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The United Kingdom has granted Indonesia 13 million pounds (US$16.3 million) to finance a plan to involve provincial administrations in developing renewable energy across the nation. The grant will finance the Indonesian government’s Low Carbon Development Initiative (LCDI) to improve efforts to reduce carbon emissions and help the country reap the benefits of renewable energy.
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The system is expected to produce over 7,840MW hours of power annually.
Sembcorp Industries (Sembcorp) has inked a long-term agreement with Experia Events to install, own and operate rooftop solar panels with a total capacity of 6.3MW peak, atop its flagship facility Changi Exhibition Centre (CEC), an announcement revealed.
Built on a 30 ha site, the CEC is a multi-dimensional facility that has hosted key aviation, sporting and lifestyle events in Singapore.
The rooftop solar energy system, comprising over 15,000 solar panels, will be built on top of the facility’s 40,000 sqm exhibition hall. It will help to power the onsite operations at CEC, and any surplus power generated from the system will be channeled to the grid.
Upon completion and installation of the solar energy system in November 2019, it is expected to produce over 7,840MW hours of power annually.
“This is enough renewable energy to power more than 1,750 four-room HDB flats for a year,” Sembcorp revealed, adding that the solar energy system will also help avoid over 3.2 million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, which is equivalent to the emissions avoided from taking around 715 cars off the road, or planting over 39,000 trees.
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Representatives from Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur led by Erlend Sannes Hadland, Deputy Head of Mission joined the 17th Asian Oil, Gas & Petrochemical Engineering Exhibition (OGA 2019) on June 18, at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
Organized by Malaysian Exhibition Services, Malaysia’s leading exhibition organizer, OGA 2019 is a 3-days exhibition taking place from June 18-20, 2019.
OGA 2019 brought together professional, trade and business participants who worked relatively in oil, gas and petrochemical industry to give them the opportunity to obtain insights as well as have a presence at the exhibition.
With around 20,000 square meters of exhibition space, OGA 2019 will provide 2,000 participating companies from more than 60 countries with the showcase of the latest technology, equipment and machinery in the fields of oil, gas and petrochemical engineering.
Erlend Sannes Hadland, Deputy Head of Mission visited Interwell’s booth at 17th Asian Oil, Gas & Petrochemical Engineering Exhibition (Photo: Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur’s Facebook page)
As a consequence of Malaysia becoming a regional hub for petroleum industries, this exhibition was organized to highlight and promote Malaysia’s potential in the Oil, Gas and Energy (OGE) sector.
“This will not only strengthen Malaysia’s position as a strong oil and gas nation, but also a competent OGE leader, especially in the Asian region,” Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad stated on OGA’s press release.
According to Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, oil, gas and petrochemical industry is likewise the largest industry of Norway where it is world’s 8th largest producer of oil and 3rd largest producer of gas.
11 Norwegian-based companies participating the exhibition included Interwell, DNV GL, Rustibus, RESMAN, EPSIS, Telenor Maritime, Odfjell Well Services, Cegal, Oliasoft and Tieto.
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Royal Group, Cambodia’s largest conglomerate, was granted permission last week to conduct a feasibility study on a 700-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Preah Sihanouk province.
For in depth analysis of Cambodian Business, visit Capital Cambodia
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Victor Jona, spokesman at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, yesterday said that permission to proceed with the study was given last week during a meeting between Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem and Royal Group chairman Kith Meng.
Mr Jona said Royal Group has already completed a feasibility study for the project, but added that, given Cambodia’s current power woes, the company asked to expand the project’s capacity from 450 to 700 MW. He said the expansion requires a new feasibility study.
“The government had allowed Royal Group to conduct a study on a 450 MW coal-fired power plant, but the country’s power demands have intensified as of late, so the company decided to make changes to the plant’s output capacity.
“A new study is required due to the change in output capacity.”
It will take 18 to 20 months to complete the study. It will then be submitted to the government for approval. The government will need to consider whether the tariff at which power will be sold to the national grid is acceptable, Mr Jona said.
“This year we faced a serious energy shortage. Because of this, we are allowing investors to increase the capacity of their projects,” Mr Jona said.
“Unlike hydropower dams, coal-fired power plants are a stable source of power all year round,” he added.
Mr Jona did not provide details regarding the project’s location in Preah Sihanouk province.
Cambodian Energy Co Ltd (CEL), a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Leader Universal Holdings, operates two 50 MW coal-fired power plants in Preah Sihanouk. The company is building another 150 MW plant which will be completed in October.
CIIDG Erdos Hongjun Electric Power operates three 135 MW coal-fired power plants in Preah Sihanouk province.
