KOTA KINABALU: The government should place confidence and trust in Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to generate its own electricity to tackle frequent load shedding incidents in the state.
SESB chairman Datuk Seri Dr Wilfred Madius Tangau said after 25 years of privatisation from the Sabah Electricity Board, the state is still experiencing power outages as the utility company is still depending on Independent Power Producers (IPPs)
"It is the right time after 25 years of privatisation of SESB from Sabah Electricity Board (SEB) to look at why we are still experiencing load shedding.".
Madius, who is also Tuaran Member of Parliament, said since 80 per cent of power supply in Sabah was generated by IPPs, SESB's hands were tied in many matters relating to power generation in the state.
"Currently, SESB is only generating and owning 20 per cent of the supple while the rest are purchased from IPPs.
"For example, when a certain IPP suddenly wants to do scheduled maintenance, and when an IPP does not supply the amount of electricity as agreed, there is not much we can do.
"In that instance load shedding is unavoidable. This explains the frequent power disruption (in Sabah).
"This is a far cry from that of Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) where they own all the power generation plants. There are no IPPs in Sarawak,." he said in a statement, adding when the baseload generation is stable, Sabah can start start venturing into renewable energy.
Madius added that for now the state reserve margin was less than 12 per cent, whereby the baseload power demand in Sabah is at 1,080MW and the maximum power demand is about 1,200MW.
He said SESB must generate at least 70 per cent or 700 megawatt (1MW) of Sabah's baseload power requirements before the state can seriously move towards renewable energy.
"All the stakeholders need to relook SESB's financial sustainability and stability of the electricity power supply.
"Don't think that SESB is only capable of purchasing power from IPPs to be sold to the consumers. SESB owns the transmission and distribution but not the generation assets. We are served by skilled manpower to conduct studies and run its own projects for power generation in Sabah.
"It has been a long-standing problem that has happened for decades; We (SESB) are not given the opportunity to operate (the power pants) even when SESB was the one who conducted studies for projects such as the Ulu Padas Dam, Liwagu Dam and a coal power plant in Lahad Datu.
"At the end of the day the project is either cancelled or given to others to implement and operate," he said.
He pointed out that SESB had spent RM33 million to conduct a feasibility study on the Ulu Padas Hydroelectric Dam but was not given the trust to implement the project.
The proposed Lahad Datu coal power plant which could have generated 300 MW of electricity also ended up cancelled due to parties clamouring on who will own the plants, he said.
Tangau had recently held dialogue sessions with state and federal level people's representatives in Sabah in the hope of getting them to be united in empowering SESB to make decisions for power generation projects in the future.
"Their responses have been very positive so far. All of them support SESB. Moving forward, when SESB proposes a project, we hope to get support from all the parties as well as the government," he said.
Tangau added that SESB is currently operating at a loss, because power purchased from IPPs was at RM0.43 per unit electricity but sold to consumers at RM0.34 per unit in accordance with the tariff set by the federal government. The electricity tarif at the peninsular is RM0.39 per unit.
