Artist’s impression of HDB blocks at Punggol Northshore, which will have solar-ready roofs. Source: HDB
All future public housing blocks with at least 400 sq m (4,306 sq ft) of open roof space will be designed with solar-ready roofs, said the Housing and Development Board (HDB) last Friday (1 September).
This means that blocks will be “inbuilt with features to enable solar panels to be easily mounted and maintained”.
The HDB revealed that solar-ready roofs were first piloted on the rooftops of Build-to-Order project Punggol Edge in May 2012, with the construction of the solar-ready roofs completed in June 2016.
Following the successful implementation at Punggol Edge, the pilot was extended to 27 blocks at Punggol Northshore (Northshore Residences I and II and Waterfront I and II) in April 2016.
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“The new ‘plug-and-play’ approach to solar panel installation reduces the time and labour required for solar panel installation, making the process more efficient,” said the HDB.
This comes as installation of solar panels on the rooftops of older HDB blocks requires “retrofitting and construction works, including re-wiring the building to link the solar panels to the switch room”.
Workers would need 40 days to retrofit existing blocks. This compares with just 25 days needed to install solar panels in buildings with solar-ready roofs.
“Consequently, the manpower cost for installation is also expected to reduce by more than 40 percent.”
With this, the HDB plans to review developments currently under construction to assess if solar-ready roofs could be incorporated in their design.
A total of 18 HDB projects have been designed with solar-ready roofs as at August 2017.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
