The Sabah Energy Council (MTS) has allowed 3 local companies to conduct a feasibility study as a proactive measure to involve local industry players in the development of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology in Sabah.
According to Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor, the companies have been given a year to finalise their studies and the findings will be green-lighted for the Sabah government’s consideration and approval.
Following MTS’s approval, the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS) will then issue conditional letters of award to the companies for sustainable energy development, as OTEC is a renewable energy source that generated electricity from the thermal gradient between deep and surface water.
“ECoS has also received expressions of interest from companies from Australia and the United Kingdom to develop OTEC in Sabah. The commission is studying their proposals,” he said, explaining that the preliminary feasibility study is also being conducted by the UTM Ocean Thermal Energy Centre (UTM-OTEC) through a collaboration between Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) for the development of a potential OTEC plant project in Sabah.
The study – carried out with financing from Shell’s Marine Renewable Programme – is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Hajiji said that the Sabah Maju Jaya secretariat has outlined 4 main components in the blue economy exploration, namely harvesting living marine sources, extracting non-living resources, generating new resources as well as trade and business on or related to the ocean.
From these components, that Chief Minister said that there are at least 14 potential industries to be developed and explored in Sabah.
“The state government is confident that the exploration of the blue economy will be a game changer that can propel Sabah towards being a key leader in sea and river-based blue economy in Malaysia,” he added.
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