resilience. We will require new knowledge in how we design our systems, diversify our reliance on different energy sources, how we manage the distribution of energy across the entire SAF’s operating systems, and how we store energy for operational purposes. These are all new areas of work which the SAF and DSTA, together with DSO, must work closely on.
Adapting to Climate Change
Last but not least, we are also doing this amidst a backdrop of climate change. Climate change is not just only about finding renewable energy sources or becoming less energy dependent. Climate change also impacts the SAF in our operations and training, and for the SAF, we must learn to operate in this new environment. There is no going back thinking that this will pass, and then we will go back to the old ways of doing things, or that we just have to mitigate the interim challenges. What we need to do is to focus our mind and ask ourselves that with the climate change – taking it as a given – how will we change our operations? How will we change our training?
If you look at Sembawang Air Base, with more days where there is more unpredictable weather, how we operate and operate safely is a big operational challenge. I have seen your efforts behind the scenes to make sure that our operations continue to be safe even with the new weather patterns. That is for operations.
Another example will be training. Yes, the days are getting hotter. There are also more unpredictable temperature changes. How we prepare our men and women to be acclimatised to all these new weather patterns will also be part of the very important operational and training preparation for our servicemen. Again, together with DSO, we have to work out new work-rest cycles. We have to work out new patterns of acclimatising our men and women in the SAF to prepare to operate in this very different environment. I am confident that together with DSO and DSTA, we will have the technical know-how and the gumption to make sure that we execute all these plans properly so that from end to end, our preparation of our servicemen for this new weather pattern will enable them to perform just as effectively as they have been before.
Conclusion
On that note, congratulations to the team from Sembawang Air Base, DSTA and our engineers who have made this solar farm possible. But today, I thought it is also important for us to remember the larger issues that we have to confront, which is power management for an expanded SAF Order of Battle (ORBAT) that is more technologically dependent, and to evolve the way we prepare for operations and training, given the climate change implications.
Thank you very much and have a good day.
More Resources
MINDEF/SAF Achieves 50-Megawatt Peak of Solar Deployment with the Completion of its First Solar Farm