Achieving Greener Operations

PowerSeraya Ltd diligently seeks to deliver safe and reliable energy for its customers while minimising its operational impact on the environment. This is done through a high standard of environmental care in emission control, waste disposal as well as a strong emphasis on energy efficiency and resource conservation in its business operations. 

Cleaner Energy Options

As an environmentally–conscientious company, PowerSeraya has always sourced for clean energy options to deliver affordable electricity to our customers. In 2002, PowerSeraya invested in two units of 370 MW combined cycle power plants which run on natural gas that discharges low levels of air impurities. Investments in emissions control equipment and a switch to natural gas have succeeded in lowering carbon dioxide emissions by over 35% and sulphur dioxide by over 80% compared to a decade ago. The Group’s latest investment in a new 800MW natural gas-fired Co-Generation Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) is designed for increased thermal efficiency. It will also deliver greater environmental benefits by further reducing the overall carbon dioxide emissions by around 10% when it is fully operational in 2010.  

Minimising Air Emissions

Energy options are currently by and large limited to fossil-based fuels. While the company adopts greater use of natural gas in its electricity generation business, it does not totally eliminate the existence of steam plants that still continue to run on heavy fuel oils. To minimise the environmental impact of the steam plants, the boilers are equipped with a Flue Gas Desulphurisation(FGD) unit to remove over 90% of sulphur dioxide.

PowerSeraya owns one of the largest FGDs in Southeast Asia and it is also the only power company in Singapore to use FGD technology. In addition, the three-field Electrostatic Precipitators effectively remove over 97% of solid particulates. The oil-fired plants are also equipped with combustion systems that are designed and optimised to produce low levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.

The company continues to meet and aim to surpass the strict requirements of the Air Emission Standards set by the National Environment Agency.

Responsible Waste Treatment and Recycling

Wastewater treatment facilities process the effluents arising from the maintenance works on the Electrostatic Precipitators, Air Heaters, Furnaces and Boilers. These are neutralised before they are discharged into the sea, in accordance with international environmental protection standards. All the solid wastes generated in the plant are disposed by licensed specialist waste treatment companies approved by the National Environment Agency.

In addition, all ash and sludge produced from the plant operations are collected and treated before they are sent to the Pulau Semakau landfill. The company also practices responsible waste management activities such as the conversion of hazardous boiler slag into non-hazardous form. In alignment with the Singapore Green Plan 2012 aim of increasing the recycling rate in Singapore, scrap metals are also recovered from overhaul activities at the plant. Sulphur dioxide as a waste emission is recycled to produce gypsum via chemical process using limestone.

Water Sufficiency and Resource Conservation

PowerSeraya has built a Desalination plant that will produce 9,000 m³/day of high gradewater for plant use and 1000 m³/day of domestic water. The development of this plant reduces the demands on Singapore’s scarce water resource and increases its self-sufficiency in water. PowerSeraya also aims for optimum resource conservation through chemical and wastewater recycling. For instance, contaminated condensate from its power turbines is treated and reused in boilers, thereby conserving water and reducing costs.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

As a responsible organisation, PowerSeraya engages third party experts to carry out EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) on new projects to assess its environmental impact and to recommend mitigation measures to address these impacts. For example, before PowerSeraya embarked on building the Desalination plant, consultant CH2M Hill was engaged to carry out environmental impact assessments. Similarly, before the use of any alternative fuel at our plant, environmental reviews are carried out and submitted to the National Environment Agency for approval.

Preparedness in Handling Environmental Incidents

Apart from having a team of specialists to handle its fossil fuels, PowerSeraya has in place comprehensive contingency plans that are in accordance with Oil Pollution Preparedness Response and Co-operation Convention requirements to handle possible oil spills. Every year, an oil spill response exercise is being held with Oil Spill Response (OSR) to test our preparedness for oil spill incidents and also with an objective to improving current operations. There is also a HAZMAT (hazardous material) team that is trained to handle chemical spills at the plant. The oil spill response and the on-site emergency response plans are integrated into existing contingency plans for PowerSeraya’s power plants.

Greening our IT Infrastructure

PowerSeraya operates one datacenter from its corporate headquarters at HarbourFront Towers and a second center at Jurong Island. Each facility operates as a primary data center and provides secondary/disaster recovery support for the other. Data centers generate considerable heat, thus creating a huge cooling demand to maintain the smooth functioning of data servers. This electricity consumed by the data servers and the cooling demand required translates into increased energy cost as well as carbon dioxide emissions.

As an energy provider, we understand the value of energy. To save energy, space and money, PowerSeraya explored the use of virtualisation software technology with VMWare, a software provider of this unique technology platform. This innovative software allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a single physical server.

Today, the company is able to meet the company's data demands with over 100 virtual servers running on 10 physical servers with virtualisation technology. Through server virtualisation, PowerSeraya has saved energy consumption by an estimated 75% and avoided carbon emissions by about 168 tons per year! Energy efficiency also increased as CPU utilisation increased from an average of 3% to 20-50% over a 24x7 period. In addition, we also saved on office space as well as cooling requirements due to fewer servers.