Sabah Energy Council’s inaugural meeting lays out plans to address state’s power shortage

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is exploring new renewable energy sources to reach a 30% generation reserve margin and address the state’s power shortage.

This initiative was approved by the Sabah Energy Council during its inaugural meeting, which was chaired by Chief Minister Hajiji Noor on Thursday (June 6).

The council agreed to conduct feasibility studies on new energy sources such as wind, geothermal, and low-head submersible hydropower projects.

Other proposals by the Energy Commission of Sabah (Ecos) included an interim extension of viable existing power plants, purchasing power from biomass plants, ensuring completion of ongoing large-scale solar (LSS) projects, and creating additional LSS projects.

Ecos also proposed implementing battery energy storage systems, adding additional natural gas-fired power plants as a transitional fuel, and revitalising a geothermal plant.

Completing the Sabah Hydropower Development Master Plan by the end of this year is also expected to support the state’s power generation initiatives.

For the long term, the state government is exploring new technologies like small modular reactors in collaboration with the Federal Government and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (Octec) under the Sabah Blue Economy Plan following the approval of the Otec Enactment 2024 in the state legislative assembly.

The Sabah Energy Council, chaired by Hajiji, consisted of 11 permanent members, namely the state Works Minister, Industrial Development and Entrepreneurship Minister, State Secretary and the permanent secretaries from state ministries and the state Finance Ministry.

Also in the council are the State Economic Planning Unit Director, Sabah Maju Jaya Secretariat chief coordinating officer, Ecos chairman and the chief executive officer.

The chief executive officers of the Sabah Energy Corporation Sdn Bhd, SMJ Energy Sdn Bhd and Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd are invited members.

The Sabah Energy Council was established following the transfer of power regulatory authority from the Federal Government to Sabah and to replace the Sabah Tariff and Electricity Supply Implementation and Planning Committee).