A 600-megawatt (MW) hydrogen-ready combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) has commenced construction on Jurong Island by YTL PowerSeraya, costing $800 million.
The power plant is targeted for completion on Dec 31, 2027, and will be 50% hydrogen capable upon completion. It can be retrofitted to achieve 100% hydrogen-readiness in the future. Upon completion, it will have the capacity to power about 864,000 four-room HDB flats in Singapore.
YTL PowerSeraya won the CCGT request-for-proposal in January, under a new centralised process announced last July by the Energy Market Authority (EMA) of Singapore to safeguard the nation’s power system. This comes ahead of Singapore’s ambition to be a global leader in AI and quantum computing, which will require large swaths of power.
“We expect Singapore’s system peak demand to continue to grow by about 3% to 5% per annum, over the next decade, to support the growth in economic activities and digitalisation. The completion of this new CCGT by 2027 will allow us to meet this rising demand,” says Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the power plant on Oct 23.
Chairman of YTLPS Board (YTL Group) Francis Yeoh and YTL PowerSeraya CEO John Ng were also in attendance. YTL PowerSeraya is a wholly owned subsidiary of YTL Power International, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of YTL Corporation Berhad, one of the largest companies listed on Bursa Malaysia.
YTL PowerSeraya has appointed GE Vernova and SEPCOIII, a subsidiary of PowerChina, as consortium partners to develop the power plant. The project will feature GE Vernova’s 9 High Efficiency Air Cooled (9HA.01) gas turbines, globally recognised for efficient energy generation.
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The development of the hydrogen-ready CCGT power plant comes in the midst of the ongoing Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) 2024, which saw the announcement of other projects that will make up Singapore’s strategy for energy transition and decarbonisation. Singapore's four switches — natural gas, solar, energy imports and low-carbon alternatives — will be used to achieve net zero by 2050.
At Jurong Island, Tan also announced the setting up of the central gas procurement and supply entity (Gasco), as a fully government-owned company by the end of the financial year, which will be responsible for the procurement and supply of gas to the power sector.
Singapore LNG Corporation will also be developing an offshore LNG terminal with five million tonnes per annum (MTPA), or an expansion of about 50% of the country’s existing terminal capacity.
Beyond hydrogen, the EMA has also launched a grant call to assess the viability of integrating carbon capture technologies into CCGT operations. EMA will collaborate with industry partners to conduct these feasibility studies in 2025.
