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The Malim Nawar Power Plant
This photograph shows the newly completed Malim Nawar power plant in 1927. Malim Nawar emerged as a railway stop in the early 20th century, eventually growing into a small town when the Perak Hydro built the small steam station there. The plant was then expanded several times in 1937, 1959 and 1965. The area around Malim Nawar became part of Kinta's dredging fields.
We received quite a bit of information pertaining to the 1965-expansion of the Malim Nawar Power Station. According to our Blog Reader - Ipoh Remembered - Balfour, Beatty & Co (a London-based company) was the main contractor for the expansion of the power plant. The engineer (dubbed 'man on the scene') was D. Neylon. Another London-based company, Piling & Construction Co., handled the foundation work. With the expansion, more steam had to be generated to produce electricity. Hence, three new boilers were installed by Babcock & Wilcox. George Kent, a small engineering firm, specialised in automated control of industrial equipment through the use of 'feedback loops'. A lot of water needed to be piped into the Malim Nawar plant, particularly for the new boilers. The water had to be demineralised to avoid scale and deposits. Hence an ion-exchange purifier, from Permutit Ltd., was used.
Two new turbo-alternators, designed by Associated Electrical Industries, were installed - taking the steam from the three Babcock & Wilcox boilers and turning it into additional 40MW of electricity. As for the actual building, the contractor was none other than the local firm Nanyang Engineering. The founder of Nanyang Engineering - Leong Sik Aun - worked for a number of years at Perak River Hydro. He resigned after the war and by 1948 set up office along Brewster Road. All expansion works were completed by the time the Sultan of Perak visited the plant in 1965.
To read more about the book ‘Kinta Valley ’, click here.
Click here to read an article about the Malim Nawar Power Station.