A controversial billion-dollar undersea power project to transmit power to Peninsular Malaysia from Sarawak will be operational by 2013, a senior minister said Monday.

Joseph Salang Gandum, deputy minister of energy, water and communications, said the Bakun dam would transmit about 100 megawatts (MW) of power by next year.

"By 2013 it (Bakun dam) is expected to begin transmitting 1,600MW to Peninsular Malaysia via the 676-kilometer submarine cable across the South China Sea," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency on Monday.

Malaysian environmentalists have slammed the undersea cable project, saying it is unsafe because of earthquakes in the region.

The 2.5-billion-dollar cable project was dropped after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, but Malaysia's former energy minister Lim Keng Yaik last year said it was now back on course.