Bakun dam to power up electricity in October or November next year

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KUCHING: The Bakun hydro dam project is expected to start generating electricity in October or November next year when the first of its eight turbines is commissioned. Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd’s general manager (civil) Tan Yong Long said each turbine could produce 300MW of electricity. He said the 205m-high concrete-faced rockfill dam, the world’s second highest after the 233m-high Shubuya dam in China, had an installed capacity of 2,400MW.

The bulk of the electricity will be exported to the peninsula through undersea submarine cables, the first of which is expected to be ready by 2016.

“The project’s main civil works are now 95% completed. The electrical and mechanical package is more than 90% complete,” he told a media briefing on the dam’s progress here on Wednesday night.

Sarawak Hidro, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ministry of Finance Inc, is the project developer and manager. Tan said the second turbine is expected to be commissioned three months after the first, and the dam would be fully operational by 2011. He said impounding was expected to start in January by the latest, and that it would take eight months for the water level at the reservoir to reach the minimum operational level for tests to be carried out.

The reservoir will have a surface area of 695 sq km – the size of Singapore – when the water level reaches the maximum operating level of elevation at 228m. The Bakun catchment area covers some 14,750 sq m, which is as big as Kelantan. Tan said biomass removal through open burning and covering 455ha of the reservoir was now 80% complete. The entire job would be finished by next month.

“Works to remove the biomass started in January. It is tedious and labour intensive.”

On the rescue of wildlife, he said ground monitoring work to build up the wildlife inventory started two months ago. The wildlife would be relocated with the help of the Sarawak Forestry Corporation.

Allaying fears on the dam’s safety, Tan said: “Earthquake is not an issue. It will not make the dam fail.” However, he said instruments to detect earthquakes would be installed.
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