The Barisan Nasional (BN) government's recent announcement of the Eighth Malaysia Plan, 2001-2005 (8MP) once again demonstrates that the Prime Minister's revival of the pics/bakun project is not only unnecessary in terms of the nation's energy needs, but also undesirable for economic as well as social, environmental and engineering reasons - as have been emphasised so many times in the past.

Table 11.6 from the 8MP (see below) shows capacity, peak demand and reserve margins for electricity for 1995-2005 period without pics/bakun. The table clearly shows that pics/bakun is not needed, especially for Sabah and Sarawak. In 2005, Sabah will have a reserve margin of 43%, while Sarawak will have a reserve margin of 25%.

When pics/bakun comes on stream, say in 2006, and assuming that there are no plans for any other IPPs in either Sabah or Sarawak, the total accumulated capacity of those two states will be 3,726 MW, assuming that pics/bakun will have an actual generating capacity of 1,800 MW (rather than the proposed installed capacity of 2,400MW - such huge shortfalls are typical in hydroelectricity generation).

In that year, allowing for an 8% growth in peak demand, total peak demand for these two states will be 1,570 MW, resulting in a reserve margin of 137%! (The reserve margin will be much higher if installed capacity is the criterion.)

If we assume an average annual growth of 8% in peak demand for the period 2006-2015, then total peak demand will be 3,139 MW in the two states in 2015. Even if there were no added capacity in the meantime, this would mean a combined reserve margin of 19%.

In other words, the two states would have installed and maintained capacity that would far outstrip demand for quite a while - at huge actual and opportunity costs.

In fact, given Sabah's 91% reserve margin in 2000 (indicative of bad planning and probably corruption and cronyism) and projected 43% reserve margin in 2005, it is evident that there will be no demand for pics/bakun in Sabah, unless it is forced to.

Thus, excess capacity in Sarawak due to pics/bakun will be ridiculously high since its reserve margin was 54% in 2000.

Jobs for the boys

Hence, the only possible rationale for pics/bakun is to supply to peninsular Malaysia, which would involve reviving the technically dubious submarine cable component, which is said to have been abandoned.

However, given that Peninsular Malaysia is projected to have a comfortable 35% reserve margin in 2005, pics/bakun will also be redundant for the peninsular, not to mention the extremely costly as well as fraught with engineering and security issues should the submarine cable be installed. If the idea is to have infrastructure projects to boost Sarawak's growth, there are a number of possible alternative energy-related projects: (a) to rapidly complete the state-wide grid and, if feasible, connect it to Sabah's, so that there is a sharing of capacity (which would in any case have to be done for pics/bakun), or

(b) to install a state-wide gas grid, as has been done for peninsular Malaysia, so that power plants can be located where they are needed, reducing the need for extensive and expensive cabling, not to mention unsightly and apparently unhealthy high-tension cables.

Clearly, the announced revival of the pics/bakun project seems to be another case of cronyism - 'jobs for the boys'- as well as to capture the vote in the forthcoming Sarawak state elections. Despite the sobering experience of 1997-98, it appears that we are still far from seeing an end to the megalomania and mega-project obsession that has characterised BN government priorities in recent years.



DR SYED HUSIN ALI is president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM).