Malaysian company looks south to plug temporary shortfall
Ronnie Lim Business Times 5 Apr 11;
(SINGAPORE) Malaysia's largest electricity group, Tenaga Nasional, has approached Singapore to buy some electricity from power stations here. This is to help Tenaga tide over some capacity shortages 'for a few months' due to problems with its natural gas feedstock supplies, BT has learnt.
While the details are sketchy at this point, the Malaysian company is scheduled to meet Singapore generation companies this week to flesh out its proposal.
Operationally, some 200 megawatts of electricity can be transmitted through two 230 kV submarine cables linking Malaysia's national power grid with Singapore's transmission network at Senoko. And there have been previous instances of cross-country electricity supplies during emergency outages.
BT understands that the Singapore gencos were appraised of the Malaysian request at a meeting with the Energy Market Authority last week. Tenaga is said to require some 2O0 MW of electricity supplies 'as soon as possible'.
'Tenaga is short apparently because of gas feedstock issues for its plants, with this arising from maintenance of offshore gas production platforms there. They apparently need electricity supplies from Singapore for a few months,' sources said.
An earlier BT report in January said that Malaysia's gas supplies are heavily subsidised and running down in the peninsula because of robust demand.
Tenaga alone has installed capacity of 11,941 MW - more than the combined 10,000 MW of Singapore gencos including the big three, French-Japanese owned Senoko Energy (3,300 MW), YTL of Malaysia's PowerSeraya (3,100 MW) and China Huaneng-owned Tuas Power (2,670 MW).
But the Malaysian utilities giant - which faces rising prices for its fuel oil and gas, as well as coal (the last because of the recent Queensland floods) - has been pressing the Malaysian government for a fuel cost pass-through mechanism, but the latter reportedly appears reluctant to tackle electricity tariff increases.
It is not clear at this time whether the Malaysian request for the 200 MW of Singapore power is for peak or off-peak periods, or for a constant period, the sources add. It also boils down to price issues.
'While the 200MW appears little, in relation to total Singapore generation capacity of some 10,000 MW, it, in fact, represents the capacity of one steam plant here,' one industry source said.
While some 80 per cent of Singapore's electricity is generated from gas-fired units, with steam plants accounting for the remainder, 'this should be seen in the context of steam plant use going up to as high as 30 per cent during peak demand periods', the source added.
Tenaga's request for Singapore electricity will not only require an agreement between the Malaysian company and the supplying Singapore genco, but also that of other stakeholders such as SP PowerGrid, which manages Singapore's electricity and gas transmission and distribution networks, and regulator EMA.
While electricity demand in Singapore has remained 'relatively flat' in the first quarter, this is expected to pick up as 'we move into the hotter months', one industry official said.
