The second Sustainability and Renewable Energy Forum, organised by Sarawak Energy, continued the conversation on building a sustainable energy future
Renewable energy will have a key role to play in achieving sustainable growth and building a more equitable world for all as we move into the recovery phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That was the consensus among the speakers at the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Forum 2021 (Saref 2.0), which took place on 24 November and brought together stakeholders and decision makers to discuss the commitment and actions needed for building a future in sustainable energy for Southeast Asia.
Organised by Sarawak Energy, Saref debuted in 2019 in Kuching, Sarawak. This year, it was held online and integrated into the GO ESG Asean 2021 Summit, presented in partnership with the UN Global Compact Network Malaysia and Brunei (UNGCMYB), as a parallel session to further the conversation about collaboration and opportunities in renewables.
The forum came as Sarawak Energy, Malaysia’s largest renewable energy provider and the primary power utility for Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo, celebrates its 100th year.
Sarawak Energy was also recently named a corporate winner at the UNGCMYB 2021 Sustainability Performance Awards for its efforts in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Ambition Benchmark 7: science-based emission reduction in line with a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway. In addition, its group CEO, Sharbini Suhaili, received the Sustainability Icon Award.
The big picture
Globally, the push for renewable energy is being driven by the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls on nations to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees and achieve net-zero emissions. All UN member states have also adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 SDGs targeting issues such as poverty and climate change.
“Between 2010 and 2018, we can see that the share of renewable energy in global energy consumption had increased, but just slightly from 16.4 per cent to 17.1 per cent,” Dr Chen Shiun, vice-president for rural electrification at Sarawak Energy, remarked at Saref, citing UN data.
The motivation for shifting towards renewable energy is clear, but challenges remain, particularly when it comes to financing. “In 2018, US$16 billion worth of funds were channeled into developing countries to support clean and renewable energy projects. But that was 35 per cent lower than in 2017, and only 32 per cent higher than in 2010,” Chen said. “We need to encourage and develop more international cooperation, especially for investments in clean-energy research and technologies.”
Power for all
In a Saref panel session titled “Energy Poverty Eradication”, several speakers discussed how renewable energy plays an important role in helping to end poverty, which is the first goal on the list of the UN’s SDGs. For developing countries in Asean, collaboration is key to providing populations with affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy, in line with SDG No 7.
Countries with ready access to energy are able to build stronger, more productive and resilient economies. But as the financing ecosystem for renewable energy options is still developing, the upfront costs of making the switch can be prohibitive for poorer communities, despite the long-term savings and benefits it can offer.
Sooksiri Chamsuk, deputy representative and programme officer for the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), shared an example from Cambodia, where it has proven difficult to persuade banks to support biogas production at rural pig farms. “It is actually not that financially attractive yet, because installing diesel generation sets for the communities is cheaper,” she explained. “This is where UNIDO comes in to talk to the banks, provide technical advice and help these farms invest in biogas production technology.”
In Sarawak – which shares the island of Borneo with Indonesia, Brunei and the neighbouring Sabah – about 3 per cent of the rural population, comprising 14,300 households in remote villages, have yet to be connected to a utility-provided power grid, even though the state’s urban areas and rural townships are fully electrified.
Existing grid lines are being extended to reach these distant areas, but for villages that lack road access – a prerequisite for grid connectivity – a hybrid solution is being implemented that uses 80 per cent renewable energy, mainly solar power, supplemented by 20 per cent diesel power.
For smaller, more remote settlements, the Sarawak Alternative Rural Electrification Scheme (SARES) provides stand-alone solar or micro-hydro systems that allow for a daily provision of three kilowatt-hours per household. Maintaining these systems is challenging due to Sarawak’s rugged terrain, which can call for the use of small planes, off-road vehicles, boats and even buffaloes to transport materials.
But SARES operates under a government-community partnership model that sees villagers trained to handle basic maintenance like cleaning solar panels and replacing fuses, which has helped to resolve many logistical issues.
“For the more complicated or routine maintenance, the licensees – or, in this case, the utility service provider – still have to provide the services,” noted Syed Mohamad Fauzi Shahab, director of electricity supply for Sarawak’s Ministry of Utilities.
Ayu Abdullah, co-founder and co-executive director of the non-profit organisation Energy Action Partners, added: “At the very minimum, community engagement is required to ensure that the systems are fulfilling local needs and priorities, but you also require community involvement to ensure the sustainability of the system. You want local management and capacity to run the system independently.”
Making a business case for renewables
While the government-funded and Sarawak Energy-implemented SARES systems have been operating since 2016, moving into the funding phase for similar systems elsewhere may face obstacles because they are being set up in places that have limited scope for income generation.
In another Saref session, titled “Expanding Sarawak’s Renewable Energy Footprint”, Ting Ching Zung, executive vice-president of strategy and corporate development for Sarawak Energy, talked about how the company is focusing on cross-border electricity interconnection on Borneo with an aim to support the renewable energy transition across Asean.
As an example of what Sarawak Energy is looking to achieve, Ting pointed to Norway, which is nearly 100 per cent dependent on hydropower thanks to the interconnection across Europe that allows energy to be stored in other countries.
Work to develop the Borneo grid for interconnection began several years ago. “In this effort back in 2016, we managed to achieve our first power export to West Kalimantan in Indonesia,” Ting explained. “We are also currently in discussions with Brunei, and we signed a power exchange and interconnection agreement with the neighbouring state of Sabah earlier this year that extends interconnection to 2023 or 2024.”
