An environmentally friendly power plant in Malaysia which received support from UK export credit agency (ECA) Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) is now successfully supplying up to and, at times, more than 20% of the country’s power requirements.

Alstom Power Turbo Systems, working in consortium with a local Malaysian partner, has handed over the third and final 700MW unit of the power plant to the owner, Tenaga Nasional Berhad Janamanjung (TNBJ). This handover was achieved some four years after ECGD underwrote a loan for the project, that was managed from Alstom Power Turbo System’s office in Knutsford, Cheshire.

ECGD provided an export credit guarantee for the £442mn loan, arranged by HSBC, for TNBJ to purchase the main equipment, which includes boilers, steam turbines and generators. The plant, on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia some 200km north of Kuala Lumpur, benefits from modern and environmentally friendly technology, using mainly low sulphur grade coal.

The project forms part of the Malaysian government’s Vision 2020 initiative to sustain economic growth and reduce the country’s heavy dependence on gas for energy.

The transaction also marked the first time that three ECAs have worked together on a single case under ECGD’s One Stop Shop initiative. As part of this arrangement ECGD guaranteed a loan to finance UK, French and Norwegian exports and in turn obtained reinsurance from its French and Norwegian counterparts, Coface and Giek.