Mr Ng joined Sembcorp in 2007 and is the current Executive Vice President & Head of its utilities business in Singapore, ASEAN, Australia, Middle East, Africa, UK and Americas. In his 25 years in the energy industry, he has held both government and private sector roles. These include an executive management role in Senoko Power and a decade at Singapore’s Public Utilities Board. He was involved in the restructuring and liberalisation of Singapore’s power and gas markets, and negotiations for the importation of piped natural gas from Malaysia and Indonesia into Singapore.

1. Sembcorp recently announced that it would invest over S$250 million to increase its energy-from-waste capabilities in Singapore. What plans are there to ramp up renewable energy in Singapore and/or your global energy portfolio.

Globally, Sembcorp’s renewable energy capabilities span biomass, wind power and energy-from-waste solutions, with facilities in Singapore, the UK and China.

In Singapore, we announced last year that we target to fulfill one-third of our existing Jurong Island customers’ demand for steam energy, by using alternative fuel by 2016. This would mean growing our green energy capacity in the country by ten-fold in less than five years.

Upcoming new capacity on this front includes our over S$250 million energy-from-waste project in Jurong Island. This will be our largest energy-from-waste project in Singapore to date, and will produce 140 tonnes per hour of steam from industrial and commercial waste upon its targeted completion in 2016. This year, we are also commissioning an expansion to the Sembcorp Woodchip Boiler Plant, our biomass-fuelled facility that produces renewable energy in the form of steam from waste wood. This expansion would triple the plant’s capacity to 60 tonnes per hour.

In addition, we are increasing our energy-from-waste capacity overseas. In the UK, we will be investing in a 40% stake in a new £250 million energy-from-waste facility in the Wilton International site in Teesside, capable of generating 49 megawatts of power or 190 tonnes per hour of steam using municipal and commercial waste. This is in addition to our existing 35-megawatt wood-fuelled biomass power station, the Sembcorp Biomass Power Station, which is located on the same site. In China, we recently acquired wind power assets in Inner Mongolia and Hebei with a combined capacity of 248 megawatts.

Together with our planned energy expansions, Sembcorp’s renewable energy assets comprise around 5% of our global power and steam portfolio. Going forward, renewables will continue to play an important part of a sustainable diversified fuel mix for our business.

2. The new energy-from-waste plant will be fuelled by 14% of the total tonnage of waste bound for incineration in Singapore daily, and converted this into steam energy. Can you share the benefits of integrating a sustainability agenda into your business strategy?

For Sembcorp, sustainability is not just about good PR, but about what makes good business sense. Integrating sustainability into our business strategy allows us to stay relevant, reduce costs, gain unique capabilities and offer better value to our customers.

Two good examples are our energy-from-waste plants in Singapore. Our newest energy-from-waste facility in here will be fuelled by industrial and commercial waste collected by our solid waste management arm, the leading operator in the country. Similarly, the woodchip fuel for our Sembcorp Woodchip Boiler Plant is also processed from construction and demolition wood waste recovered by the same waste management business.

Harnessing green energy-from-waste has allowed us to create value from a waste, reduce our cost of energy production, and most importantly, provide our customers a competitively-priced yet environmentally-friendly source of steam. Integrating the expertise of our utilities and solid waste management businesses has also resulted in greater synergies within the Sembcorp Group, as well as unique capabilities to manage the entire energy-from-waste value chain.

3. In your opinion, what can local power generation companies do to shape a more sustainable energy future for Singapore?

Local power generation companies can look at strengthening their asset optimisation efforts, to increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact. The industry can also look at adopting more efficient technologies.

Sembcorp, for instance, was the pioneer in using gas-fired cogeneration technology in Singapore to produce both electricity and steam for customer use. This has allowed us to benefit from increased efficiency, have an additional revenue stream from the sale of steam and enjoy a higher merit order as bidders in the local power market. It has also enabled us to produce lesser greenhouse gas emissions in serving the energy needs of Singapore’s petrochemical and chemical companies.

4. Sembcorp's operations in Singapore continue to be the cornerstone of the company's growth. With businesses in 15 countries worldwide, what potential is there for more overseas expansion?

From operating in just four countries in 2003, Sembcorp has grown our utilities business to 15 countries across five continents worldwide. Income from our overseas utilities operations has also grown four times over the last ten years. In fact, as at the first half of 2013, over 40% of our utilities business’ net profit came from overseas contributions.

Moving forward, Sembcorp sees our income from overseas operations growing to become an even bigger slice of a growing pie. In particular, we expect our China and India businesses to grow to become major profit contributors.

With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, demand for our products and services such as energy, water and self-sufficient townships is set to grow, so there is certainly good potential for Sembcorp to expand overseas, particularly in emerging markets.

5. Energy consumption in ASEAN – driven mainly by economic growth and development – is projected to increase 6.4% annually until 2025. In your opinion, what measures/initiatives can be put in place to help burgeoning economies strike a balance between economic development and environmental sustainability?

In order to sustain their development into the long term, countries must balance the promotion of economic growth with solutions to address the inevitable environmental challenges that growth brings, as well as the reality of finite natural resources.

For Sembcorp, we aim to achieve this balance through a variety of measures. These include developing alternative energy sources, applying proven high-efficiency technologies to reduce emissions from traditional fuels, recycling, and ensuring that the right environmental policies, infrastructure, and investment in technology and innovation are put in place for future sustainable growth.