French multinational energy company, ENGIE, has announced that it will invest
S$80 million over the next five years in Singapore to develop its Centre of
Expertise for District Cooling and to drive digital initiatives and technical
competencies in energy efficiency for the region.
The press release explains that Singapore’s Smart Nation
initiatives will provide ENGIE with an opportunity to test new solutions in
real cases and to establish one of its main regional development platforms for
district cooling systems.
ENGIE’s latest expansion is supported by the Singapore
Economic Development Board (EDB) and it
will increase its workforce, which currently stands at 1,600, by another 170
highly skilled employees, mostly engineers.
The creation of the Centre of Expertise for District Cooling
will support the development of new, innovative district cooling projects in
Singapore and in the Asia-Pacific region. ENGIE is a major player in highly
efficient cooling networks, that are typically 50% more energy efficient than
individual cooling solutions and generate 50% less CO2.
The company operates more than 320 low-carbon urban heating
and cooling networks in 20 countries, such as China, Malaysia, The Philippines
and New Zealand. Singapore will become one of ENGIE’s main regional development
platforms, besides existing operations in the Middle East, Western Europe and
North America.
In addition, ENGIE will develop and roll out digital
solutions and services across Asia-Pacific, from Singapore, to harness
real-time data and insights. These will help customers manage and improve
energy efficiency, maximise performance, and create better ambient experiences
for their end-users.
ENGIE is going to launch AVRIL Digital, a digital platform
that can provide initial and predictive analysis to manage efficiency of data
centres, in the second quarter of 2018.
Another initiative is digital IoT (Internet of Things) and
remote monitoring platforms which will provide real-time data reporting and
insights on the environmental conditions of critical facilities such as
hospitals, hotels or airports, to create optimal comfort and improve energy
efficiency.
The digital initiatives also include ENGIE iBMS which is an
integrated building management system providing real-time data on all equipment
and condition such as room temperature and quality of air, and digitalisation
of its facility management processes, through computerised management
solutions.
Isabelle Kocher, CEO of the ENGIE Group, said, “Together
with governments, citizens, customers and businesses, we co-create smart
solutions to increase energy efficiency, and to improve the quality of life.
Singapore’s vision to be a Smart Nation and its leadership in sustainability,
innovation and ease of doing business, make it an obvious choice to continue to
build and test our innovations there.”
“Singapore has been accelerating efforts to develop
digitalisation as a key competency across the different sectors in our economy.
ENGIE’s decision to anchor its Centre of Expertise in Singapore to drive
digital and energy efficiency initiatives in the region is a strong vote of
confidence in our capabilities. At the same time, this centre will also help
groom more Singaporeans to participate in this area of growth,” said Dr Beh
Swan Gin, Chairman, EDB.