How Singapore Uses Science to Stay Cool

Summary

The video script explores the urban heat island effect, highlighting how cities like Singapore suffer higher temperatures due to dense infrastructure. It details Singapore's Cooling Singapore project, which employs innovative cooling systems and extensive greenery to mitigate heat. Strategies like district cooling, adding vegetation, and future technological solutions such as a Digital Urban Climate Twin are discussed to model and test urban design impacts on climate. The narrative underscores the urgency of addressing urban heat to improve quality of life and reduce climate change effects.

Takeaways

• 🌡️ The urban heat island effect causes cities to be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas due to the absorption of heat by materials like asphalt and concrete.
• 🌳 Green spaces and vegetation help mitigate the urban heat island effect through shading, psychological effects, and potential evaporative cooling.
• 🏙️ Singapore's government is actively pursuing strategies to combat urban heat, such as the Gardens by the Bay project, which utilizes an extensive district cooling system.
• 💡 District cooling systems like the one in Singapore can save up to 40% in electricity usage compared to traditional air conditioners, leading to significant emissions savings.
• ⚙️ The world's increasing reliance on air conditioning and refrigeration is contributing to a vicious circle of higher energy usage, heat release, and exacerbated climate change.
• 🌿 Vegetation is crucial in urban planning for its cooling effects and is being incorporated into Singapore's architecture, such as green roofs and walls.
• 🏞️ Singapore has a history of prioritizing green spaces, with initiatives like the 'Garden City' vision and plans to plant 1 million trees and add more green spaces.
• 🏢 Innovative building designs, such as Kampung Admiralty and Parkroyal on Pickering, maximize green space and integrate nature into urban structures.
• 🌡️ Cooling Singapore is developing a catalog of heat-mitigation measures and a Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) to test and optimize urban design for reducing the urban heat island effect.
• 🔋 The potential for renewable energy production in Singapore is being explored, with the possibility of generating a significant portion of the city's electricity needs through rooftop and facade solar panels.
• 🌍 Singapore's combination of scientific research and urban design could serve as a model for other cities worldwide in creating more livable and sustainable urban environments.

Q & A

What is the urban heat island effect?

The urban heat island effect describes the phenomenon where cities experience higher temperatures than their rural surroundings due to human activities and the prevalence of surfaces like asphalt and concrete, which absorb more heat from the sun.

Why are heat waves considered particularly dangerous?

Heat waves are considered dangerous because they kill more people than any other extreme weather event, including tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, posing a significant risk to human health.

What is the Cooling Singapore project?

Cooling Singapore is a government-backed initiative aimed at developing strategies and tools to mitigate the urban heat island effect and improve urban livability by reducing temperatures in highly urbanized areas.

How does the underground district cooling system in Singapore work?

Singapore's underground district cooling system functions by using a large central plant to cool water, which is then piped into various buildings like residential towers, shopping malls, and the Marina Bay Sands hotel, reducing the need for individual air conditioning units.

What are the benefits of using the district cooling system in Singapore?

The district cooling system allows buildings to save about 40% on electricity usage compared to traditional air conditioners. Additionally, it contributes to emissions savings equivalent to removing 10,000 cars from the city's roads.

How does vegetation contribute to mitigating the urban heat island effect?

Vegetation mitigates the urban heat island effect through shading, which lowers surface and air temperatures, and through evaporative cooling. Plants also have psychological benefits and help in creating more livable urban environments.

What unique architectural designs have been implemented in Singapore to combat urban heat?

Singapore features unique designs like the Parkroyal on Pickering, which incorporates extensive green walls and sky gardens to enhance green space and reduce urban heat. Similarly, Kampung Admiralty integrates health facilities with ample green spaces and community gardens.

What future plans does Singapore have to enhance its green spaces?

Singapore plans to plant 1 million trees and add more green spaces over the next ten years, aiming to enhance the Garden City vision and further integrate nature with urban living.

What is a Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) and its purpose?

The Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) is a virtual model designed to simulate Singapore's urban environment. It helps researchers and urban planners test and validate different urban design and climate mitigation strategies before implementing them in reality.

How does Singapore plan to address its energy needs while reducing urban heat?

Singapore is exploring the use of its building facades and roofs for renewable energy production, potentially meeting up to 20-25% of its electricity needs, thereby reducing reliance on conventional energy sources and minimizing urban heat.

