Published on: Thursday, July 10, 2008 |
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) will be reviving the Liwagu hydropower project, according to its General Manager (Major Operations), Haji Abdul Razak Sallim.
Responding to MP Hiew King Cheu who was among those who attended the "Forum on Coal-fuelled Power Plant" organised by the Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah recently, he said the engineering study on the project had actually been completed in 1998.
"We were on the verge of implementing it, but it was shelved due to the 1997-1998 recession."
He disclosed that SESB has received assistance from the Energy Commission of Malaysia in this regard and a new environmental impact study is currently being carried out.
"Once the details are obtained, we'll go from there." Hiew in referring to the Liwagu project, had noted that it has "been in the pipeline for quite a long time".
"What is holding you up because that can produce 700 megawatts (MW) or more?" he asked.
He opined it was much cheaper to construct the dam plus the hydro turbine.
"No problem, you get your free water supply also.
Is it the problem with the land or finance? Our recommendation is, do it, don't wait. We cannot wait any longer."
To another question from the floor, Abd Razak said the Liwagu dam would take about eight years to develop, which would be around 2015. He said re-visiting Liwagu would be part of SESB's plan to improve the power supply situation in Sabah.
SESB is also carrying out detailed engineering studies on another hydro plant in Upper Padas to complement Sabah's power needs in the future.
In the meantime, another initiative has just been undertaken to increase the power supply (hydro-generated) by another 35MW this December.
According to him, the West Coast Grid, which was finally completed in 2007-08 can generate 500MW.
"The maximum demand in the West Coast is about 438MW, so there's an extra of about 60MW. In the East Coast the maximum demand is 240MW while only 170MW is available."
SESB is sending on average 40MW out of the extra daily output to the East Coast, which still cannot fulfil the needs there.
In fact, he said, SESB even had to solicit the help of the big factories and mills in Sandakan and Tawau whereby they use their own generators for four to five hours daily to allow other consumers the benefit of having electricity.
Power demand in Sabah has increased by an average of seven per cent, said Abdul Razak.
The latest figure in load consumption is 657MW, which in April was 640MW, "despite what we have done (initiatives) in the last five years".
Giving an overview of SESB's performance as regards the Supply Average International Duration Index (SAIDI), he said the situation in Sabah "was getting better", barring incidences like the collapse of the transmission pylon on April 21.
Between 2006 and to date the average duration of power disruption was 170 minutes or almost three hours.
The East Coast was also without electricity for 12 hours in the April 21 incident "because we could not reconnect the supply."
