Extracted from Malaysiakini.com

Bakun project to be completed by 2012

Jan 22, 07 11:11am

Malaysia will complete an ambitious US$2.5 billion project to link a power station on Borneo island to the mainland using undersea cables by 2012, said Energy, Water and Communications Minister Lim Keng Yaik.

Lim set the date, adding it will take at least five years to install about 700 kilometres of transmission lines and to lay 670 kilometres of undersea cables from Bakun to the southern Johor state.

"Yes, it has too. Sooner or later it will be on. It's part of our planning to bring in hydro power," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

Lim said Malaysia was moving away from gas and coal.

Bernama said the government was trying to generate cheaper hydro-electricity and hoped to diversify Malaysia's energy mix from an over-dependence on gas (more than 70 per cent) to renewable energy sources like hydro-power.

Lim had previously said that the power cables, if approved, could transport up to 5,000 kilowatts of electricity to the Malaysian peninsula from the controversial hydro-power generation plant in Bakun, in the eastern Sarawak state.

The ambitious cable project was originally dropped following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

The dam project has been dogged with delays and setbacks since its approval in 1993. It had been slated to be completed by August 2007.

The dam, which involves flooding an area the size of Singapore, has attracted fierce criticism because of its harmful impact on the environment and the fact that 10,000 residents have already had to evacuate the project site. - AFP