Daily Briefing: Temasek, Vickers join Canadian geothermal tech firm Eavor's $53m funding round; Land earmarked for Agri-Food Innovation Park in Kranji 'erroneously' cleared: JTC

And over 3,000 appeals to waive stay-home notice costs for maids approved.

From e27:

Canada-based geothermal technology company Eavor Technologies has raised $53m (US$40m) from a host of investors, including Singapore-based Temasek Holdings and Vickers Venture Partners.

Other investors are bp Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, BDC Capital, and Eversource.

This round follows Eavor’s $11m (US$8m) fundraise in 2020.

The fresh funds will be used to scale Eavor’s projects and bolster its ongoing R&D to further improve its solution.

Launched in 2017, Eavor claims to be the world’s first scalable form of dispatchable energy.

Read more here.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Plots of land earmarked for the development of the Agri-Food Innovation Park in Kranji were “erroneously” cleared ahead of the conclusion of a commissioned study and a “stern warning” has been issued to the contractor involved, JTC Corp said.

In a statement, JTC referred to social media posts regarding the clearance of land at Kranji Road and Kranji Close, saying the area that had been cleared was earmarked for the development of the Agri-Food Innovation Park.

The Agri-Food Innovation Park is part of the Sungei Kadut Eco-District. About 18 hectares of land has been set aside for the first phase of development for the Agri-Food Innovation Park in the district to co-locate research and development, prototyping, and high-tech farming operations such as indoor farming and aquaculture hatcheries.

As part of JTC’s preparations to develop the Agri-Food Innovation Park, it had engaged an environmental specialist to carry out a biodiversity baseline study in December last year, and to work out an environmental monitoring and management plan for specified plots of land within the area, it said.

Read more here.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

About 3,200 appeals to waive the stay-home notice accommodation costs for foreign domestic workers were approved over the last 10 months, said Minister of State for Manpower Gan Siow Huang in Parliament.

This accounts for about 13% of the 25,000 entry requests approved for foreign domestic workers to enter Singapore between April last year and January this year, Gan said.

The domestic workers who were allowed into Singapore either took on work with new employers, or replaced maids who had returned to their home countries, she added.

The appeals were “carefully reviewed”, taking into consideration factors such as the household income and financial circumstances of the applicants.

As part of efforts to stem the transmission of COVID-19, most new foreign domestic workers coming into Singapore have to serve a stay-home notice in dedicated facilities.

They must also take a COVID-19 test before their stay-home notice is over.

Read more here.