Electrifying Singapore: Drivers and Roadblocks

The Green Leap Forward travels to Singapore to look at three start-up companies–Zeco, AmpleMotion and The Green Car Co.–trying to make Singapore’s electric transportation dreams come true, and ponders the road blocks that lie in the path towards a renewable electron economy.

Singapore and the Renewable Electron Economy Proposition

The electrification of Singapore’s transportation has received growing interest ever since it was reported that an international panel of experts pegged Singapore as an ideal place to launch an electric vehicle (EV) network.  For anyone who’s lived here, it really doesn’t take an expert to recognize that the island-state has a number of things going for it:  a contained urban area (the longest east-west stretch is just over 40 km and north-south stretch about 20 km), one of the most efficient and reliable electrical grids, sophisticated IT sector, ambitions to remain at the forefront of maintaining its already world-class transportation infrastructure, and a top-down policy environment which will ensure rapid deployment of a complicated and ambitious system once there is buy-in from the top.  Moreover, the potential of sunny and tropical Singapore to harness its hitherto mostly untapped solar resources to feed into its grid completes the puzzle of the vision for a “renewable electron economy,” whereby everything in the economy essentially works of electricity generated by clean renewable power. Read the full story