ABB has won an order worth more than $40 million from a consortium comprising Doosan Heavy Industries and state-owned construction company PT Hutama Karya, to upgrade and expand the Muara Tawar combined cycle power plant in West Java, Indonesia.
The project will add 650 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the national grid. The order was booked in the fourth quarter of 2017.
In order to improve the efficiency of the plant and provide clean energy to the greater Jakarta area, the current 1,150 MW gas-fueled generator will be converted to a 1,800 MW combined-cycle power plant.
The combined-cycle power plant uses both gas and steam turbines to produce more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple-cycle plant. The waste heat from the gas turbine is routed to the nearby steam turbine, which generates extra power. The power plant is operated by Indonesia’s national power utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN).
Indonesia is the world’s fourth most-populous country and one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. This has spurred the need for electricity, and according to PLN, demand is projected to grow at around 8.5 percent per annum between 2015 and 2025. In response, the government has outlined a plan to add 35,000 megawatts (MW) of new power generation capacity between 2015-2019.
Indonesia aims to have 99.7 percent of households in the country connected to the nation’s electricity grid by 2025, which would require an additional power generation capacity of over 80 gigawatts (GW). The country is also targeting 23 percent renewables in its energy mix by 2025. The Muara Tawar upgrade and conversion to a combined cycle power plant will contribute significantly to these goals.a