Feasible study on potential of OTEC in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU (Oct 23): The Sabah Energy Commission (ECoS) has issued three Malaysian companies with Conditional Letters of Award to conduct a feasible study on the potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) in Sabah’s east coast.

ECoS CEO Datuk Abdul Nasser Abdul Wahid said that the feasibility study is a step towards the development of OTEC in Sabah.

“They are entrusted to do the feasibility study for now,” he said when met by reporters at the OTEC Forum organized by Invest Sabah Bhd here on Wednesday.

According to Abdul Nasser, on August 22 this year, the Sabah Energy Council held a meeting during which a governance structure was established to approve planning and projects related to energy development.

“We were given a mandate during that meeting, where it was agreed to appoint three Malaysian companies to pioneer the development of OTEC. However, so far, we have only provided conditional offer letters for them to conduct feasibility studies as we need to review their business proposals, metrics, parameters, and what they can deliver.

“We are ensuring that these feasibility studies align with the state government’s plans, such as the Blue Economy, while complying with all regulations. So it is still early days (but) at least we are moving to start somewhere, because OTEC is something, not to say it’s a new technology, but it’s been there for quite some time,” he said.

He explained that developed countries have the technology but it is not being pursued and the obvious reason is that their area of geography is not suitable for OTEC.

Developing countries are geographically suitable for OTEC but do not have the technology and the finance required.

“So the developing country has the potential, the resource, but yet the technology know-how is at the developed countries, which doesn’t have the right characteristics. So what we do is a matching kind of concept. We try to get an external party to come in, to give their know-how, and technology transfer.

“These local Malaysian companies that have been awarded with this Conditional Letter of Award will partner with the external parties for the know-how. Besides that, they will also seek the off-taker, which means the purchaser of the product, assuming they will go for the green hydrogen product, who are willing to buy green hydrogen at the most competitive price.

“So based on that concept, that we have the off-taker, who will go for the premium product, that makes the business viable, and the business being developed or the developed country is with the partnership with the technological know-how, we can develop a new economy for the benefit of Sabah,” he said.

The new economy can give some transformational shift to Sabah’s economic development, he said adding that this why the state government-mandated ECOS as the regulator of the OTEC enactment, to do the planning and the development and exploration of OTEC.

Abdul Nasser said OTEC’s potential is huge, especially in down streaming which includes producing water, data centre cooling, energy use, and then also marine culture, all that can be used domestically, not entirely for export.

He said the companies which were issued the Conditional Letters of Award this month, were given a year to complete the feasibility studies although some of them are quite bullish to complete it earlier.

A total of 98 participants, including representatives from companies, government agencies, and business associations, took part in the forum.