Kota Kinabalu: The State Government has outlined a three-pronged strategy under the Power Development Plan to tackle outages and meet surging electricity demand in Sabah.
“The plan covers immediate, medium and long-term phases from 2023 until 2030, taking into account of organic growth buoyed by the increase of domestic consumers, as well as small-scale to large industries,” said Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Abu Bakar Titingan.
As an immediate solution, Nizam noted a number of fast-track projects have been approved, including the renting of floating “powerships” with a 224-megawatt capacity which will begin operations at Sabah’s east coast by year-end.
Nizam underlined the quick relief solutions for the 2023-2025 phase aims to achieve generation spare capacity to a stable level which is below 30 per cent.
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said Nizam in his reply to Dr Daud Yusof (Warisan-Bongawan) who wanted to know about measures undertaken to ensure Sabah’s energy security.
The plan, according to Nizam, has been approved at an Electricity Supply and Tariff Planning and Implementation Committee joint meeting which was chaired by Chief Minister and the Federal Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister.
Nizam said the medium phase between 2026-2030 has set sights on increasing capacity by 400MW from hydropower and 100MW from solar.
He further noted there were plans for a 275 kV primary transmission line to link the Sabah and Sarawak grids, including a Southern Link Transmission line project connecting Sipitang and Tawau.
Nizam said the long-term plan beyond 2030 would bolster hydropower potential in the state through the outcomes of the ongoing Hydropower Development Plan study conducted by the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS).
He said other avenues for power generatiaon will also be explored, including new technology, as well as geothermal, wind, hydrogen and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
“There will also be a feasibility study to be conducted this year on plans for interconnection of transmission lines between Sabah and North Kalimantan,” he said.
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