Electricity generation on Singapore's rustic Pulau Ubin island has just been upgraded.

Some 30 businesses and residents there have signed up to tap solar and bio diesel energy from a micro-grid, in place of the diesel generators they had used before. The multimillion dollar micro-grid is a test by the Energy Market Authority and companies Daily Life Renewable Energy and OKH Holdings.

Mr S. Iswaran, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry, was guest-of-honour at its launch ceremony on Thursday.

Besides providing cleaner, cheaper energy for Ubin residents and businesses, he said, technologies used on the micro-grid would in future help the national grid cope with intermittent energy generated from the sun and other renewable energy sources.