Energy Efficiency Grant Amount Disbursed

9 Ms Mariam Jaafar asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) how much has been claimed in energy efficiency grants since its inception; and (b) what is the profile of the companies that are claiming the grants.

The Minister of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Low Yen Ling) (for the Minister for Trade and Industry): Mr Speaker, since the launch of the Energy Efficiency Grant (EEG) on 1 September 2022, Enterprise Singapore has received more than 1,000 applications. The majority of applicants are from micro-SMEs with annual revenue of less than $1 million and more than half are from the food services sector.

In addition to the EEG, businesses can also tap on other energy efficiency schemes, like what I mentioned during the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) Committee of Supply (COS) debate yesterday, including the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Energy Efficiency Fund, the Economic Development Board’s (EDB) Resource Efficiency Grant for Emissions and the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) Green Mark Incentive Scheme for Existing Buildings 2.0. Businesses can also refer to the GoBusiness website for more information on available resources.

Mr Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar.

Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang): I thank the Minister for the response. Can I also check how does this number of 1,000 applications measure up to what MTI had expected or desired when launching the scheme, bearing in mind that the scheme is now being extended for another year? Do you have additional targets in mind and what can be done to increase adoption, if it falls short of expectations?

Ms Low Yen Ling: Mr Speaker, I want to thank the Member Ms Mariam Jaafar for her questions. I want to reassure her and the Members that in MTI and all our economic agencies, in particular Enterprise Singapore, are very focused on helping SMEs on their sustainability journey.

And to that end, we have also elaborated during the MTI COS debate yesterday that we have rolled out several schemes and measures that include supporting our SMEs in making the green transformation at a systems level. For example, from acquiring expertise and skills to new technology and capabilities. My colleague Minister of State Alvin Tan talked about the Enterprise Sustainability Programme – that is an important programme to help SMEs integrate sustainability into their business processes, products and services.

We also know that because of the elevated energy price, there are some sectors that are particularly more affected. For example, the food services, the food manufacturing as well as the retail sectors.

This is why we have curated the EEG and when we launched it on 1 September, we are focusing on the SMEs in these three sectors. Because based on our feedback and based on our dialogue with the companies as well as with the trade association and chambers (TACs) representing the sector, these are the sectors which have been significantly affected by higher electricity prices in terms of the impact on their overall business cost. So, the EEG supports the firms in these three sectors in improving the energy efficiency and alleviating increasing business costs, due to increased energy prices.

The scheme was only launched five months ago and since then, we have been working with the TACs, specifically Restaurant Association of Singapore, Singapore Retailers Association and Singapore Business Federation, and other TACs like Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and so on, to raise awareness of this scheme.

And now we are focused on following up on the interest that has been surfaced by the companies. I want to assure the Member that MTI will certainly continue to work closely with our industry partners including TACs and the companies in these three sectors to explore and develop cost competitive and secure solutions that will meet both our long-term energy needs and low emission targets.

10.58 am

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time. The Clerk will now proceed to read the Order of the Day.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]