National Grid, Malaysia () is the high-voltage

electric power transmission Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is ...

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya and also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the list of isla ...

. It is operated and owned by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) by its Transmission Division. There are two other electrical grids in

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

and

Sarawak Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...

operated by Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) and Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB). The system spans the whole of Peninsular Malaysia, transporting electricity in bulk from power generators owned by TNB and

Independent Power Producer An independent power producer (IPP) or non-utility generator (NUG) is an entity that is not a public utility but owns facilities to generate electric power for sale to utilities and end users. NUGs may be privately held facilities, corporations ...

s (IPPs) to distributors. The grid also transports directly to large industrial customers, such as

steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

s and fertilizer plants.

History

The beginnings of the National Grid was slowly taking shape in 1964 when the

Bangsar Bangsar is a residential suburb on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, lying about south-west of the city centre. It is part of the Lembah Pantai parliamentary constituency. Bangsar is administered by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), unlike ...

Power Station was connected to the Connaught Bridge Power Station, with the line subsequently extended to Malacca. By 1965, a plan was set to connect the electricity generating plants that were spread out all over the country. Plants identified to be linked were located at Paka in Terengganu, Temengor, Kenering, Bersia and Batang Padang in Perak, Connaught Bridge, Kapar and Serdang in Selangor,

Cameron Highlands The Cameron Highlands () is a district in Pahang, Malaysia, occupying an area of . To the north, its boundary touches that of Kelantan; to the west, it shares part of its border with Perak. Situated at the northwestern tip of Pahang, Cameron Hi ...

in Pahang,

Perai Perai is a suburb of Seberang Perai in the States and federal territories of Malaysia, Malaysian state of Penang. It lies at the southern bank of the Perai River and borders Butterworth, Seberang Perai, Butterworth to the north. The area now know ...

in Penang,

Port Dickson Port Dickson (Negeri Sembilan Malay: ), colloquially referred to as PD, is a beach resort in Port Dickson District, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. It is the second largest urban area in the state after Seremban, the state capital. The town's admi ...

in Negeri Sembilan, Pergau in Kelantan,

Pasir Gudang Pasir Gudang is a city located in eastern Johor Bahru District, Johor, which is the second largest district in Malaysia by population. The main industries are transportation and logistics, shipbuilding, petrochemicals and other heavy industries ...

in Johor and in Malacca. The central area network with Connaught Bridge Power Station in Klang was the precursor of the energy grid; it also tapped into the Cameron Highlands Hydro scheme from the Sultan Yussuf Power Station, and was extended into a western network. Late in the 1980s, the loop was complete when

Kota Bharu Kota Bharu ( Kelantanese: ''Koto Baghu''), colloquially referred to as KB, is a town in Malaysia that serves as the state capital and royal seat of Kelantan. It is situated in the northeastern part of Peninsular Malaysia and lies near the mout ...

joined the grid.

Grid description

Transmission system

More than 420 transmission substations in the Peninsular Malaysia, with a total installed capacity of 105,305 MVA, are linked together by approximately 21,000 circuit-kilometers of overhead lines and underground cables operating at 132, 275 and 500 kilovolts (kV). The 500 kV transmission system is the single largest transmission system to be ever developed in Malaysia. Begun in 1994, Phase 1 involved the design and construction of the 500kV overhead lines from Gurun, Kedah in the North along the west coast to Kapar, in the central region and from

to Yong Peng in the south of Peninsular Malaysia. The total distance covered for the 500 kV transmission lines is 784 circuit-km and the 275 kV portion is 9,257 circuit-km as of February 2017. To cater for the new plant up of generators, namely 3,100 MW Janamanjung Power Plant in the west coast, 372 MW Ulu Jelai Hydro Electric Power Plant in the east coast, and 4,100 MW Tanjung Bin Power Plant in the south, the 500 kV transmission system was extended from Bukit Tarek to Yong Peng via interconnection allows for electricity of Ayer Tawar, Tapah, Bentong South and Lenggeng. The completion of this interconnection allows for electricity transmission to the load centre, which is located in the Klang Valley area of Peninsular Malaysia. A project involving laying a 730 km high-voltage direct current transmission line and a 670 km undersea cable for the 2,400-megawatt Bakun hydroelectric dam was considered. This would have connected all three of Malaysia's electric utility companies with state grids: Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) and Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB). Many of Sabah and Sarawak's generation plants are still not interconnected to a grid.

