TNB set to get 1320 MW coal powered plant job in Bangladesh

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) may have shelved its plan to build a 300 MW coal-fired power plant in Lahad Datu, Sabah, but that does not stop the utility company to keep burning coal elsewhere.

TNB's proposal for installation and operations of a 1,320MW plant has been selected by Bangladesh Power Division. TNB beat other proposals from China and Thailand power generation companies.


TNB's other coal-fired power plant in Manjung, Malaysia. Picture: Instrumentations & Process Control


Bangladesh's New Age newspaper reported that the power plant, to be installed at either Anwara in Chittagong or Maheshkhali at Cox's Bazar, would be through a joint-venture company owned by the Power Development Board and TNB.


Quick facts and estimates

Plant capacity    : 1,320 MW
Fuel                    : imported coal
Owner                : Bangladesh Power Division
Cost                   : RM6.6 billion (US$2.15 bil) - The EDGE Malaysia's estimate
Project scheme  : Build-Own-Operate
Proposed J-V     : 50-50 share between TNB and the power board


Nothing official yet but it is expected that a delegation from the Power Division will visit Malaysia this month to finalise the memorandum of understanding on the installation and operations of the plant.


Bangladesh has more coal-fired power plants

Including this proposal, Bangladesh has so far initiated 3 big coal-fired power projects, each having 1,320MW power generation capacity, in joint venture with equal shares with three state-run agencies.

Being the biggest power utility company in Malaysia, TNB certainly has the experience and capability to install and operate similar plants. At present, TNB's combined generation capacity (in Malaysia and Pakistan) is 12,000 MW.

Bangladesh has set a long-range target to generate about 20,000MW power from coal-fired plants - 11,250 MW using domestic coal and 8,750 MW fromimported coal - by 2030.


TheGreenMechanics' two cents:

Coal advocateurs claim that there is newer technology that make coal 'clean' and thus it should be developed further to become the main fuel. Coal can never be clean from whichever perspective you look at it and a 'dirty' fuel shall remain dirty. Question is how well can you manage the waste and byproducts of burning coal. There is bound to be leaks somewhere. The ill effect of the pollution is not immediate (unlike other chemicals), and thus people's mentality towards coal is different from, say radio-actives and chlorine for instance.

Note that India and Bangladesh are still unsettled on the implementation of the latter's proposal for another 1,320MW coal-fired power plant initiated earlier than the one with TNB.

Meanwhile TNB's extension of its Manjung coal power plant in Malaysia by additional 1,000 MW is understood to be going ahead as planned.

Featured Energy Company: Wang Noi Power Plant

The Wang Noi Power Plant is located on the area of 280 acres at Wang Noi District within Ayutthaya province.

It is located approximately 70 kilometers north of Bangkok with total generating capacity in excess of 2 GW supplying power to central region of Thailand.


Wang Noi Power Plant n brief

The power plant is equipped with 3 combined cycle blocks, incorporating 6 gas turbines and 3 steam turbines. The official synchronization was completed in April, 1996 and the Commercial Operation date (COD) in May, 1996. The main fuel for plant generation is natural gas from two sources – the Gulf of Thailand and Myanmar. Diesel oil of 60 million liters has been reserved as supplementary fuel in case of gas supply interruption. The total capacity of Wang Noi Power Plant is 2,027 MW and the gross production from 1996 to 2011 was 147,428,708,433 million kWh.

An Inlet air cooling system of 20,000 ton is installed at Block 3 of the combined cycle power plant. The installation was completed in June 2012 and can further enhance the capacity by 70 MW to the gross generation. Wang Noi Block 4 combined cycle power plant is currently under construction. The project will be completed in June 2014 and will add the capacity of 785 MW to the present generating system.

Wang Noi Power Plant developed an emergency response plan by building a flood barrier during Thailand’s worst flood in 2011, that protect and saved the power plant from severe impact. This barrier was enhanced to cover 5 kilometers in length to protect the total area of 1.28 million sq meters.

Stage one of the CCGT. Photo: power-technology

Why Wang Noi Power Plant?

The plant is an example of power generation plant that promotes efficient energy utilisation technology, which carries out its operations in complete compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. From July 2007 to present, the power plant has given over ฿450 million (US$14.3 mil) to Community Development Fund and has carried out a wide range of social and environmental activities to develop and build better living for the community around it, such as, public health, education, occupational promotion, cultural conservation etc.

It has been accredited with ISO 14001, ISO9001, and TIS18001 certification. The power plant was honoured for its outstanding business operations for nine consecutive years since 2002 and is proud of achievement of 2 million hours of operation with zero accident.

This plant is also the site of choice for Technical Plant Tour by the organiser of the Renewable Energy World Asia Conference & Expo in Bangkok, Thailand early October 2012.

SESB offers explaination on the 30 April 2012 total blackout

I would like to share what SESB explained in detail in one of the local dailies which is not made available in its website www.sesb.com.my. Some slight changes made on the text to simplify the article, but leaving the clarity and meaning intact.

