We flew into Miri, the second largest city in Sarawak. It was only myself and Luno travelling by flight, the rest of the Tonibung team were travelling by truck. Luno, who is the youngest of Tonibung's trainees speaks very little English and has only been on an aircraft once before.
The two other Tonibung engineers met us at the airport, Patrick, the project manager and James, the welding muscle machine. The plan was to spend 10 days in Sarawak and complete two different projects. However due to delays we stayed for 14 days.
The first project we focused on was a micro-hydro for a small kampung known as Long Kerangan. The second project was a solar panel installation for a kampung called Tanjung Tepalit. Both villages are in very remote locations with little or no access to electricity. Villagers with access are relying heavily on diesel generators for electricity which are very expensive, and as I found, not great for getting a good nights sleep!
Deforestation, Palm Oil Plantations and Mega-Dams
Once the four of us were together, we set off on the six hour off road drive to Long Kerangan. The village was accessible by road due to the timber industry which has created an extensive amount of roads deep into Sarawak. The drive was unforgettable, six hours bouncing and rattling about inside the truck, with reckless timber trucks dangerously overtaking, there were no rules of the road.
What particularly hit me during this drive was the extensive amount of deforestation and palm oil plantations. For the first four hours I saw nothing but palm oil trees, following the palm oil tress there was an extensive amount of deforestation. It was unbelievable the scale of the destruction the timber companies have brought to Sarawak. Malaysia is the second largest producer of palm oil (after Indonesia) and now I can see why.
Deforestation
Palm Oil Plantation
Baram Dam Blockade Sites
Just like in Sabah, Mega-Dams are a big issue in Sarawak. There are currently proposals to construct a mega-dam on the Baram River in Sarawak. Construction of the dam would destroy thousands of hectares of land and displace about 20,000 indigenous people. During the drive to Long Kerangan, we stopped off at two blockades, located at the entrances to the Baram dam proposed construction site. The blockades are essentially small communities that have been established in order to protest against and disrupt construction of the mega-dam. The people living in these blockades are truly determined to halt the construction of the dam, their homes and lives depend on it.
The second village I visited while in Sarawak, Tanjung Tepalit lies next to the Baram River. With the construction of the Baram mega-dam, the village of Tanjung Tepalit will be wiped off the map, the village will be under water. What is even more concerning is that the Baram dam is 1 of 12 mega-dams planned for construction in Sarawak.
Long Kerangan
The indigenous people in the area around Long Kerangan are known as the Penan people. They speak their own indigenous language and are known for living in Long Houses.
The majority of my time in Sarawak was spent living with the villagers in Long Kerangan. The villagers seemed like one big family. The kids were running about wild, always screaming and shouting. There were mangy dogs roaming around, always scavenging for food. Every man in the village owned a scooter motorcycle which they relied on heavily - occasionally seeing a scooter speeding down the road with a wild boar strapped to the back. . When I arrived everyone particularly the kids were intrigued and surprised to see a white, western guy with the Tonibung team.
The Village of Long Kerangan
Kitchen Sleeping Area
Toilet and shower area
The micro-hydro being installed is a three-phase system providing 10kW of power to about 120 people. The Tonibung guys had been back and forth to the village for the past 10 months providing the equipment, materials and support for the village to install the micro-hydro. This was to be the final visit to Long Kerangan for Tonibung, our goal was to finish the installation and perform the commissioning of the system. There was a bit of pressure on us for everything to be up an running as the project funders were hoping to hold a "Turning On Ceremony" 13 days later. I was feeling the pressure myself as I was specifically asked to perform the commissioning of the ELC (Electronic Load Controller).
We spent most of the first 4 days finishing off the electrical wiring and working with the villagers to build support frames for the Penstock. On the day of turning on the micro-hydro for the first time, we carried out some final checks on the turbine. We flushed the penstock to remove stones and other debris; you can see the chaos this caused in the picture below; flooding the powerhouse and nearly soaking the generator. By the time it came to power up the micro-hydro for the first time, it was getting late and very dark. The villagers had heard the news that we were going to try the system out for the first time and they wanted to be watch. With very little visibility in the power house, villagers started to pile in, kids no older than five jumping about the power house, carrying on next to the turbine. The villagers watched us in anticipation as we set up the micro-hydro. We opened the mains valves allowing water to flow gradually into the turbine to increase the rotational speed. As the speed of the turbine increased, the lights in the power house house began to flick on and everyone cheered. I kept my eyes fixed on the volt meter and frequency meter. We increased the speed of the turbine until the frequency was approximately 50Hz, from there I could alter the AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) on the generator to tune the voltage to the desired 220V. When the voltage and frequency was stable, the ELC instrumentation indicated that the conditions were correct and stable. I flicked the switches to direct power to the village load. Everything looked good. And just as I was about to give the thumbs up, something tripped. The speed of the turbine increased rapidly and the voltage output shot up. Over the noise of the turbine I shouted to the other guys to close the main valve and I turned off the power to the village and the power house plunged into darkness.
The rest of the evening was spent troubleshooting the ELC. Things were looking bleak. When attempting to restart the micro-hydro, the output from the ELC was very confusing. In the darkness with a hand torch I carried out various electrical checks. It could hear what seemed like entire village behind me watching in anticipation. I was feeling the pressure. The mosquito's and sand flies weren't helping, who having a great time on my legs and arms.
I suspected something had became faulty on the ELC and tripped the system causing the ballast load to turn off. This would explain the turbine over-speed that occurred. Plus, which I haven't mentioned, the main circuit board on the ELC has been chewed by rats. During the commissioning checks, I didn't think the rat's had caused any significant damage, but maybe they had? Unfortunately, we had no time to perform further troubleshooting as we had to travel to meet up with another Tonibung team at our next project location - Tanjung Tepalit, scroll down for more on the Tanjung Tepalit project.
