KOTA KINABALU: The federal and state governments are committed to improve the level of services to make sure there is sufficient power in Sabah, Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Maximus Ongkili said.
“We are going for long-term planning to plan out for the next five to 10 years what needs to be done in the aspect of making sure there will be sufficient margin and we are looking at not less than 25 per cent margin in the power supply.
“At the moment the margin in Sabah is between eight to 10 per cent with the commissioning of the Kimanis Power Plant while the average margin in Peninsular Malaysia is 25 per cent,” he said.
But if some of the independent power producers (IPPs) are under scheduled maintenance, the margin will drop to five per cent, Maximus said and disclosed that the January 17 blackout occurred because the margin was negative and there was not enough power.
Maximus told reporters this after officiating at a seminar on Ocean Renewable Energy and witnessing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing between Green Power Solutions Sdn Bhd (GPS) and Current 2 Current International, LLC (C2C) on renewable energy here yesterday.
According to him, there had been some improvements in Sabah’s power supply with the commissioning of the Kimanis Power Plant but there was still inconsistent and often disruption of gas supply.
“We are discussing this matter at the committee on electricity supply highest level to deal with the Sabah requirement. The Ulu Padas 180 MW plant which is also partly a flood mitigation project, should be awarded by early next year as the ministry is now going through the various financial proposals from various sources,” he said.
In the aspect of renewable energy, the government will continue to push for biomass and biogas and small hydros, he said, adding that from the aspect of upgrading of some of the Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd’s (SESB) power stations, the Cabinet had, three weeks ago, approved an allocation of RM2.25billion for the purpose for five years.
This will be administered by the ministry and of course implemented through SESB, he said, adding that of the total, RM1.4 billion was for transmission, RM225.13 million for distribution, RM33.4 million for hydro study and RM303.27 million for post-blackout repairs.
“In light of the injection of huge amount of allocation, the Cabinet also approved the setting up of a new team to assist SESB to implement these government grants. Bear in mind SESB is a subsidiary of a public listed company.
“The federal government has no share in SESB but for the sake of the people in Sabah, for the next five years it is injecting RM2.25 billion and it has to be implemented properly in accordance with proper time schedule and also in compliance with financial procedures of the federal government.
“A special task force will be set up in the ministry comprising engineers, financial people and they will be involved in the disbursement of the grant and assist in the implementation of these projects to SESB,” he said.
He added: “The task force was needed for coordination purposes because the federal government says, ‘we give you grant but you don’t seem to use the money on time and you keep on asking for money and yet many projects are delayed.’”
The delays were not done on purpose because there were times when getting wayleave and permission to enter a particular piece of land took too much time, he said and stressed that there was a need to shorten this due to urgency of the situation.
“This is the federal government’s commitment and we hope through the intuitions of the state and of course SESB, we can all cooperate and deliver. This will involve largely generation, transmission and distribution.
“We hope everything will be in place by January 1. They are fine-tuning and sitting down with SESB to operate and the idea is that it will operate with SESB as the implementing agency but the special task force will help in the disbursement of the funds,” he said.
Maximus pointed out that the special task force is largely for the purpose of reducing the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and laying down the foundation for better infrastructure on the distribution as well as the transmission and generation of power in Sabah.
He is confident that they will be able to resolve many of the issues of delayed projects and identifying key projects that need to be implemented in generation and transmission.
On the issue of ocean renewable energy, Maximus when asked if the ministry had identified areas suitable, replied: “Not yet. We will commission SEDA to work with the private sector to identify but experts have said that there are two possibilities of good location, in the Straits of Melaka which has good current flow and between Labuan and Kuala Penyu.
“I think between Banggi and Kudat also has possibilities but this needs to be confirmed by qualified consultants. If we can establish one in Sabah, it will add to the state’s Renewable Energy pool,” he said.