Sarawak plans to build more coal-fired power plants as back-up energy sources for the state, State Public Utilities Minister Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan said today.

awang tengah hassan alfred jabu press conference 180306 He said the state needed coal-fired power to complement its hydro power generation, especially in the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) to meet high demand in energy-intensive industries.

"We plan to build a coal-fired plant in Balingian in Mukah Division and, maybe, another one in Kapit (Merit Pila) as back-up in case there is a drawback, for example a long drought," Amer ( above, left ) told reporters after attending the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Sarawak, Hari Raya Aidilfitri gathering in Kuching last night.

The proposed Balingian plant will be an expansion to the Mukah coal-fired power plant while another proposed plant in the Merit-Pila region, Kapit, has an estimated of 400 million tonnes of coal reserves.

At present, the Mukah coal-fired power plant has an installed capacity of two units of 135 megawatts (MW) coal-fired boiler-turbine generators to supply power in the state.

azlan Awang Tengah said Sarawak has abundant coal reserves, especially in the Mukah-Balingian region, with an estimated total of one billion tonnes of coal reserve.

On hydro-generated power, he said the state government would build new dams based on demand.

Awang Tengah said there would be 2,400MW of electricity generated from Bakun dam where negotiations on the purchase of the dam by the state government from the federal governments were still ongoing.

A further 944MW will be added from the RM3.5 billion-Murum dam, owned by the state utility body, Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) by the end of 2013, he said.

Sarawak's current capacity is 1,300MW with demand at about 900MW.

Based on the projection by SEB, industries from the SCORE are projected to start taking about 500MW in 2012 and close to 2,000MW by 2014.

On Thursday, SEB chief executive officer Torstein Dale Sjotveit said the utility company had firm plans to build seven more hydro dams and another coal-fired power station to see a nine-fold increase in sales by 2020 compared with current sales.

Sjotveit said SEB would increase its installed capacity to between 7,500MW and 10,000MW by 2020, depending on the size of the dams.

- Bernama