Kota Kinabalu: Solar electricity capacity generated in Sabah so far was 84 megawatts (MW) and projects to increase the capacity are currently being implemented, the State Assembly was told Wednesday.
Assistant Minister to Chief Minister Datuk Nizam Abu Bakar Titingan said the generation of 50MW of energy has been operating since 2018, located at the Kudat solar farm, while 34MW comes from the Solar Photovoltaic (Solar PV) Project under the Feed-in Tariff scheme, involving 796 individuals, commercial and community installations.
He said large-scale solar capacity installations currently under implementation is 62MW, expected to be completed in 2024; with a capacity of 6MW in Beaufort, Kunak (5MW), Sandakan (20MW), Tawau (16MW) and Labuan (15MW).
“Therefore, the total amount of solar energy that has been and will be operating in the Sabah grid is around 146MW or 11 per cent of the total generation capacity of the entire grid (electricity) in Sabah,” he said when answering an oral question from Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee (Appointed).
Yong wanted to know much solar electricity was currently being generated in Sabah and the required target set for Sabah.
Nizam said according to information from the Malaysia Renewable Energy Roadmap (MyRER) drawn up by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) in 2021, the potential for electricity generation through solar in Sabah is the best in Malaysia at 99,400MW.
He said the figure was based on the total undeveloped land area of ??1,887 square kilometres (km) or around 2.6 per cent of Sabah’s total land area for ground-mounted solar designs.
“But in practical terms, if a small part of the land area is developed as a solar farm, for example, one per cent of the 1,887 square km (19 square km or 4,600 acres), it can produce a solar capacity of around 1,000MW,” he said.
He said in order to ensure the stability of Sabah’s electricity grid, the capacity of solar energy that can be connected and channelled to the Sabah grid is limited to 22 per cent of the maximum requirement of the grid system, which is currently limited to only 220MW.
“This is due to solar energy power which is not consistent and which depends on sun rays. Therefore, the additional target of solar energy capacity planned by the state government in the future is limited which is around 100MW until 2027.
“The capacity of solar energy channelled to the Sabah electricity grid can be increased if battery energy storage system technology is combined with solar energy technology when this technology is developed and competitive in the future,” he said.
