TNB, Elia to share best practices
KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Elia System Operator SA to share best practices in capacity building.
Elia is the transmission operator for Belgium and Germany, and serves 30 million residents.
It has 18,000km of high voltage lines in Belgium and Germany and 30,000 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity in renewable energy (RE).
In a statement yesterday, TNB said the MoU covered cooperation in asset management, crossboundary systems and market operations, grid development, network studies and renewable integration.
Both parties will also share technical information, such as through annual reports and surveys, solutions to problems, technical visits, study trips and training programmes.
TNB president and chief executive officer Datuk Seri Azman Mohd said the company had proposed 13 collaborative projects under the two-year MoU, which is extendable for another year.
One of the proposed collaborative projects would benefit TNB’s role in the regional Asean Power Grid (APG) initiative.
Azman said the MoU bode well for TNB’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project and ventures into RE, both locally and overseas.
Elia Group chief infra officer and chairman of Elia Grid international Markus Berger said Elia would offer its expertise as TNB’s anchor partner in achieving the latter ’s corporate and nationbuilding vision.
“Elia believes that international collaboration and exchange of innovation intelligence is important for success. The key is to synergise, as together is better,” he said.
The MoU was signed by Azman on behalf of TNB and Berger, who represented Elia.
At the 35th Asean Ministers on Energy Meeting in Manila recently, an APG milestone was reached with the signing of an energy purchase and wheeling agreement between TNB, Laos’ Electricite du Laos and Thailand’s Electricity Generating Authority.