Dear SFSS Members,
2025 ended two weeks ago, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for 2026!
2025 was another very important year for SFSS, with many events and activities, including our annual flagship event, the World Conference on Floating Solutions (2025), as well as a wide range of webinars, site visits, publications, and social activities that increased interest in—and knowledge about—floating structures. Our activities are the lifeblood of our Society, so before I reflect on 2025, here are two brief announcements regarding upcoming events. I hope to see many of you join us.
In the coming days, we will circulate more information about an informal teatime meeting (Thursday, 29 January, 3:00 pm, in Singapore’s CBD) for new and existing members to meet the Council. We will also host an online teatime meeting in February for members not based in Singapore or who will be traveling. Planning for other events is ongoing, and we will also hold—among other activities—another major webinar on floating solar PV in March.
I became SFSS President in March 2024, close to two years ago, after previously organizing webinars for the Society. A great deal of work goes into organizing our annual flagship event, the WCFS. Because we host it every year, once one event concludes, attention almost immediately shifts to the next. In spring 2025, we selected TCOMS (Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine, Singapore) as the host of the Sixth World Conference on Floating Solutions. Significant progress has been made in preparing the event, which will take place at the Singapore EXPO grounds from 19 to 21 October 2026. Registration and paper submission will open shortly, once the website is online (late January/early February). Our SFSS–WCFS committee this time includes CM Wang, Zhang Chi, Tay Zhi Yung, and myself, with Lim Soon Heng serving in an advisory role.
We want to see as many SFSS members as possible at the WCFS. All members who pay their SFSS membership subscription for 2026 will receive a discount of SGD 100 on their early-bird registration fee.
Our previous SFSS–WCFS committee (CM Wang, Lim Soon Heng, and I) also worked with the International Scientific Committee (chaired by CM) and Tytti Sirola’s Bluet team on the Fifth World Conference on Floating Solutions at Hanaholmen Conference Center in Espoo, Finland, which took place from 1 to 3 September 2025. More than 220 participants joined us—another demonstration of the global interest that the event, and floating solutions more broadly, are attracting. At the same time, we are already working on the Seventh WCFS (2027), including preparing a call for a suitable co-organizer.
In 2025, we hosted a series of webinars between the World Conferences, open to members and the broader public. I would again like to thank our speakers for the two events on floating solar PV development in Malaysia and Indonesia (both co-hosted with SERIS, with many thanks to Council member Danny Tan), the webinar on Asian coastlines and sinking cities (co-hosted with ARI at NUS and organized by me), two webinars on floating nuclear power plants, and those on digital twins of floating cities, floating farms, and floating recreational structures.
Recordings of most of these webinars are available on our YouTube page (below).
In March 2025, we organised site visits to the Sembcorp Tengeh floating solar PV farm in Singapore—many thanks to Council members Danny Tan and Charles Lim. In September, we visited the Cirata floating solar PV farm, a major project in Indonesia—again, I am grateful to Danny Tan. Our third site visit, to the TCOMS wave tank, took place in connection with CM Wang and his Australian colleagues testing their new fish farm (thanks to Zhang Chi). At WCFS 2025, the technical tour also included multiple sites of interest, including a floating swimming pool and saunas, a restaurant, and a wave tank for ice-condition testing.
We also participated in person in many congresses, conferences, and other events, including an evening lecture at NUS Cities that I delivered in February; Asia Energy Week (also in February, with support from Council members Ivan Stoytchev, Danny Tan, and Charles Lim); the PEERS Asia meeting on coastal climate adaptation in March (thank you, Lim Soon Heng); Offshore Wind Asia Week in April (gratitude to Zhang Chi, Ivan Stoytchev, and Katheryn Tan); and World Offshore Week in September (myself).
For his important help in organizing our Networking Night in February and our Annual Dinner in November, I also thank social events Council member Ivan Stoytchev.
The proceedings of the Fourth WCFS were published, making the papers accessible, alongside multiple books and articles written by Society members. Beyond that, news articles featured interviews with me and other Society members, covering topics ranging from floating real estate to engineering and climate adaptation.
We also made several major website updates, including the “What are floating solutions?” and “What is the WCFS?” overview pages. Moreover, we further intensified our social media outreach and now have nearly 1,200 followers on LinkedIn, with the goal of reaching 2,000 in the coming years. In this regard, I would like to explicitly thank our social media administrators and webmasters, Wendalyna Lye and (now) Harshit Srivastava, as well as our management expert, Sheryl Low—whom some of you met at the Annual Dinner—for their very important contributions to our work. We could not have done it without you.
I would also like to thank our Treasurer, Larry Lim, who is once again busy preparing last year’s financial reports.
As always, we very much appreciate member feedback and suggestions—whether regarding activities, getting involved in their delivery, or any other form of input.
Best wishes,
Stefan
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Dr. Stefan HUEBNER
President
Society of FLOATING SOLUTIONS (Singapore)
