Independent power producer supports remote town with Cummins gas solution

Myanmar is a country in South East Asia famous for its diverse landscape. Ranging from hilly mountain regions in the north that reach up to 6,100 meters in altitude to the coastline that borders the Andaman Sea on the south. To enhance economic growth and energy security, the country plans to achieve 100% electrification by 2030 despite logistical challenges.

The Myanmar Ministry of Electricity and Energy created a power purchase agreement with Petro & Trans Co. (P&T) to meet this ambitious goal. This agreement is to provide reliable power through IPP sites to support the national grid. As of today, the electrification rate of the country is lower than 50%. One of the projects by P&T aimed towards providing electricity to Kyaw, a scenic river-side town in central Myanmar. The IPP sites required efficient, intelligent and reliable technologies that produce lower emissions as a step towards the country’s commitment to a more sustainable future. 

P&T selected Cummins DKSH Myanmar for the design and commissioning of the project. Using eight Cummins HSK78G natural gas generator sets as the prime power source, our team and P&T met the scope requirements while providing operational cost savings due to the compact 12-cylinder design versus the 20-cylinder design of competing products in the market. This compact design reduced operational costs as the generators need 40% fewer spark plugs and cylinders, lower fuel and lube oil consumption, which in turn helps the HSK78G achieve the industry’s longest major overhaul service cycle of 80,000 hours.

“CPG’s state-of-the-art HSK78G generator technology, along with the master controller, is ensuring that the next generation of microgrids are designed to provide high reliability, lower OPEX, reduced emission and high flexibility to add capacity as per demand.”
– Sanjay Wele, CPG Energy Manager – Asia

Due to COVID-19 restrictions and political unrest in the region, providing on-site support presented a unique challenge to this project.

The Cummins teams in the United Kingdom and the United States provided remote support to the distributor team in Myanmar to prevent delays. With the efficiency of this remote support methodology, the Myanmar team managed to successfully complete the testing, tuning, commissioning and synchronization of the generator sets needed for this project.

“Cummins DKSH Myanmar’s support helped us meet the timeline despite the lockdown, and HSK78G’s impressive touchscreen monitors genset health. The heat rate data for instance helped improve efficiency.” 
— Min Thit, Project Director - Petro and Trans Co.

The IPP sites are currently being operated with Cummins PowerCommand® Digital Master Controller 8000 (DMC8000), seamlessly integrated to provide higher efficiency through demand load management. The power controller is built to order and was customized to best meet the requirements of the project. Designed for resiliency and factory tested for over a thousand disruptive scenarios, it is an ideal addition to this project’s remote power solution.

Despite Cummins solutions requiring lower maintenance than the current industry norm, when the need arises, our competitive aftermarket network and dedicated distributor channels ensure that prompt support is always available – either on-site or remotely when required. With this network we can provide the integral power needed to keep businesses running and communities connected. This drives Cummins to support P&T with innovative and enduring solutions to bring Myanmar closer to complete electrification by 2030.