Outlines

00:00

🌡️ Urban Heat Island Effect and Mitigation Strategies

This paragraph discusses the urban heat island effect, where cities experience higher temperatures due to materials like asphalt and concrete absorbing more heat than vegetation. The effect is a significant risk to human health, with heat waves being particularly deadly. Singapore's government-backed project, Cooling Singapore, aims to develop a digital tool to help mitigate this effect globally, starting with Singapore. The city-state faces high temperatures exacerbated by urban structures, leading to a significant temperature difference between urban and rural areas. To combat this, Singapore has implemented drastic measures, such as the Gardens by the Bay park and the world's largest underground district cooling system, which saves 40% in electricity usage compared to traditional air conditioners and reduces emissions equivalent to removing 10,000 cars from the roads. The paragraph also touches on the importance of vegetation in mitigating urban heat and Singapore's efforts to become a greener city.

05:00

🌿 Singapore's Green Initiatives and Future Plans

The second paragraph focuses on Singapore's green initiatives, including the Parkroyal on Pickering hotel designed with extensive green-growing potential and the government's plan to plant 1 million trees and add more green spaces over the next decade. These efforts aim to reduce the urban heat island effect and connect people with nature. Despite these initiatives, Singapore has warmed twice as quickly as the global average over the past 60 years. Cooling Singapore has developed a catalog of heat-mitigation measures, such as shading windows, ensuring wind movement, using water as a thermal buffer, and reducing the urban presence of combustion engines. The city-state is also exploring the use of renewable energy, particularly through the Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT), a virtual model that calculates the impact of each design element on the urban heat island effect. This tool can be used to test scenarios before construction and can be applied to any city to save energy, slow climate change, and improve quality of life. Singapore's combination of scientific approach and urban design is expected to make it a more comfortable and livable city in the future.

Keywords

💡Urban Heat Island Effect

The urban heat island effect refers to the phenomenon where urban areas experience higher temperatures than their rural surroundings due to human activities and the materials used in urban construction. In the video, it is mentioned that this effect can account for several degrees of temperature increase in cities and is a significant risk to human health, exacerbating the heating effects of climate change.

💡District Cooling System

A district cooling system is a centralized cooling mechanism that provides cooled air to multiple buildings within a network. The video highlights the world's largest underground district cooling system in Singapore, which cools water in a central plant and pipes it to various structures, saving up to 40% in electricity usage compared to traditional air conditioners.

💡Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay is an award-winning park in Singapore that features a greenhouse maintained at a pleasant 24 degrees Celsius using the district cooling system. It serves as an example of how urban green spaces can provide respite from high temperatures and contribute to the city's efforts to combat the urban heat island effect.

💡Vegetation

Vegetation plays a crucial role in mitigating the urban heat island effect through shading, psychological benefits, and potential evaporative cooling effects. The video emphasizes the importance of vegetation in Singapore's strategy to reduce urban heat, with examples such as the canopy layer formed by trees and shrubs and the incorporation of greenery on building facades and rooftops.

💡Kampung Admiralty

Kampung Admiralty is a community center in Singapore that exemplifies the integration of green space into urban design. It provides more green space than the land area it occupies, with a roofscape of terraces covered in local plants that function as a community park and village green. This serves as a model for how urban planning can prioritize greenery to combat the urban heat island effect.

💡Parkroyal on Pickering

Parkroyal on Pickering is a hotel in Singapore designed as a 'hotel in a garden,' which doubled the green-growing potential of its site. It features 15,000 square meters of sky gardens, reflecting pools, waterfalls, planter terraces, and green walls. This showcases the potential for hotels and other commercial buildings to incorporate green spaces as part of their design to mitigate urban heat.

💡Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT)

The Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) is a virtual model of a city designed to test various urban planning and design strategies to mitigate the urban heat island effect. It calculates the impact of each element of the city's design on temperature, allowing for the simulation of different scenarios before actual construction. This tool is highlighted in the video as a way for Singapore to plan its future urban development in a way that addresses climate change and improves livability.

💡Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is a key concept in the video's discussion of long-term solutions to urban heat and climate change. The video mentions the potential for Singapore to produce up to 20-25% of its electricity needs through renewable energy sources, such as solar panels on rooftops and facades of buildings, which could help reduce the city's reliance on combustion engines and decrease emissions.

💡

💡Climate Change

Climate change is a central theme in the video, as it discusses the impact of urbanization on global temperatures and the need for sustainable solutions to mitigate its effects. The urban heat island effect is presented as a significant contributor to the problem, with cities like Singapore taking proactive measures to reduce their carbon footprint and improve the quality of life for their residents.

