Unit to oversee RM2.25b fund
Published on: Tuesday, October 21, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said a special task force would be set up to oversee the RM2.25 billion federal funding to improve services and ensure sufficient power supply for the State.The Cabinet approved the allocation three weeks ago to be spent over five years. He said some of Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd's (SESB) power stations are to be upgraded and for this purpose. It would be administered by the Ministry and carried out via SESB. "The Cabinet has also approved in light of the huge injection a new team (task force) to assist SESB implement the government grant.
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"This is bearing in mind that SESB is a private company and a subsidiary of a public listed company and the Federal Government has no say there. "But for the sake of the people of Sabah, they are injecting for the next five years, RM2.25 billion to be implemented properly in accordance with proper time schedule and in compliance with financial procedures of the Federal government. "To this end, a special task would be set up from the Ministry comprising engineers and financial people and they will be involved in the disbursement of the grant and assist in the implementation of this project to SESB. "So this is the commitment of the Federal Government and we hope that through the institutions of the State and SESB we can cooperate and deliver what is needed. This would entail power generation, transmission and distribution," he said.
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Ongkili said this at a MoU signing ceremony between Green Power Solutions Sdn Bhd and Current 2 Current International, LLC for possibilities of green energy using the ocean for the first time in Malaysia here on Monday.He hoped everything would be in operation by Jan. 1, next year, and that this would resolve many of the issues of delayed projects and identification of key projects among others.
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"They are fine tuning and sitting down with SESB on how to operate and the idea is that SESB is the implementing agency but the task force is to work alongside them for the purpose of reducing the SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) and laying down the foundation basic infrastructure for generation, transmission and distribution."Ongkili stressed that every effort has been done by the State and Federal government and private utility company owned by TNB to continue to make the commitment to provide secure and consistent (power) at the lowest possible price to the consumers in the State."Every effort is also being done to reduce the SAIDI outages and interruptions to consumers. This year we have not been lucky with a statewide blackout in January and bad weather disruptions where the Penampang area was flooded together with many of our substations (and difficulties that caused delays in getting them back in operation)."I have seen that the Federal and State government are committed to improving the level of services and ensure sufficient power. So we are going for long term planning in the next five to 10 years on what needs to be done and to ensure that there will be sufficient Energy Reserve Margin of 25 per cent (from the current eight to ten per cent margin together with the Kimanis plant being already online) within the next 10 years." He said currently power generation for the State was about 1200 MW plus which was planted capacity and available capacity was about 900MW and demand is about 877MW depending on weather as well."There has been some improvement already with the completion of delivery of SPR and Kimanis Power but there is still inconsistent supply and frequent disruption in the gas supply. So we are discussing this matter at the upper committee level to deal with the Sabah requirement."The Ulu Padas 180 MW project should be awarded by next year. The ministry is now going through the various financial proposals from various sources."On renewable energy, the Government would continue to push for renewable biogas and biomass and mini hydros. On suitable sites for Ocean Renewable Energy in the State, Ongkili said that Sabah had great potential for ocean green energy and that he had asked the Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA) to work with the private sector to identify suitable sites with two potential sites with good current flow already identified i.e. the Straits of Malacca and the straits between Labuan and Kuala Penyu.He felt that there was also a good current flow in northern Sabah i.e. between Pulau Banggi and Kudat but this needs to be confirmed by qualified consultants. Ongkili said for Sabah the FIT mechanism was introduced in Jan 1 2014 and at the end of July 2014, a total 293 applications were approved for FIT with 138.89 MW total RE where biomass made up 37.62 per cent (87.7MW) followed by small hydro 14.45 per cent (35.6 MW) solar PV at 10.16 per cent (10.39MW) and lastly biogas at 6.72 per cent (5.2MW) capacity. Of this five applications have achieved commercial operation with total capacity of 43.4MW i.e. biomass at 36.9MW and small hydro at 6.5MW.Ongkili said Sabah was an exemplary State blessed with high solar irradiance which is the highest in the country and was rich in bioenergy resources from the palm oil industry with the potential to harness energy from rivers wind and geothermal where efforts were now undertaken for a wind mapping exercise together with Seda Malaysia to ascertain wind resources in the State in order to help meet the energy needs of the State and added that the seminar was consistent with the government's policy to explore all forms of sustainable energy.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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