The Sabah Government wants plantation companies to establish more power generation plants fuelled by oil palm waste, said Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman.
He said yesterday this would provide the much needed additional electricity for Sabah and such facilities were good for the environment as well.
Musa said five biomass power generation plants had been set up in the state and three of them were supplying electricity to utility firm Sabah Electrticity Sdn Bhd.
He said two of the plants – Seguntor Bioenergy Sdn Bhd and KinaBiopower Bhd – were supplying 20MW to Sabah Electricity at 21 sen per kilowatt hour under the Renewable Energy Power Production Agreement.
These plants will consume 907 tonnes of oil palm empty fruit bunches sourced from 17 palm oil mills.
“The expected amount of greenhouse gasses emissions reduction is about 251,750 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year,” Musa said in his speech at the launching of the biomass plants near here yesterday.
The Suguntor Bioenergy and Kina Biopower plants costing some RM120mil each had been operational since early last year.
Musa said the use of oil palm waste to generate power should be encouraged as Malaysia produced at least 168 tonnes of biomass yearly and its commercial potential had yet to be fully tapped.