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HANOI – Vietnam has construed ASEAN’s largest solar farm under its DAU TIENG 1 and DAU TIENG 2 (DT1&2) project with the combined generation capacity of 677 megawatts.
Preeyanart Soontornwata, president of Thailand’s BGRIM Power, said the DT1&2 project in Tay Ninh province started to commercially sell electricity on June 3 and 13 respectively. Besides, the Phu Yen TTP solar farm project with the capacity of 257 megawatts had its commercial operation date (COD) on June 10.
“It is a successful startup, right on time and heralds a new era for the renewal energy scene in Vietnam while also representing a new significant revenue stream for BGRIM,” said BGRIM chief executive Preeyanart Soontornwata.
“Both projects have their CODs ahead of their schedules. Revenue has been recorded with the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) of 9.35 US cents per kilowatt-hour for 20 years. This raises B GRIM’s electricity generation capacity by as much as 31% and the proportion of generation by renewable energy increases to 30% from about 10%,” she said.
The company has 45 COD power plant projects comprising 17 combined cycle power plant projects, 24 solar farm projects, three hydropower projects and one diesel-fired power plant project. They have a combined capacity of 2,892 megawatts. It is implementing and developing 11 more projects.
Their CODs were set for 2025 and will raise the total capacity to 3,245 megawatts. The company plans to increase the capacity to 5,000 megawatts by 2022.
“B GRIM Power was assigned by the Vietnamese government to further study and develop renewable energy. It is considering investment in many wind farm projects. It should be concluded late this year. It is also exploring investment opportunities in many other countries including South Korea, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philipplines,” Ms Preeyanart said.
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THE ASIAN Development Bank (ADB) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed Tuesday an agreement to mobilize about $7 billion worth of investment for energy projects in Asia and the Pacific.
USAID Asia Bureau Acting Assistant Administrator Gloria Steele said with the targeted investment, the agencies hope to increase the capacity of deployed energy systems by six gigawatts, and increase regional energy trade by 10% over the next five years.
“What we would like to do is to use the resources to get the private sector to engage in the energy sector in their region. And through their engagement, we want to mobilize investments from the private sector, from businesses,” Ms. Steele said during the news conference Tuesday at the ADB office in Ortigas Center.
Director General of ADB’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department Tomoyuki Kimura said the projects to be funded will “focus on clean energy, renewable energy and also energy access for all.”
For the Philippines, among other priority countries in the Indo-Pacific region, this would mean an expansion of renewable energy projects.
Asked if the ADB has found prospective investors here, Yongping Zhai, chief of the Energy Sector Group under the ADB’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, replied positively, adding: “We are looking at expanding clean energy and renewable energy in the Philippines.”
Mr. Zhai added that liquefied natural gas remains a viable option for the country to diversify its power mix.
“LNG and gas will be important to make the process clean; otherwise the share of coal will increase,” Mr. Zhai told reporters yesterday.
Mr. Zhai said the financing will be tapped via partnerships with the private sector.
These investments, in turn, will help mobilize other sources of finance. The ADB will focus on providing technical assistance.
“ADB will continue using our resources but with this additional resources from USAID, we will expand and strengthen the design of our projects, institution-side and capacity-side,” Mr. Zhai added.
Mr. Kimura noted that the deal will serve as a “useful instrument” for ADB to achieve its commitment in its Strategy 2030 to mobilize private sector financing, particularly for infrastructure intended for various sectors.
“We have actually a commitment to achieve a leverage range of 2.5, which means whenever we provide $1 of our money, we mobilize $2.5 particularly from the private sector,” Mr. Kimura added.
The initiative was launched yesterday and will be given five years to achieve the objectives under the agreement.
In 2018, ADB made commitments of new loans and grants amounting to $21.6 billion.
For the energy sector, ADB’s annual funding averages around $5 billion, according to Mr. Zhai, noting that half is allocated for clean and renewable energy while the remaining half is for putting up transmission lines and execution systems. — Janina C. Lim
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State-owned electricity company PLN will provide a discount of up to 75-100 percent for customers willing to increase electric power until the end of this month if they use an induction stove or own an electric car.
“[We have] assured the safety of induction stoves that are available in Indonesia,” said the corporate acting head of occupational safety and health unit (K3), Imam Abdillah, Tuesday, June 18.
Therefore, Imam suggested households utilize induction or electric stoves considering there was no worry about the use. Moreover, consumers of 1,300 volt-ampere (VA) could already use one.
“In addition to fireless worry less, it (induction stove) is safer. It’s also electricity-saving and economical. An induction stove is safe to use because it’s not hot, but the temperature for cooking is stable,” said Imam, adding that 100-percent discount would be provided for owners of an electric car.
