Manjung 4 power plant to boost TNB Janamanjung revenue

MANJUNG: TNB Janamanjung Sdn Bhd expects revenue to hit RM4bil once the 1,000MW Manjung 4 coal-fired power plant is ready for commercialisation in the first quarter of 2015.

“The first three Manjung power plants which are collectively running at full capacity at 2,100MW currently generate about RM3bil,” TNB Janamanjung chief operating officer/general manager Shamsul Ahmad said at a briefing at Stesen Janakuasa Sultan Azlan Shah (SJSAS), Manjung on Tuesday.

He said the exact contributions from Manjung 4 would however would depend on a variety of factors.

SJSAS is TNB's largest power generation facility and also critical for power supply nationwide. The scheduled completion date for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract is on March 31, 2015.

According to Manjung 4 project director Ahmad Faraid Yahaya, the “supercritical” coal-fired power plant was on track for completion in the first quarter of 2015.

“As at Feb 29, 25.78% of the project has been completed. The overall EPC contract is progressing as planned,” he said, adding that the additional power of 1,000MW unit would ensure reserve margin at reasonable level (20 - 25%).

To a question, he said the existing site would still have enough space for Manjung 5 to be built in future when needed but it would depend on the Government.

Shamsul said SJSAS was critical as the plants had to be 100% connected to the grid at all time to ensure lights are on. He said the three plants currently utilised six million tonnes of coal annually or an average of about 20,000 tonnes a day to produce up to 2,100MW.

“Since May 2011, coal price has been trending down and we are buying coal based on market prices. We did have some problem with coal supply during the flood in Australia but the price has stabilised now,” Shamsul said, adding that TNB Janamanjung imported its coal supply mainly from Kalimantan, Indonesia.

He also said that some 75% to 80% of its operating cost was for coal.

“One of the challenges of operating at full capacity is during gas curtailment period. There's less time for us for normal maintenance work. We have to defer some maintenance work.

“When one SJSAS is down, the replacement of 700MW would have to be taken by other power plants likely to be running on distillates, which is four to five times more expensive,” Shamsul said, adding that TNB Janamanjung was planning for one major power outage soon.

Shamsul also said its employees were also working in a very high risk area “to power up the nation.”

“It is very risky due to the nature of coal which is highly combustible. We also conduct hot-spot monitoring at our coal yard.

“We are doing all the preventive measures to ensure everything is in tip-top condition.”

Jelly fish ingression was also another major problem to TNB Janamanjung, said Shamsul.

He said over the last five times the company lost some RM10mil in capacity payment due to jelly fish ingression.

Shamsul said the high rate of jellyfish entering its cooling water (cw) intake system had clogged the bandscreen mesh panels and subsequently needed to be changed or repair and had to forced outage