POWER October 2015 - 26

TOP PLANTS
Manjung Unit 4, Perak, Malaysia
Owner/operator: TNB Janamanjung Sdn. Bhd.
Courtesy: Alstom
Ultrasupercritical technology is the current gold standard for coal-fired plants, but
Malaysian national utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad had some unique requirements
for its newest, most efficient plant. With a client lacking an indigenous source of coal
and needing wide fuel flexibility, Alstom delivered a state-of-the-art plant that can
handle an enormous variety of coals.
Thomas W. Overton
L
ike many of its neighbors in Southeast
Asia, Malaysia has seen several decades
of strong-if sometimes inconsistent-growth,
accompanied by a dramatic
expansion of its middle class. According to
statistics from the World Bank, the nation's
economy has seen better than 5% growth per
year since 2000, interrupted only by the 2009
financial crisis. Its per-capita gross domestic
product was a respectable $10,829 in 2014,
ranking 46th worldwide and third in Southeast
Asia.
Malaysia's economy is primarily exportbased,
centered around its large oil and gas
reserves as well as minerals and agricultural
products. What Malaysia does not have,
however, is coal. Unlike its neighbor Indonesia,
Malaysia must import all the coal its
economy uses. Thus, it might come as a surprise
that coal is still a major element of the
fuel mix: The nation got 44% of its electricity
from coal in 2011, according to statistics
from the national utility Tenaga Nasional
Berhad (TNB).
26
Being dependent on imports has not deterred
the country from expanding its coal
capacity, because the economics of burning
coal in a country that exports natural gas are
dependent on market values for both. As gas
increases in price, it can be more profitable
to export gas in liquefied form and replace
it with imported coal for the power mix than
it would be to burn gas to produce electricity
and forgo importing coal. Still, this makes
the nation vulnerable to fluctuations in the
price and availability of coal.
Thus, Malaysia has maintained a government
policy in favor of a diverse fuel mix:
gas, coal, fuel oil, and hydroelectric (though
the latter makes up only around 5% to 6% of
the total). In addition, there has been a drive
to improve efficiency in the coal power sector,
with a focus on modern ultrasupercritical
technology.
Wide Fuel Variations
The Manjung site, on reclaimed land off the
western coast of the state of Perak, around 10
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kilometers (km) south of Lumut and 288 km
north of Kuala Lumpur, was chosen as the location
for a three-unit 2,100-MW coal plant
that came online in 2003. That plant was
built by Alstom, and when TNB subsidiary
Janamanjung Sdn Bhd was ready to expand it
with the region's first ultrasupercritical coal
plant, it turned again to Alstom and its consortium
partner China National Machinery
Import and Export Corp. (CMC). CMC selected
Black & Veatch to provide engineering
services and procure major balance-of-plant
equipment and systems.
The contract for the 1-GW plant was
awarded in March 2011, and site work began
in June. Despite the size and complexity of
the plant, as well as the geotechnical work
necessary to build a large power plant on
reclaimed land, Manjung Unit 4 completed
construction on schedule in March 2015 and
reached commercial operation in April.
One of the key specifications for the project
was that it be able to burn a wide variety
of coals. While this meant some efficiency
POWER | October 2015
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POWER October 2015

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