Meanwhile, General Manager of PLN Bekasi Consumer Service Unit, Renny Wahyu Setiaswan, added that the issue on the danger of the electricity was fundamental, so his staffers constantly established dissemination on the matter to the public.
“We educate the community about the dangers of electricity, either to adults and children,” Renny said.
According to Renny, education program aimed to support the culture of K3 in the community by creating a culture of care, obedient, and responsive. He hoped the program helped the public to have cultural independence and acknowledge the occupational safety and health.
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YANGON — The European consortium behind a 1,230-megawatt power project in Tanintharyi Region has proposed scaling back its plans amid stalled talks with the government over financial terms.
However, a senior government official told Frontier the revised proposal is unlikely to be accepted and the project now faces the prospect of suspension or cancellation.
French energy giant Total and Germany’s Siemens received a notice to proceed in January 2018 from the Ministry of Electricity and Energy for the Kanbauk project, which would reportedly entail investment of US$2.1 billion.
The initial proposal included a liquefied natural gas floating storage regasification unit, the power plant and 450 kilometres of 500kV transmission lines linking Kanbauk in Tanintharyi’s Yebyu Township with Payagyi in Bago Region.
But the consortium has proposed reducing the capacity of the first phase of the plant from 615MW to 400MW and removing the transmission line component, several sources said.
Under the new plan, power would instead be transmitted to Yangon via a 230kV line to be built using a soft loan from the Asian Development Bank – an alternative that would likely reduce the required investment by hundreds of millions of dollars.
A spokesperson for Siemens confirmed to Frontier that a revised plan had been discussed with the government.
“The project is being considered now under a different scheme and size with several phases in order to leverage the future 230kV transmission line planned by the Ministry of Electricity and Energy in the south of Myanmar,” said the spokesperson.
A government official said the ministry was opposed to the idea.
“The main [reason for] this project is that we don’t have a southern grid to connect [Tanintharyi Region] to the national grid. If they are not willing to build [a high-voltage] transmission line as per our previous agreement, the project would likely be cancelled,” the official said.
The revised proposal, which the government official said was first submitted four or five months ago, was designed to help break a deadlock in negotiations over financial terms. Under the NTP issued in January 2018, the first phase of 615MW was supposed to come online in January 2021 and full operations would begin a year later. However, the consortium is yet to even sign a power purchase agreement.
Mr Romaric Roignan, general manager of Total E&P Myanmar, declined to answer questions on the proposal to scale back Kanbauk but insisted that Total was “fully committed” to the project.
The consortium partners have “completed a very significant amount of work”, including initiating the tender process for the FSRU and receiving initial bids from engineering, procurement and construction contractors, he said.
Environmental and social impact assessments and initial environmental examinations for the three components – the gas facilities, power plant and transmission lines – have already been completed, he added.
While Roignan said that “significant progress has been made regarding the key project documentation”, Frontier understands talks on the PPA have stalled over several key issues.
The Siemens spokesperson said these issues included the price the government would pay for LNG and “guarantees” for the project. For the consortium, the objective is to ensure the project agreements are “attractive for future investors and financiers”, the spokesperson said.
While he did not comment on the Kanbauk project directly, U Han Zaw, the deputy director general of the Department of Electric Power Planning, confirmed that negotiations with the sponsors of LNG projects had reached a “bottleneck”.
“Investors want a floating market price [for LNG] while we prefer a fixed price in the PPA. And investors are also demanding to be paid in dollars, but the government is standing firmly on its decision to pay in kyat,” he said. “These two issues have created a bottleneck for the negotiations.”
Since the NTP was signed, Siemens also appears to have reduced its involvement in the project, with the company now only planning to provide technology and expertise.
Han Zaw said that until it received the proposal to scale back the project the government had expected both Total and Siemens would invest in Kanbauk. “We now know that Siemens will not make any investment in the project, but is still involved in the consortium with its technology,” said Han Zaw.
On May 7, Siemens announced that it would spin off its power assets into a new company and divest most of its holdings, potentially creating a further complication.
The Siemens spokesperson said the company was leading the feasibility study on the power generation, power transmission and grid stability aspects of the project. “Siemens has left the leading development role to our partner who is best placed to discuss the gas commercial topics,” the spokesperson said. “Recently Total is leading commercial discussion with the Energy ministry while Siemens remains as technology provider for electrical portions of the project.”
ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) is an intergovernmental organisation within ASEAN structure that represents the 10 ASEAN Member States’ (AMS) interests in the energy sector.
