KIMANIS, July 27- Electricity supply in Sabah is expected to be stable once the two power plants built by the independent power producers (IPPs) — Kimanis Power Sdn Bhd and SPR Energy (M) Sdn Bhd — start operations.
Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili, said the two plants were expected to generate 385 megawatts (MW) of electricity in stages from the first quarter of 2014.
He said the Kimanis Power’s plant has the capacity to generate 285MW and SPR Energy, 100MW.
“With the increase, the power generation capacity in Sabah and Labuan is expected to increase to 1,460.1 MW,” he told a media briefing after inspecting the progress of the two projects here Friday.
Ongkili said the combined-cycled gas turbine power plants were more efficient and clean compared to the diesel- or medium fuel oil-powered plants.
Currently, the dependable capacity amounted to 1,211.7 MW and they were supplied by the power stations owned by Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) and the IPPs, he said.
He said with the increase in generation capacity the disruptions in power supply from the diesel-based generation station will be reduced.
Ongkili said the ministry’s System Average Interruption Duration Index (Saidi) in Sabah has recorded 254.34 minutes/user as at July 21.
“In efforts to lower the Saidi in Sabah, the federal government has spent RM386.6 million since 2010 to last year to launch projects to maintain the power plants and the generation sets throughout the state,” he said.
The federal government has also given a total grant of RM804.1 million since 2009, he said.
“The total did not include the soft loans of RM2.5 billion the federal government gave to SESB under the 8th Malaysia Plan,” he said.
– BERNAMA
