Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg (centre) visiting an exhibition booth at the International Energy Week conference in Kuching. - ZULAZHAR SHEBLEE/The Star
KUCHING: Sarawak aims to play a leading role in green energy by developing renewable resources, says Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.
The Premier said the state has conducted studies on the technology available for the development of green energy.
"This will strengthen our efforts in transitioning towards green energy so that Sarawak can become a key player in this sector," he told reporters after opening the International Energy Week conference here on Tuesday (June 13).
Abang Johari said the two-day event showed the state government's commitment to pursue green energy development, with plenty of interest shown by local and international stakeholders.
"This conference will exchange ideas and explore new technologies for us to develop energy transition towards green energy," he said.
Abang Johari then added that the state's policy was based on the strength of its natural resources.
In his speech earlier, Abang Johari said Sarawak had potential to develop new energy sources such as solar and bioenergy, in addition to hydropower.
He said the state's many rivers and abundant sunshine could be harnessed to generate solar power.
"Sarawak also has large amounts of land for the cultivation of biomaterial that can be utilised to generate electricity, heat, biofuels, biogas and biohydrogen," he said.
He also said that Sarawak plans to scale up the cultivation of microalgae to 405 hectares to produce about 500,000 tonnes of crude algae oil per year.
"That can be equated to about 10,000 barrels of oil per day with about 37% extraction rate of crude algae oil from the algae biomass," he said.
Abang Johari also said Sarawak is developing a green hydrogen hub in Bintulu, where two plants will be built by SEDC Energy Sdn Bhd in collaboration with a multinational consortium comprising Sumitomo, Eneos, Samsung Engineering, Lotte Chemicals, Posco and PETRONAS.
He said both projects had completed their feasibility studies and were expected to continue to the front-end engineering design stage in the next few months.
"Both facilities are expected to be operational in 2027. Other than producing green hydrogen, the plants will also create new hydrogen-based industries such as the manufacturing of electrolysers and fuel cells," he said.
