Biocoal as fuel to fire power plants?

SEDC looking into producing biocoal as another Sarawak green energy source, long-term investment

Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) is looking at producing biocoal as another green energy source to power the state’s power plants.

Chairman Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain said studies are currently being carried out on the possibility of producing the biocoal which could become one of SEDC’s long-term investments.

“Biocoal is actually manufactured using wood pellets together with biowaste especially from algae that can be mixed together and can be used to power the plant.

“This is something that we are still studying,” he told reporters a er launching SEDC Ramadan Bazaar here yesterday.

He said SEDC has been working on several joint ventures with companies from within and outside Malaysia which are keen to develop facilities for the production of new energy sources in Sarawak, particularly hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

“(We are) also in collaboration with other research agencies throughout the world. I mean we have companies coming from as far as Canada and we, of course, welcome people who would like to collaborate with us in these ventures,” he said.

One of SEDC’s joint ventures has been with Gallois New Energy Materials (M) Sdn Bhd which aims to build a high-end graphite manufacturing plant in Bintulu, of which Abdul Aziz said its partnering company Gallois is doing the preliminary works.

“We (SEDC) as the investment company are investing inside the primary project but we hope to be able to make use of the product later on for other downstream products, especially

Biocoal is actually manufactured using wood pellets together with biowaste especially from algae...

Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain

in the making of electrolysers

(for producing hydrogen),” he said.

He said SEDC, through its subsidiary SEDC Energy, is also collaborating with Petronas subsidiary Petronas Technology Ventures Sdn Bhd to manufacture electrolysers.

In addition to several other joint ventures, Abdul Aziz said SEDC’s emphasis has been to find solutions to reduce the production cost of hydrogen, which is currently still high.

“We are looking at making sure that the cost of hydrogen can be actually reduced so that it can be available and people who own electric vehicles or own hydrogen or fuel cell cars will be able to benefit.

“The cost of (hydrogen) fuel will be less than the cost of fossil fuel,” he added.