SINGAPORE (ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES) – SingHealth, the largest of three public healthcare clusters in Singapore is set to have up to 300 electric vehicle (EV) charging units in their hospitals and facilities by 2028, in an effort towards fostering a more sustainable future for the island-state.
The first 12 in this new roll-out were officially launched at SingHealth Tower at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Campus on July 12. They are operated by utilities company SP Group.
“We are proud to be taking significant steps towards creating a greener and more sustainable future with the installation of EV chargers on our hospital campuses,” said Mr Tan Jack Thian, SingHealth group chief operating officer.
“As our health and that of the planet are closely related, SingHealth’s partnership with SP Group and continued commitment to other sustainable practices… will in turn promote the well-being of our community and staff in the long run,” he said.
The chargers, which may be used by the public and staff, are located on levels B3 and B4 at the SingHealth Tower carpark. It costs SGD0.654 per kilowatt-hour to use them, similar to what SP charges for the service at Housing Board carparks.
These chargers are rated at 7.4kW. Plugging in an EV like the BYD Atto 3 for an hour will add around 50km of operating range.
In a joint statement with SP Group on July 12, SingHealth said that it will have more than 80 charging points deployed across its facilities by the end of 2024, including 10 fast-charging points.
SingHealth is the largest of three public healthcare clusters in Singapore. Apart from SGH, other locations under the cluster that will get EV charging points include Changi General Hospital (CGH), KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), Sengkang General Hospital (SKH), the National Heart Centre Singapore, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore National Eye Centre and Eunos Polyclinic.
“In supporting the healthcare sector’s decarbonisation journey, we are pleased to partner SingHealth to scale up electrification across its facilities,” said S Harsha, SP Group’s managing director for sustainable energy solutions for Singapore.
“(This) provides the public with even more options and greater convenience for charging their vehicles.”
An SP spokesman said fast chargers will also be deployed at CGH, KKH and SKH. The ones slated for CGH will be 100kW chargers, while details for the other locations are still being developed.
The latest roll-out adds to the existing chargers located on the SGH campus, which includes four at the National Heart Centre Singapore and five at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, according to checks by The Straits Times. These are also operated by SP Group.
The National University Health System healthcare cluster is also looking to increase the number of charging points it has, with a target to install 80 more chargers by 2030.
It now has 16 charging points after the first deployment in April 2023, all of them supplied by SP Group – 10 are at the National University Hospital while four are at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital in Jurong and two are at Alexandra Hospital.
Based on the latest data from the Land Transport Authority (LTA), there are 16,738 electric cars in Singapore as at May 31, 2024 – up 40.2 per cent from 11,941 units at the end of 2023.
In terms of the charging network, there are 3,662 publicly accessible chargers located in HDB carparks, according to EV-Electric Charging, the LTA subsidiary responsible for deploying such charging points.