Formally expressing its sincere apology, the company through its MD highlighted four significant aspects of the incident, namely:

1. What triggered the incident?
2. Why the 66kV Capacitive Voltage Transformer (CVT) failed?
3. Why it took a long time to restore supply in some areas?
4. The SAIDI figure integrity.

Typical 132kV main intake station (Pencawang Masuk Utama, PMU)

What triggered the incident?

The disruption to the supply system was initiated by a failure of a 66kV CVT at the Main Intake Station (PMU) Penampang at 3.23am. This had in turn caused cascading trippings to 2 of the anchor power stations in the West Coast totalling 290MW out of the 550MW load at the time of the incident. These had caused the relatively small capacity generating sets running in the East Coast at that time to experience overloading and their protection systems tripped them off also.

With the tripping of the 2 anchor power stations in the West Coast which represent >50% of the demand at the time of incident and the subsequent protective trippings of the small power stations in the East Coast had caused the Grid frequency to plunge to a critical level that eventually brought down the whole Grid, i.e. blackout. This is a standard fail-safe mechanism designed for any Grid operation to prevent more widespread damage to the other components under similar circumstances.


Why the 66kV CVT failed?

Having studied and analysed the event log available at the SESB State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC) in Penampang by the engineers from TNB and SESB, it was found out that the particular CVT had experienced an intermittent and transient over-voltage. Unfortunately the intermittent and transient over-voltage which occurred in milliseconds was not readily detectable as it is not a standard power utility practice to install a real time monitoring facility for this type of equipment even for some bigger power utility entities. This had therefore been diagnosed to be as the reason for the CVT failure.

For the record, the failure of this particular CVT was the one and only incident in the 24 years of its installation. The CVT had been religiously maintained in accordance to the standard and mandatory requirement for such installation among which are:

i)   Last preventive maintenance, PPM: 2009 (5-yearly interval)
ii)  Last routine maintenance: 4 April 2012 (monthly)
iii) Last condition-based maintenance (thermo-scan and ultrasound): 9 March 2012 (6-monthly interval)

All the results from the latest maintenance activity as above had shown no anomalies. SESB also highlighted that the size of this CVT is of no significant relevance in the way it affects the Grid System operation because the manner in which an equipment failure affects the Grid System operation also depends on many other factors such as generation capacity, power transfer from one point to another within the Grid, generation balance within the Grid, the fault level it triggered and the generator assigned as the system frequency control at the time of incident besides not forgetting the exercise of a prudent economic despatch regime.

SESB said that it is definitely not an apple to apple comparison to say that the CVT to the Grid System operation is the same as a compass to a ship. It is more like a choked fuel filter on an engine of the ship which will cause the engine to stall and leaving the ship immobilised and stranded in the open seas until the engine is operational again.


Why it took a long time to restore supply in some areas?

As part of SESB's standard operating procedure, SOP, under such a situation, an established Emergency Response Plan (ERP) was immediately activated with the Managing Director or the Senior General manager (asset Management) being the Commander and the General Manager (System Operation) will act as the overall coordinator for the Grid System restoration.

Under such conditions the Grid Operation will be split into 6 independent islanding operations to facilitate safe, orderly and speedy restorations. The 6 'islands' are Patau, Pangi, Salut, Melawa, Sandakan and Tawau. This was what had been activated during the incident on the 30th April 2012. The extent in which supply restoration can be achieved in these separate independent islands depends primarily on the generation capacity compared to the load demands within the island.

If the generation capacity far exceeds the load demands then a safe, full and speedy restoration could be achieved. Conversely, the island in which the generation capacity is lower than the load demands, at best only partial restoration could be achieved in a safe manner. Full supply restoration could only be achieved once all the independent islands are safely connected to the Grid again with all identified generator achieved full and stable operations.

During the incident on 30th April, the first partial area restored was in Tawau at 4.20am, while the last 11kV feeder restored was in Balung, Tawau at 7.47pm. The main reason for the long delay to achieve full Grid operation was due to some of the generators had unfortunately not been able to achieve full, safe and stable operation faster. For this, a further analysis had been commissioned by both TNB and SESB engineers to ascertain the root cause which will also cover all aspect of generator start-up requirement such as, among others, auxiliary relay settings, gas supply conditions and gas to distillate change-over facilities on the relevant power stations, both which belongs to SESB and the IPPs.


The SAIDI figure integrity

Find out how to calculate SAIDI in my previous article.

SESB is required by Energy Commission Malaysia (EC), through regulatory compliance of one of the License Conditions, to submit reports on supply status on a daily basis. The actual official figure for SAIDI announced by SESB from time to time is that which had been endorsed by Energy Commission. Only EC can certify certain SAIDI figure to be officially taken as true number.

It should be noted that SAIDI is just one of the internationally accepted measure for electricity supply performance. Electricity supply performance is also the result of the existence of adequate basic infrastructure such as logistically balanced anchor generation sources and capacity, strong complete-loop transmission network as well as distribution infrastructure. Hence, highlighting the persistent efforts by SESB to implement projects in the East Coast to help create generating balance in the Grid System.


