New investments in Singapore's fast-growing clean energy industry will generate $180 million in annual business spending and create about 1,000 professional jobs in the next five years, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the Asia Clean Energy Summit (Aces), Mr Masagos noted that the clean energy industry will add as many as 2.2 million jobs in South-east Asia by 2030, up from about 600,000 in 2016.

Aces is an event held in conjunction with the Singapore International Energy Week.

Singapore has an ambitious target to increase the adoption of solar energy to 350 megawatt-peak (MWp) by 2020, and to one gigawatt-peak beyond 2020.

The minister highlighted two major advances in pushing for floating solar farms, which will help overcome the challenge of scaling up solar power generation in land-scarce Singapore.

The first is an initiative led by the Economic Development Board (EDB) to explore the potential deployment of a floating solar photovoltaic (PV) system, to be operated by the private sector, at Kranji Reservoir. EDB has launched a request for information to invite potential renewable energy users from the private sector to submit proposals on how they can harness solar energy through the deployment of a large-scale floating solar PV system.

The second involves Singapore's first large-scale floating solar farm. National water agency PUB will next year launch the tender for this 50 MWp solar farm at Tengeh Reservoir. The floating solar farm will be deployed in the next three years.