Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Maximus Ongkili is urged to do more to promote Sabah as the Renewable Energy Hub for the country. Sri Tanjong Assemblyman Chan Foong Hin said this when he was visiting to the first 1 MW solar farm in Tawau district.
The first solar farm for the district producing 1 megawatt of power supply and able to cater to about 500 households was commissioned yesterday at the SMR Aquaculture Sdn Bhd, Sungai Burung, Balung.
According to John Nip, the spoke person for the solar farm, thanks to the minister’s effort, Sabah is allocated with 7MW solar PV for industry sector and all of the solar farms are successfully commissioned on time before the year end.
“It has proven that Sabah Boleh. We can achieve the target as allocated and hopefully Sabah can get more quota of solar PV in next year.” John said.
The investment for the first solar generation in the district is RM10 millions and comes with a 25 years warranty, performance guaranteed and 40 years lifespan and John is aiming to develop a green technology park in Tawau.
Chan concurred with John’s view. The DAP Sabah Vice Chairman pointed out that, Sabah is abundant with natural resources which are setting us at the best position to explore it’s RE potentials:
- It is projected to exceed 2,700 megawatt (MW) RE in total if fully exploited, and the fact that Sabah is already a leader in grid connected RE power plants such as from oil palm biomass, biogas, and small hydro.
- Sabah is the region with highest solar irradiance levels in the country. It is the best location to develop solar energy farm in Malaysia.
“Instead of mega power plant built in years, small scale RE generation, especially Solar PV, should be encouraged as the short term solution to Sabah’s power disruption problem. As the Solar PV technology evolves, it is learnt that Solar PV power plant could be put on line within few months.” Chan said.
However, Chan was in the view that Maximus can and should do more to groom the RE industry in the state.
“To start with, allocate more quota under Feed in Tariff (FiT) mechanism to Sabah. The matter of fact is, we have been delayed two years on board compared with our peninsular counterpart. FiT only started to be implemented in this year. We should get more as the power outage still remains as serious issue in the state.”
Furthermore, looking back at the historical record, Member Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara Tony Pua has accused Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) of being partial to the daughter of former chief secretary to the government, Suzi Suliana Sidek, by allocating 32.3% (45.9MW) of the solar PV quotas to 12 companies related to her, in year 2012. Why don’t our state given the priority to develop RE? Is all the Sabahan’s benefits less important than the daughter of a civil servant?
“Another factor which is important to determine the attractiveness of the RE development to the project developer is, the annual digression rate. In the first two years since the FiT introduced, the price of solar PV modules has dropped nearly substantially, but the outlook is not that good in next year, with our weak devalued Ringgit. Comparatively, we need to pay Ringgit more in order to purchase solar PV modules from oversea. I would like to suggest that Malaysia should learn from Japan, in line of Look East policy in 1980s. Japan current, across the board solar FiT rate of 37yen (approximately 41 cents) per kilowatt hour for 20 years, are far more generous than us. Let’s fix the annual digression for solar PV at zero, as in the case of small hydro.” Chan suggested.