Sarawak to continue Renewable Energy Agenda beyond PCDS2030, says Abg Jo

KUCHING (Feb 12): Sarawak will focus on the continuation of its Renewable Energy Agenda beyond the Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030, said Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.

He said the four sectors the state will prioritise beyond 2030 are hydroelectric dams, hydrogen, biomass, and solar.

“We have five years to deliver our PCDS 2030 and now we are also thinking beyond 2030 because 2030 is only five years from now.

“As we think over what we’ll do beyond 2030, these are the four sectors that we are giving priority beyond 2030. Our advantage is on the validity of energy sources including hydroelectric dams, hydrogen, biomass, and solar,” he said when opening the Asean Sarawak Business and Economic Forum 2026 themed ‘From Strategy to Scale: Competing in a Fragmented Global Economy’ here.

Pointing out that Sarawak has ample gas supply, Abang Johari said hydrogen production in the state should be the way forward.

“What you do is, process the CH4 (methane) and convert it into hydrogen-based power. At the moment, we are building a capacity of two units 500 megawatt (MW) gas turbine in Bintulu. That means we have one gigawatt. And we have one more in Miri also producing 500 MW.

“That’s why we are able to supply to Singapore as well as Peninsular Malaysia. We are already supplying to West Kalimantan for the past four years. Two months ago, we started supplying power to Sabah and by end of the year, we’ll be supply to Brunei,” he said.

The Premier said data storage is also important beyond 2030. At present, he said the state is relying on foreign satellites.

According to him, there is now a new technology whereby one no longer uses so-called conventional satellites.

“It is very expensive. The manual that I read, one conventional satellite costs about 300 to 500 million euros. But there is a new generation of satellite, called CubeSat.

“This CubeSat satellite is a low Earth orbit satellite, comes with a cost of between 500,000 to 700,000 euros. It is a nano-satellite,” he said, adding that this is significantly cheaper.

“If we have our own satellite called CubeSat in the low Earth orbit, in other words, you are in the game. With all the data storage there, you can retrieve this data to develop whatever you want to develop on Earth.”

With this, he believed Sarawak will be able to move its economy forward beyond 2030 while saying that the period from 2026 to 2030 is critical for Sarawak to succeed in implementing PCDS.

By 2030, he said Sarawak’s priority is not to do everything but to deliver a limited number of outcomes that directly strengthen competitiveness in a more divided and capital-constrained global economy.

“We will accelerate clean energy transition by expanding renewable energy and modernising infrastructure energy planning is treated as economic infrastructure, not a supporting function.

“Continued investment in renewable energy generation, and grid reliability is designed to meet rising demand from industry, digital infrastructure and regional interconnection. Energy availability will not become a constraint on growth,” he added.

In addition, Abang Johari said Sarawak will develop and attract strategic industries through partnership, strengthened local supply chain and small and medium enterprise (SME) capacity building, while driving tech adoption.

“We will scale downstream and industrial activity where there is a clear fit between energy supply, infrastructure, and policy certainty.

“The focus is on downstream gas, petrochemicals, and high-value industries. This is where we expect investment to deepen, rather than dispersing effort across low-value activities,” he said.

He added that decisions taken now on energy systems, industrial capacity, fiscal discipline, and institutional coordination will shape Sarawak’s competitiveness well beyond this decade.