Ronnie Lim Business Times 2 Nov 10;
YTL-owned PowerSeraya is interested in commercially importing Malaysian electricity into Singapore sooner than the government's suggested medium-term 2018 target, while China Huaneng-owned Tuas Power is looking into the possibility of coal gasification to produce electricity.
The heads of the two big Singapore gencos told BT this on the sidelines of the Singapore Energy Summit yesterday when asked about the Republic's plan to allow the gencos to use these options as a way to help them diversify from their 80 per cent dependence on piped Indonesian and Malaysian gas.
Right now, Singapore's diversification strategy is to complete the $1.5 billion LNG terminal, with the first liquefied natural gas arriving here in 2013.
'Singapore could consider allowing electricity imports before this,' said John Ng, chief executive of PowerSeraya, adding that it has broached this with regulator Energy Market Authority.
The Republic can immediately import some 200 megawatts from Malaysia through two 230kV submarine cables at Senoko which currently connect the two countries.
It had previously indicated that it would allow foreign power imports of up to 600MW, or about 10 per cent of peak demand here.
YTL, as far back as 1997, was interested in supplying electricity to Singapore, and will need to build its own connections to the Republic if it wants to supply more than 200MW, Mr Ng said.
But the regulator will need to set up a structure first to allow for such electricity imports, he added.
Other issues include getting Tenaga's nod, plus recognising the fact that Malaysian gas feedstock is subsidised.
There will also be need for clarification by EMA whether such imports will count as part of the genco's licensed capacity.
Separately, Tuas Power's president and CEO Lim Kong Puay told BT that it was starting to look at coal gasification here, but that it will also study whether the market can support more capacity, given the new plants planned by a number of gencos.
A coal gasification project will be about 30 per cent more expensive than a combined cycle gas firing plant, he added.
Tuas has already embarked on the coal route, but on a smaller scale, through its $2 billion clean coal/biomass multi-utilities project on Jurong Island, which will provide an additional 102MW of electricity.
Following the Economic Strategies Committee's recommendations, EMA has just set out in its Statement of Opportunities 2010 report that it was prepared to allow coal use and electricity imports in the medium-term - once LNG imports reach three million tonnes per annum or by 2018, whichever is earlier.
Citing these two diversification options in his Singapore Energy Lecture yesterday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Singapore gencos should be encouraged to pursue these options commercially.
New technologies like gasification plants are reducing the impact on environment as they can create synthetic gas from coal, and they also have the potential to generate cost-effective baseload electricity in the future, he said.
'The EMA will create an open and flexible framework for diversification to take place on a market basis,' he added.
