NEWS & UPDATES
Sarawak Energy And General Electric Sign Long Term service Agreement For Tanjung Kidurong Power Station, Bintulu
KUCHING, 24TH MARCH 2017, FRIDAY: State-owned power utility and energy development group Sarawak Energy has entered into a long term service agreement (LTSA) with General Electric’s (GE) Power Services for operations and maintenance support of Tanjung Kidurong Power Station in Bintulu.
The eight year contract’s anticipated benefits for Sarawak Energy include increased availability of power generated, large scale energy conservation and significantly reduced maintenance costs.
The agreement was formalised during a signing ceremony held in Kuching today. Sharbini Suhaili, Sarawak Energy Group Chief Executive Officer and Lu Yew Hung (卢友云), Sarawak Energy Group Chief Operating Officer signed on behalf of Sarawak Energy’s subsidiary Kidurong Power Generation Sdn Bhd.
“In Sarawak Energy, we are constantly looking into ways to optimise the performance of our power plants by making use of improved technology and innovation wherever possible. GE’s expertise will enhance Tanjung Kidurong Power Station’s operational performance, making it more efficient and reliable in terms of its output,” said Sharbini of the agreement.
The agreement will see GE providing training for operations and maintenance personnel, technical support and major spare parts for the plant. This also includes offering predictivity solutions for power generation assets from GE’s Monitoring and Diagnostics (M&D) Centre in Kuala Lumpur. The long term collaboration will be over a period of eight years.
“GE is also assisting us in terms of knowledge transfer to build up the competency of our plant operations team,” he said.
Signing for GE’s Power Services were Frederic Greiner, General Manager, APAC Sales & Commercial Operations and Darren J Garwood, General Manager (ASEAN, Australian & New Zealand).
Stephanie Chin, Sarawak Energy’s General Manager for Legal; Bradford S. Hilt, Asia Sales Leader for GE’s Power Services, India and China and Michael Joseph, Senior Manager Malaysia Sales were witnesses.
Meanwhile Anders Maltesen, General Manager- Asia Pacific for GE’s Power Services said, “Our total plant solutions include a computerized maintenance system (CMMS), personnel training and remote monitoring and diagnostics. By using the M&D centre’s predictive capabilities, Sarawak Energy will be able to utilise real-time data collection for enhanced decision-making. Tanjung Kidurong Power Station could potentially reduce its maintenance costs by up to 30 per cent.”
The CMMS enables Sarawak Energy to plan for and manage Tanjung Kidurong Power Station while the M&D Centre will provide efficient problem-solving guidance and avoid false alarms. In addition, the system’s early warning can help prevent potential failure mechanisms and increase reliability of the plant, resulting in enhanced reliability and performance with increased efficiency of 20 per cent in comparison to existing plants.
This agreement comes after an earlier contract signed in October last year between Sarawak Energy and GE and Sinohydro for the construction of the 400MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) block at Tanjung Kidurong Bintulu. It will see the installation of new advanced gas turbine technology and more efficient combined cycle gas turbines replacing the existing open cycle turbines at the power station. The LTSA is an Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Service support provided by GE to Sarawak Energy for this new CCGT Block.
About 75 percent of Sarawak’s current power is renewable energy derived from hydropower plants Murum, Bakun and Batang Ai. To maintain diversity and security of supply and harness Sarawak’s indigenous coal and gas resources, about 15 per cent of Sarawak’s generation mix is from its gas-powered plants and 10 per cent from coal fired plants.
