The development of major hydropower projects in Malaysia is generally undertaken by the utility companies such as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) in Sarawak while in Sabah by the Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB). There have been attempts by private players to participate in the development of major hydropower in Malaysia but with very little success to date. The development of smaller hydropower projects below 30MW is open to private parties and incentivized by the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) mechanism managed by the Government.
During the period up to the 1960''s, the Cameron Highlands Hydropower Scheme was developed comprising the major Cameron Highlands (105MW) and Batang Padang (154MW) projects. The scheme involves small but steep mountain streams where the river flows were diverted via long tunnels. The major developments are pondage projects with relatively small dams and limited reservoir storages, whilst the smaller ones are all run-of -river projects.
The concept of maximum resource utilization in the energy sector was adopted by the country in the 1970''s and saw the development of more major hydro projects in the Perak and Terengganu river basins.
Along the upper reaches of the Perak river, a cascade of three dam hydropower projects was constructed and the first of these projects was Temengor (348MW), a zoned processed rockfill dam constructed between 1974 to 1978. The Bersia dam project (72MW) located immediately downstream of Temengor was constructed between 1980 to 1983. Bersia is a concrete gravity dam with four gated spillway bays. The third, Kenering dam project (120MW), located further downstream of Bersia was constructed during the same period. Kenering is also a concrete gravity dam with six gated spillway bays.
Concurrently, the Kenyir Dam project (400MW) was being developed in the Terengganu river basin. The Kenyir Dam is a 155m high rockfill dam with eight earthfill saddle dams forming a reservoir surface area of 370km2. The ungated chute spillway has a discharge capacity of 7000m3/sec. This is the largest dam in Peninsular Malaysia and provides significant flood mitigation in addition to power generation.
The first major hydropower development in Sarawak was the Batang Ai project constructed between 1981 to 1985. The project comprises an 85m high concrete faced rockfill dam and three saddle dams with a reservoir surface area of 85km2. The Lima saddle dam is similar in construction as the main dam while the other two saddle dams Bekatan and Sebangi are of the earthfill type. The gated spillway of the main dam is capable of discharging 2600m3/sec.
In the late 1980s up to the early 1990s, many projects around the world, including in Malaysia, were paused due to a number of factors including global financial constraints and concerns over the environmental and social impacts of hydropower development.
It was not until 1991 that the next major hydropower project emerged. The Pergau project (600MW) comprises a 75m high earthfill dam with ungated chute spillway with a discharge capacity of 2470m3/sec, a complex 24km system of tunnels and a underground power station. In addition to the inflow from the Pergau river, water is also diverted into the reservoir through the tunnel with six gravity intakes over the 24km length.
Next came the massive 2400MW Bakun project in Sarawak, which after some years of difficulty was undertaken through a contract with a Malaysia China Joint Venture for the civil works. Amidst significant commercial, technical and socio-environmental issues faced during construction, the project was finally commissioned in 2011.
Having identified hydropower as a key catalyst to drive and accelerate socio-economic growth in the state, Sarawak continued building large hydropower projects, including the Murum hydropower project (944MW). Meanwhile in the Peninsular, it was more than a decade before any development of new major hydro projects resumed. The Hulu Terengganu project started construction in 2010 followed by the Ulu Jelai Hydroelectric project a year later in 2011.
The Hulu Terengganu project (265MW) was commissioned in 2015 comprising two cascading schemes, the 75m high Puah earthfill dam (250MW) with three gated spillways and an underground power station, and the 36m high Tembat concrete dam (15MW) with a free overflow spillway and a surface power station. SMEC carried out the feasibility study and tender design for the Project.
The Ulu Jelai hydro project (372MW), for which SMEC carried out detailed design, construction supervision and contract management, was commissioned in 2016 comprising an 88m high roller compacted concrete dam, spillway discharge capacity of 2300m3/sec and an underground power station.
A similar setting is also available at the Temengor dam reservoir focused on eco-tourism. The lake is also the gateway to the Royal Belum State Park (RBSP), one of the oldest rainforests in the world, dating back over 130 million years. The area is also notable for harbouring high concentrations of at least three different Rafflesia species. An eco-friendly aquaculture facility has also been developed since 2008 within an industrial aquaculture zone in the lake.
Since 2004, SMEC has assisted TNB with evaluating and ranking several hydropower projects in Peninsular Malaysia. A number of prospective hydropower projects, including storage projects and run-of-river projects, were evaluated. Since then, five of the top ranked storage projects – namely Hulu Terengganu, Tekai, Ulu Jelai, Telom and Nenggiri –have moved on to the next stage of development as further described below.
The Telom hydropower project was at a pre-feasibility development stage and was then upgraded to feasibility stage in 2014. The project comprises a concrete faced rockfill dam, a 132MW surface power station located at the toe of the dam, ten saddle dams of varying height up to 40m, an ungated ogee spillway, a tunnel that transfers water from Jelai Kecil river and a re-regulating weir about 5 km downstream of the main dam. The project was expected to move to the next development stage, but a number of issues caused the project to be shelved in 2018.
As described above the Hulu Terengganu and Ulu Jelai projects were commissioned in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Detailed investigations and tender design for the Tekai Project (168MW) have been completed.
The Nenggiri Project (300MW) design has been completed and the project is progressing to the next development stage. The project comprises a RCC dam with gated radial spillway, a saddle dam, a re-regulating dam and a surface power station. The reservoir created will inundate approximately an area of 50km2.
In the near term, given the focus on enhancing renewable energy generation, projects such as run-of- river and, to some extent, pumped storage hydro projects will make an inroad into the market. In early 2020, the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) awarded contracts to 15 bidders for mini-hydro development with a total installed capacity of 176MW. These projects are expected to start commercial operations in late 2025.
The only major hydro project under construction currently in Sarawak is the Baleh project (1285MW). The project comprises a concrete faced rockfill dam 188m high, a radial gated spillway capable of discharging a design flood of 20,000m3/sec and a surface power station housing 5 turbines. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
Meanwhile in Sabah, two major hydropower projects have been identified: The Upper Padas project, comprising a 120m high RCC dam across the Padas river near Kuala Tomani, and the Liwagu project (165MW). Both have been in the development stage for some time, but a construction start date is yet to be confirmed.
It was observed that in some of the major complex projects the risk management was limited to qualitative expert judgement and subjective analysis to rank a risk event. This usually minimizes uncertainty and highlights priority risks but very seldom leads to carrying out a quantitative risk analysis. In the future, the introduction of quantitative risk assessment may be useful at several stages throughout the lifecycle of any major, complex project.
Among the recent major projects, it was also noticed that contractors took a very contractual approach to work that forced developers and their project team to increase contract and claims management personnel to deal with claims and commercial management in a timely and proactive manner.
Future projects may have to allow provisional sums in the project budget for such a team to be mobilized at short notice whenever needed, as well as suitable budget for technical specialists to be called in whenever claims need to be assessed. It is prudent to select appropriate resources and allow adequate provisional budget based on a quantitative assessment of risks to prepare for such scenarios.
An important and mandatory element of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the Erosion and Sedimentation Control Plan (ESCP). In most instances, however, actual data such as soil data and engineering design with earthworks drawings are not available or inadequate until later stages of the project.
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