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How running Jawa-7 helps in clean energy transition
CEO INTERVIEW How running Jawa7 helps in clean energy transition
The coal-fired power plant ensures lower carbon emissions, with 45% efficiency.
Indonesia is veering away from coal as an energy source by committing to a 2060 net-zero emission target, but Jawa-7, a coal-fired power plant, is playing a part in the country’s push towards emissions reduction. The first ultra-supercritical power plant is able to minimise its carbon emissions as it boasts of its plant efficiency of more than 45% and is gearing towards adopting clean and energy-saving measures.
Asian Power sat down with PT Shenhua Guohua Pembangkitan Jawa Bali (PT SGPJB) President Director Zhao Zhigang to talk about the consortium’s coal-fired power plant project, called the Jawa-7. He also shared insights on how the joint venture will gradually work towards carbon neutrality.
PT SGPJB is a consortium owned by China Shenhua Energy (70%) and PT Pembangkitan Jawa Bali Investasi (30%). Zhao said PJB’s clean energy transition plans drove China Shenhua to seek partnership with the electricity and energy investment firm.
“Originally, we knew that PJB had the intention to seek cooperation with power industrial companies from all over the world,” he said, as translated. “Its target is also to seek the transition from traditional power industry to renewable power.”
The power plant, which has the largest installed capacity in megawatts (MW), is also the first coal-fired power plant to operate the longest without shutdown.
Can you tell us what sets the Jawa-7 apart from other coal plants in Indonesia?
The Jawa-7 coal power plant has the largest single-unit capacity in Indonesia. Our unit’s capacity is 2 x 1,050MW. The power plant’s efficiency is very high. It’s already above 45% and also our coal consumption efficiency is higher, which has already reached 273 grams per kilowatt-hour. So, this high efficiency is also a measure to reduce carbon emission because our power plant’s power generation efficiency is high.
The other point is that, as far as we know, the previous Indonesian units used imported equipment from South Korea, Japan, and other Western countries. But in our power plants, all of our equipment is imported from China and they are the best equipment in China and they are provided by the companies with mature and advanced technology. In our infrastructure construction periods, we have placed a team from China regarding the construction, the commissioning, and the design. The reliability of Jawa-7 is very high and after the production of our Unit 1, it has run 302 days consecutively. It now has a long continuous operation.
What is the current progress of the completion of the power plant and how will you ensure it is finished soon?
Right now, we still have some work left to be finished. Whilst still under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, some tactical support personnel are having difficulty coming to our sites, whether it is from Indonesia or China.
Another problem is those particular financial settlements because we have regulations from our Chinese superior company. We must have second party audits personnel to review our project’s financial settlement progress. But for our targets, our initial plan is to finish the financial settlements next year−the first half of next year.
To ensure the completion of the projects, we introduced two measures. The first one is to coordinate human resources in Indonesia and China. Right now, the pandemic situation in Indonesia is getting better, so it is more convenient for us to have human resources from all sides. The second measure is that for the financial settlements when the pandemic situation gets better, then we will have some professional audit team from China that is assigned by our superior company as we target to finish the plant in the first half of next year.
How will you ensure the reliability and readiness of the plant?
We use three strategies. The first is to improve our employees’ technical skills, especially for our local employees because the major difficulty is the language barrier. So, our Chinese employees have learned English and our Indonesian employees have learned Chinese. It will be easier for our experienced employees and our fresh graduates to exchange information. The second strategy is to enhance our operations, regulations patterns, and also enhance our maintenance standard. The third strategy is about the material supplier, spare parts supplier.
Our strategy is to improve supply chain reliability. Our next plan is also to find other companies that have the same demand as us and, in that way, we will share the supply chain and share the material and spare parts storage. For our supply chain for the special power plants products, it’s mainly from China, but for other regular resources, we purchased them in Indonesia.
For the full exclusive interview, go to https://asian-power.com/
PBJ seeks cooperation with global power industrial companies to transition from traditional to renewable power (Photo: PT SGPJB President Director Zhao Zhigang)
