Mandalay power plant deal signed

08 December 2015
Mandalay power plant deal signed
The gas-powered power plant deal for Mandalay has been signed. Photo: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA

An agreement to build a $300 million independent gas-fired power plant in Mandalay Division has been signed by Sembcorp Industries and Myanmar government officials.
The plant is expected to be completed in 2018, and the project will supply power under a 22-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
Only about one-third of the country’s population has electricity, and even they have to deal with frequent outages. The government is building power lines, and more power plants to connect more people to the power grid.
The signing of the memorandum of agreement last week followed Sembcorp's receiving a notice of award to develop and operate the power plant in April this year.
Located in Myingyan District, the plant will use the most modern technologies to maximize power output and minimize emissions. 
A project company, Sembcorp Myingyan Power Company, has been incorporated in Myanmar to undertake the development of the project. 
The agreement was signed by Tan Cheng Guan, executive vice president and head of Group Business Development of Sembcorp Industries, and Khin Maung Win, director general of Policy, Planning and Management in the Department of Electric Power.
The total project investment of approximately US $300 million is expected to be funded through a mix of limited recourse project financing and equity. The financial close of the project is expected in the first half of 2016.
Electricity is still a luxury for many parts of Myanmar, which is burdened by an inadequate and decaying electrical grid among other power supply problems.
In 2014, The Yangon Electricity Services Board (YESB) was sometimes supplying factories with only 18 hours of electricity a day  in the hottest months of the year, said the Myanmar Times.
Myat Thin Aung, the chair of the Management Committee for Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Estate at Yangon’s largest industrial zone in Hlaing Tharyar Township, said, “…the amount of electricity provided for Yangon’s industries was sometimes zero.”
Last May, around 100 seafood factories were forced to shut down for two weeks because they could not access the electricity they needed to keep products frozen. Hundreds of tons of food were left to spoil as a result.