KOTA KINABALU: A RM164.9 million agreement for the supply of 20 Megawatt (MW) between Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) and Eco Biomass Power Sdn Bhd was signed yesterday.
The agreement was under the ‘Renewable Energy Purchase Agreement’ or REPA and is expected to be fully operational by the end of next year.
It is the fourth of such biomass projects in Sabah – the previous ones were with TSH Power (Tawau), Seguntor Power and Kinabio Power in Sandakan, each of which generates 10MW.
In the agreement sealed yesterday, Eco Biomass Power Sdn Bhd has agreed to supply electricity via empty fruit bunch (EFB) to SESB through its Sabah grid system for 21 years.
Meanwhile, the power generation via renewable energy is part of the country’s five fuel policy aside from diesel, hydro, gas and coal.
The country hopes to garner five percent of its energy resource from renewable energy under the policy.
SESB has already signed five previous agreements related to the purchase of renewable power since 2002 and is already discussing with 10 other companies for the development of biomass, biogas, hydro and geothermal power generation.
At present, a total of 32MW of renewable energy is being supplied to the Sabah Grid System.
Electricity is generated using biomass (three companies) and hydro (one company).