💡Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is a critical concept in the video, as it relates to the use of district cooling systems and the reduction of electricity consumption in buildings. The video mentions that the district cooling system in Singapore can save 40% in electricity usage compared to traditional air conditioners, which has significant implications for reducing energy consumption and mitigating climate change.

💡Sustainable Urban Planning

Sustainable urban planning is a key theme in the video, focusing on the integration of green spaces, energy-efficient technologies, and renewable energy sources into urban design. Singapore's efforts to become a 'Garden City' and its use of innovative cooling systems and green architecture are presented as examples of sustainable urban planning that can be replicated in other cities worldwide.

💡Heat Waves

Heat waves are mentioned in the video as a significant threat to human health, with the potential to cause more fatalities than other extreme weather events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. The video discusses how the urban heat island effect can exacerbate the dangers of heat waves, making it a priority for cities to implement strategies to reduce temperatures and protect public health.

Highlights

Thermal images reveal lower temperatures in areas with more greenery compared to asphalt and concrete surfaces, due to the urban heat island effect.

Urban heat islands are a significant risk to human health, with heat waves being the deadliest extreme weather event.

The government-backed project 'Cooling Singapore' aims to create a digital tool to help mitigate urban heat island effects globally, starting with Singapore.

Singapore experiences regular temperatures above 32 degrees Celsius, exacerbated by urban structures.

Gardens by the Bay in Singapore utilizes the world's largest underground district cooling system, reducing electricity usage by 40% compared to traditional air conditioning.

The district cooling system in Singapore results in emissions savings equivalent to removing 10,000 cars from the roads.

By 2050, over a third of the world's electricity may be used for cooling buildings and vehicles, highlighting the need for innovative solutions.

Researchers at Cooling Singapore have been identifying design solutions to reduce the need for cooling air since 2017.

Vegetation plays a crucial role in mitigating urban heat through shading, psychological effects, and potential evaporative cooling.

Singapore has been working towards a 'Garden City' vision since 1967, making it one of the world's greenest cities.

Kampung Admiralty and Parkroyal on Pickering are examples of Singapore's innovative green architecture, providing additional green space.

Singapore plans to plant 1 million trees and add more green spaces over the next decade to combat the urban heat island effect.

Cooling Singapore has developed a catalog of heat-mitigation measures, including shading, water use as a thermal buffer, and facade design.

The long-term goal is to eliminate combustion engines from city centers and rely on clean electricity production outside the city.

Cooling Singapore is designing a Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) to test various urban design elements' impact on the urban heat island effect.

DUCT will model the city's geometry, transportation, insulation, temperature, solar radiation, weather, and microclimate to invent and test scenarios.

Singapore aims to use DUCT to determine the most effective actions for urban heat mitigation and to potentially export this tool for global use.

Singapore's combination of scientific approach and urban design has the potential to create a more comfortable and livable city in the future.

Transcripts

If you look at a thermal image of a city

and then compare that to a map of vegetation,

you'll find that where there's greenery,

the temperature is lower.

That's because things like

asphalt, concrete and shingled roofs

absorb more heat from the sun than trees.

This is the urban heat island effect,

and it accounts for the higher temperatures in cities,

often by several degrees

compared with their surroundings.

It's becoming a huge risk to human health

as growing urban populations exacerbate

the heating effects of climate change.

Heat waves kill more people

than any other extreme weather event,

more than tornadoes, hurricanes and even floods.

That's why urban heat island mitigation strategies

are being studied in Singapore

by a group of researchers.

The government-backed project

called Cooling Singapore

is now in the process of combining

everything they've learned

to create a digital tool

that can help cities all over the world,

starting with Singapore.

In Singapore, close to the equator,

temperatures regularly rise above

32 degrees Celsius or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

And the city structures only make it worse.

And that is also the case for Singapore,

which is basically a concrete jungle,

more urbanized, more developed city.

And even in Singapore,

what you have is a situation whereby

there's a temperature difference

of 7 degrees Celsius

between the more urbanized and the more rural areas.

The government has taken drastic steps

to keep temperatures down.

This is Gardens by the Bay,

an award-winning park.

And inside this greenhouse

it's a pleasant 24 degrees.

That's because the dome,

along with two dozen nearby towers

full of thousands of people,

is chilled by what's probably the world's

largest underground district cooling system.

It uses a large central plant

that cools water

and then pipes it into banks,

residential towers,

an exhibition center,

shopping malls

and the city's iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel

and casino complex.

So one of the biggest perks of using this system

for the buildings is that

they can save 40% in terms of electricity usage

compared to your traditional air conditioners.