Prevention of recurrence of similar fault

To prevent future happenings of similar incident, SESB with the technical collaborations from experts in TNB had embarked to re-assess the network defence system to effectively and efficiently match the ever increasing demand in Sabah

Date published: 24th May 2012
Newspaper: Daily Express, Sabah

64 MW Kubota station to start operation in June 2012

The total blackout on 30 April 2012 is just one of the many power outages that Malaysians in Sabah have to endure. One of the many unresolved reasons for the frequent power supply interruption is the inadequate power generated by the utility.

Almost immediately after the massive blackout, SESB announced that, together with Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), it is working hard to ensure the RM80 million Kubota power station in Tawau can start operating by June this year.

Tawau town (photo: malaysiasite.nl). Current power capacity is 64MW against peak demand of 80MW

64 Megawatts of instant power plant

The RM80 mil project consists of gas-fired turbine generator, with an installed capacity of 64MW and is expected to reduce the impact of power outages in Tawau especially if there were problems along the Sabah grid interconnection. Note that this interconnection is the only east-wast transmission lines that transmit power from west coast to Sandakan, Tawau, Lahad Datu and the whole of the east coast.

As such, apart from higher generating capacity, this east-west grid is of tremendous importance to SESB, financially as well as keeping its reputation intact. 

Something's not right? The headline is correct about the 64MW plant.

The person in the pic is Ir. Baharin Din. Not Abdul Razak!

Peak demand/load for Tawau at the moment is 80MW and is expected to increase to 96MW by 2015. Compared with the current generating capacity of only 64MW, the town and its surroundings are in constant dependance of 'imported' power from west coast. SESB said that the east coast is importing between 16MW and 164MW of power from the west coast daily. This will be another challenge for the power utility to juggle between the two coasts. Old equipments and transmission lines certainly add to the possibility of frequent power disruptions.

It is not that importing power from the West Coast is a bad idea. But with its operations put to the higher limit, SESB is risking recurrence of major power failures as the supply become unstable with the safety margin being 'sucked' by the importing power network (in this case the East Coast).

Tawau is connected to the main grid, with transmission lines length of about 550km

Can we still get the power by June?

With the recent news saying that one of the barges containing equipment for the Kubota power plant has been hijacked by pirates, we are now less optimistic about the June deadline.

It was reported that only one shipment, Wantas, reached Tawau port in mid-May while the other barge, Wantas VII that was ferrying equipment including a gas turbine generator belonging to TNB-SESB was hijacked by pirates sometime mid-April.

It seems that the wait for more stable power supply is on, at least for now. End of the year seems more like it but I'm happy to be proven wrong!

Kimanis RM1.5bil gas-fired plant

Last month myself and a group of colleagues travelled South to Beaufort on a tour of duty. After about an hour of driving, we passed by Kimanis, Papar. This is the location of the (soon-to-be) biggest - designed for 300MW - power plants in Sabah to address the power supply issue in the state. It is still in the early stage of construction.

Not exactly the Power Plant but this SOGT project site should give you an idea of where the generators will be sited.

The power plant costs about RM1.5 billion (US$485 mil) to build and it is owned by Kimanis Power Sdn Bhd (KPSB), a 60:40 joint-venture initiative between Petronas Gas Berhad and NRG Consortium (Sabah) Sdn Bhd, a company under Yayasan Sabah.

The gas-fuelled plant consists of 3 nos of 100MW generating blocks, each of which consists of Gas Turbine Generator (GTG), Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) and Steam Turbine Generator (STG). This makes it 300MW in total and this should take care of at least short term electricity demand in Sabah. But it is also understood that the plant has allocated a space for future upgrading and the expansion infrastructure can cater for additional 100MW of supply.

According to SESB's data, Sabah recorded a highest peak demand (MD) of 830MW on June 28, 2011. The independent power producer (IPP) could not have came at a better time.

Engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning works for the combined cycle gas power plant is to be done by Synerlitz Sdn Bhd (Taiwan owned) and SCHB Engineering Services (a subsidiary of Suria Capital Holdings Berhad).

The Kimanis Power Plant project is one of the bigger spin-off activities from the proposed Sabah Onshore Gas Terminal (SOGT) project, located in Kimanis and implemented by Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd. Site preparation works for the SOGT project was undertaken by Montis Sdn Bhd, a Penampang-based local company.

SOGT site preparation works - local company benefited.

The power plant project is scheduled for full completion in 32 months' time, from Apr 1, 2011 and the first commercial operation date for the first generating block is December 1, 2013.

Once completed, the Kimanis Power Plant will be the biggest IPP plant Sabah (until such time that a bigger one comes in) and it will take great responsibility in supplying reliable and clean electricity to Malaysians in Sabah.

Power plant summary

Power supply requirement fulfilled?

The short term energy demand should be taken care of for now but more such facilities must be constructed to meet the fast increasing peak demand. According to SESB, electricity demand in Sabah is expected to reach 1,500 MW by the year 2020.

Preferably, there should also be some investment in renewable energy such as hydroelectric, biomass/biogas and solar photovoltaic.