Type of National Grid's transmission system

Connection to Thailand

The National Grid is interconnected in the north to

Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) (; ) is a state enterprise, managed by the Ministry of Energy, responsible for electric power generation and transmission as well as bulk electric energy sales in Thailand. EGAT, establish ...

(EGAT)'s transmission system via the 300 kV HVDC interconnection of 300MW capacity and 132 kV HVAC double circuit overhead line of 90MW capacity each, linking Bukit Ketri-Chuping in the state of

Perlis Perlis (Kedah Malay language, Kedah Malay (Perlis dialect): ''Peghelih'') is a Negeri, state of Malaysia in the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It is the smallest state in Malaysia by area and population. The state borders the Thai ...

with Sadao, Sadao in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Connection to Singapore

In the South of Malaysia, the National Grid is connected to the transmission system of Singapore Power Limited (SP) at Senoko via two 230 kV

submarine cables Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

with a transmission capacity of 200 MW each.

Power generation

Power generation capacity connected to the Malaysian National Grid is 22,858

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

, with a maximum demand of 17,788 megawatt as of April 2016 according to Suruhanjaya Tenaga. The generation fuel mix in peninsular is 45.55% gas, 50.23% coal, 3.59% hydro and 0.63% from other forms of fuel.

Distribution level

Distribution lines of 66kV, 33 kV, 22 kV, 11 kV, 6.6 kV and 400/230 volt

electricity distribution Electric power distribution is the final stage in the delivery of electricity. Electricity is carried from the transmission system to individual consumers. Distribution substations connect to the transmission system and lower the transmission ...

network connect to the National Grid via transmission substations will have their voltages stepped down by

transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...

Major incidents

* Following a major system collapse on 3 August 1996, TNB has undertaken joint studies with

Tokyo Electric Power Company is a Japanese electric utility holding company servicing Japan's Kantō region, Yamanashi Prefecture, and the eastern portion of Shizuoka Prefecture. This area includes Tokyo. Its headquarters are located in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, an ...

(TEPCO) to develop a controlled islanding scheme to prevent the occurrence of a complete system collapse by ensuring continuity of supply to the

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

Metropolitan and

Multimedia Super Corridor MSC Malaysia, formerly known as the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC; Malay: ), is a special economic zone and high-technology business district spanning the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, south-central Selangor, parts of w ...

(MSC). The islanding scheme would basically be a "last line of defense" after all the normal emergency countermeasures such as underfrequency load shedding have operated. * On 13 January 2005 a power blackout on northern peninsular Malaysia occurred when a transmission line near Serendah, Selangor, had broken down. In response to this, the Central Area Reinforcement (CAR) project was approved to ensure security of power supply to the

Klang Valley Klang Valley () is an urban agglomeration in Malaysia that is centered in the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, and including their adjoining cities and towns in the state of Selangor. It is the urban area of the much larger Ku ...

. * On 22 April 2008 Sabah had the worst power outage since the commissioning of the east west power grid. Suspected vandals are believed to have removed steel pieces of a 132kV transmission tower that led to its collapse, triggering a major power blackout. An emergency temporary tower was to be built immediately but it also collapsed during construction killing a TNB personnel. On 1 May 2008, another tower collapsed due to missing structural members of the tower that were suspected of being stolen.

Future

Malaysia's national electricity grid system is weakly prepared to accommodate the expanding production of electricity from renewable energy.Vakulchuk, R., Chan, H.Y., Kresnawan, M.R., Merdekawati, M., Overland, I., Sagbakken, H.F., Suryadi, B., Utama, N.A. and Yurnaidi, Z. 2020. Malaysia: how to scale up investment in renewable energy. ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) Policy Brief Series, No. 8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341793894

References

External links

Tenaga Nasional Berhad
{{Tenaga Nasional Electric power in Malaysia Electric power transmission systems in Asia Tenaga Nasional