Long Kerangan Micro-Hydro Turbine and Generator
Fixing broken Penstock Micro-Hydro Intake
Building Penstock Support Frames Power House
We spent most of the first 4 days finishing off the electrical wiring and working with the villagers to build support frames for the Penstock. On the day of turning on the micro-hydro for the first time, we carried out some final checks on the turbine. We flushed the penstock to remove stones and other debris; you can see the chaos this caused in the picture below; flooding the powerhouse and nearly soaking the generator. By the time it came to power up the micro-hydro for the first time, it was getting late and very dark. The villagers had heard the news that we were going to try the system out for the first time and they wanted to be watch. With very little visibility in the power house, villagers started to pile in, kids no older than five jumping about the power house, carrying on next to the turbine. The villagers watched us in anticipation as we set up the micro-hydro. We opened the mains valves allowing water to flow gradually into the turbine to increase the rotational speed. As the speed of the turbine increased, the lights in the power house house began to flick on and everyone cheered. I kept my eyes fixed on the volt meter and frequency meter. We increased the speed of the turbine until the frequency was approximately 50Hz, from there I could alter the AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) on the generator to tune the voltage to the desired 220V. When the voltage and frequency was stable, the ELC instrumentation indicated that the conditions were correct and stable. I flicked the switches to direct power to the village load. Everything looked good. And just as I was about to give the thumbs up, something tripped. The speed of the turbine increased rapidly and the voltage output shot up. Over the noise of the turbine I shouted to the other guys to close the main valve and I turned off the power to the village and the power house plunged into darkness.
The rest of the evening was spent troubleshooting the ELC. Things were looking bleak. When attempting to restart the micro-hydro, the output from the ELC was very confusing. In the darkness with a hand torch I carried out various electrical checks. It could hear what seemed like entire village behind me watching in anticipation. I was feeling the pressure. The mosquito's and sand flies weren't helping, who having a great time on my legs and arms.
I suspected something had became faulty on the ELC and tripped the system causing the ballast load to turn off. This would explain the turbine over-speed that occurred. Plus, which I haven't mentioned, the main circuit board on the ELC has been chewed by rats. During the commissioning checks, I didn't think the rat's had caused any significant damage, but maybe they had? Unfortunately, we had no time to perform further troubleshooting as we had to travel to meet up with another Tonibung team at our next project location - Tanjung Tepalit, scroll down for more on the Tanjung Tepalit project.
Flushing the Penstock Myself and Luno Electronic Load Controller - ON
Based on the little troubleshooting performed and the chewed state of the ELC, we decided the likely cause of the fault was with the ELC. During our time in Tanjung Tepalit we made the decision to send out a new ELC from Sabah. After 3 nights in Tanjung Tepalit, we made the 9 hour journey to the capital of Sarawak, Miri, where we would collect the delivered new ELC. The following day we travelled all the way back to Long Kerangan, again bouncing and rattling in the truck for 6 hours. When we arrived at Long Kerangan, we quickly got straight to work replacing the installed ELC with the new one. During start up of the micro-hydro with the new ELC, we felt positive the problems would be resolved. Frustratingly, the same problems were occurring. It was hellish, incredibly frustrating and stressful, especially after all that travel and getting the new ELC sent over.
The only positive was that I could rule out the ELC as the problem. I now suspected the generator was at fault. After inspection of the generator and its three-phase output I came to the conclusion that a fault had a occurred on the internal windings of the generator. This was supported by the fact the generator seemed to be overheating. This failure was likely caused by vibration during transportation and then ultimately failing during the first start-up.
The biggest pain was that we now needed to send across a new generator from Sabah! On the same day we arrived in Long Kerangan to install the new ELC, we decided to return back to Miri. Our total travel in the day was just over 12 hours driving on off-road conditions. Our driver Patrick was solid. We stayed a couple of nights in Miri until the generator arrived.We then travelled back out to Long Kerangan for the third time. The new generator had to work. If not, the micro-hydro would not be ready for the "Turning On Ceremony" the following day. The pressure was on,
When we arrived, we started dismantling the installed generator and replacing it with the new. Once installed, we went through the same process to start up the micro-hydro. This time only a few of the villagers had turned up to watch. The voltage and frequency output from the generator ramped up and I adjusted the AVR to bring the voltage and frequency up to the desired 240V at 50Hz. With the voltage and frequency stable, I switched on the main village loads form the ELC control panel. Finally, everything was looking good. Stable electricity was being provided to Long Kerangan.
Finally Operational with the new generator!
The following day was the big day, the "Turning On Ceremony". To all the villagers it was a very big deal. The project funders and a Malaysian politician was travelling all the way from Kuala Lumpur to be present for the event. The villagers had literally rolled out red matting, brought out fancy chairs and spent a lot of time cleaning just before arrival.
Meeting Politicians Tonibung Project Manager - Patrick
Well chuffed after receiving a thank you rattan bag at the ceremony
When the politician and the funders arrived, there was lots of introductions, photographs being taken and speeches. I think the politician was pretty surprised to see me at the village, fortunately his English was good enough to have a brief conversation. But to be honest, for most of the ceremony I didn't really know what was going on. All the speeches were in Malay! The highlight was being awarded a small rattan bag that was hand made in the village.
Celebration Meal - Wild Boar
The Long Kerangan micro-hydro project was even covered by the local media. Check it out....
Long Kerangan in the Media
Tanjung Tepalit
Tanjung Tepalit and the solar panel installation!
To be completed soon!
Tanjung Tepalit - Solar Panel installation
Building the Battery Support Frame
Batteries, Inverters and Distribution Box