And with Singapore relying on natural gas

for most of its power,

this new system means emissions

savings equivalent to removing 10,000 cars

from the city's roads.

That has big implications for the rest of the world.

If things stay as they are,

more than a third of the world's electricity

could end up being used to cool

buildings and vehicles by 2050.

As the world gets hotter, gets warmer,

there is a greater need for air conditioning

and as well as refrigerators, for instance.

And the more people are buying

these household appliances,

the more energy usage they use

and they release heat more,

and that then exacerbates climate change.

It's a vicious circle.

And so since 2017,

researchers at Cooling Singapore

have been identifying design solutions

that reduce our need for so much

cool air in the first place.

One thing many cities have in common,

and that's the importance of vegetation.

That's a very important measure

to mitigate the urban heat

because of the shading effect, of course,

and deep psychological effects of the vegetation.

And also because of the possible

evaporative cooling effect of the vegetation.

Vegetation can be, of course,

on the ground floor

in form of trees and shrubs.

And you can walk under them.

This is the so-called canopy layer

that the vegetation forms above us.

But vegetation can also go up

the facades of buildings

and it can go to the roof of the buildings.

Luckily, Singapore has been striving

for the Garden City feel for quite some time.

It was a vision initially introduced

by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1967

to make life more pleasant for people.

And today, Singapore is one of the world's

greenest cities in terms of urban vegetation.

Kampung Admiralty, a community center

that contains health facilities and social spaces,

now provides more green space

than the plot of land it was originally built on.

It's topped by a roofscape

of staggered terraces covered in local plants,

which functions as a community park,

and a village green in the center

that contains farm plots for residents to tend to.

Parkroyal on Pickering was designed

as a hotel in a garden

that doubled the green-growing potential of its site.

There's now 15,000 meters of sky gardens,

reflecting pools, waterfalls,

planter terraces and green walls.

And the government has big plans as well.

Singapore actually has a plan

to plant 1 million trees

and add more green spaces over the next 10 years.

It is actually a mix of one thing

to reduce the urban heat island effect.

But on the other hand,

it's also to to get the people

to be more connected to nature.

But it's not enough.

The city-state has still

been warming twice as quickly

as the world average

over the past six decades.

That's why Cooling Singapore has developed

a catalog of other potential

heat-mitigation measures.

When you try to mitigate

the urban heat island effect

in a city or in any building,

in a village as well,

the first place to start

is by shading of the windows.

You have to keep areas clear

so that the wind can move through it.

Water of a certain depth

can act as a very good thermal buffer.

If you have to construct heavy buildings,

such as high rises,

at least you can make the surface,

the facade less heavy.

And you can protect it from direct sun penetration.

We have to make sure that no combustion engines

will be in the city

in the middle,

in the medium- to long-term range.

So ideally, the electricity production

is outside of the city.

And you bring just the clean electricity

into the city.

You can at least minimize

the use of energy in the city.

And you can start to slowly convert the roofs,

the facades of the city,

into production areas for renewable energy.

In Singapore, unfortunately,

this is a limited option.

But in the long run,

it could produce up to 20%, 25% of the energy,

of the electricity needed in Singapore.

If all the roofs and the areas in the buildings,

on the buildings,

on the facades would be used to do that.

With so many different ideas,

Cooling Singapore is also designing

a virtual model of the city to test them out.

It's called a Digital Urban Climate Twin, or DUCT,

that will calculate how each element

of the city's design will impact

the urban heat island effect.

That means we model not only the geometry

of the buildings digitally,

but also we model the transportation,

the insulation, the temperature,

the radiation coming from the sun,

the weather, the local weather,

the local climate,

the even very, very microclimate of the city,

the water, the movement of people in the city.

We can invent scenarios.

We can design scenarios,

test them before we actually build them.

And if they test very well

and we are sure that they will function,

then we can start to build them

and put them into reality.

Singapore will be using this new tool

to figure out which actions it should take next.

And the model can be applied to any city,

whether it needs to keep heat out

or keep heat in,

which will ultimately save energy,

slow climate change

and improve our quality of life.

So this is something that Singapore

will be able to export,

maybe even together with its city development systems

that it already has.

Singapore is one of

the very few cities in the world

that really combined this scientific approach

with a very well-established urban redesign

and urban design approach.

Through its agencies

and the combination of its agencies,

it has achieved a lot in the past.

If it keeps following the scientific path

and the combination with

the other knowledge in the city already,

we think that it will be a very comfortable

and very livable city in the future,

even more than today.