Load shedding due to Pangi Hydropower plant under capacity

If you've been experiencing power supply disruption the last couple of days, you probably were located within the area where load shedding was being carried out.


The current 22MW turbines at Pangi hydropower plant. Pictures taken by The Borneo Post during working visit at the plant November last year.


SESB said that load shedding had to be carried out on Tuesday due to Pangi Hydropower plant in Tenom unable to generate optimal power. Dry weather during Tuesday's peak hour had resulted in slow water flow at Sungai Padas, hence affecting Pangi's power generation capability.

Power generation went down to only 35MW, whereas the full capacity of the power plant is 66MW.

Apart from that, several other independent power producers also faced outage such as in Libaran, ARLT and SBPC. Load shedding began at the peak hour of 12.50pm while power supply was restored in stages beginning 2.50pm on the same day.


Two days in a row now, and counting

Already on Monday, SESB had to resort to load shedding as it observed high demand for power by consumers. If it was not due to failure of its generators then you can only deduce that we are now in the critical stage of power deficiency.

The commissioning of the 100MW IPP by SPR Energy Sdn Bhd in May this year and the first block of Kimanis Power Sdn Bhd generating 95MW in June, may not be sufficient in the medium term! SESB gave assurance this will help solve the problem, but it wont be for long.


The Green Mechanics' two cents:

We've read that Pangi hydropower plant is currently undergoing sprucing up project and a bit of upgrading which would increase the generating capacity from 66MW to 75MW. That's good, but that may be only good enough for the surrounding area.

The utility company is also looking at building a non-destructive 180 MW hydropower plant at Ulu Padas, Kuala Tomani and this, I think would be a better bet at solving the acute power shortage, compared to the small, ageing Pangi hydropower plant. This should (at the least) put Tenom area in a 'safe island' during islanding mode of operation due to major power disruptions.

On IPPs with fault-prone generators, someone should really look at the procedures on how IPP monitoring by SESB is being carried out, if there was one. Well, it's crazy to assume there's none, but can you help but think something is not right with the preventive maintenance after several major blackouts in a span of just a couple of years?

Look at some of my articles pertaining to blackouts and power supply issues in Sabah:

• SESB offers explaination on the 30 April 2012 total blackout - Link
• Sabah power blackout due to Shutdown of 4 turbines by IPP - Link
• IPP Shutdown: SESB load shedding on the card - Link
• Power outage: SESB vs SEB - Link
• Fancy a long Earth Hour this weekend? - Link
• Privatisation of SESB a failure? - Link

On a positive note, one must appreciate the efforts put in place by SESB to address the power supply issues in the state. Several bigger power plants are currently on the pipeline and some of them are nearing completion (in stages), plus, the utility company is also looking at getting better control over the IPPs, especially the upcoming ones once the terms of the existing ones expire.

Also, don't forget; SESB is also spending a lot on upgrading its transmission grids.

IPP Shutdown: SESB load shedding on the card

Load shedding in our daily conversation can equate to power outage. Power outage to certain consumers at the affected shedding area. AND that is just what's in store for you in the next few months, or maybe longer.

SESB is again faced with failure of one of its Independent Power Producers power generator. According to the press release (pic below) a 65MW gas turbine malfunctioned since Dec 5, and as a result the related 30MW steam turbine, too, is unable to operate. That is 95MW of margin taken out of the total capacity.

Your area could face power outage anytime soon, until further notice.

What this means is that SESB is currently in short supply of power. The state's maximum demand is about 830MW and SESB's total generating capacity is 950MW. With the IPP capacity of 95MW omitted, the utility company has only 855MW at its disposal, leaving no room for safety margin.

With this scenario, at peak hours, you could experience power failures as it is now 'waiting to happen' although SESB had activated the Demand Side Management (DSM). The DSM requires that large power users such as large factories, universities, big shopping malls, water treatment plants, etc will be asked to scale down on power usage (reduced business activity) or alternatively use their own back-up generator sets.

It is very unfair to ask business operators to run their own power generator as it costs a lot in operating expenses, when it is nothing of their fault.

IPPs have the social obligation to make sure power from their plants are supplied to SESB reliably. So is  SESB. The contract should provide for mechanism to strictly tie IPPs to this obligation. People understand that IPPs were asked to 'help' the power utility to supply power due to, probably, insufficient funding on the utility's part. But when equipment within the IPPs' jurisdiction fail too frequently, you start to question the adequacy of the contract:

Where is the safety margin?
Where is the scheduled maintenance program?
Why is the failure always related to emergency repairs?

But this will soon be over you say, because Kubota Power Plant (Tawau) and Kimanis Power Plant (Papar) will be completed very soon and this will take care of things.

I'll say you can have all the power plants in the world. If you don't take care of them with proper maintenance, believe me, we can still have as frequent power failure as we currently have.


Please, No blackout-Christmas

In the meantime, let's hope the festive season is not marred with a lot of power outages. "A lot" definitely does not equate to "better" in this context.