Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd.

Company's headquarters in Kota Kinabalu
Company type	State-owned enterprise
Industry	Energy
Predecessor	Sabah Electricity Board (SEB)
Founded	1 September 1998; 25 years ago (1998-09-01)
Headquarters	Kota Kinabalu , Malaysia
Area served	State of Sabah and Federal Territory of Labuan
Key people	Ir Ts Mohd Yaakob Jaafar, Chief Executive Officer
Services	Electric generation, transmission, and distribution
Number of employees	2,600
Parent	Tenaga Nasional Berhad (80 %), Government of Sabah (20 %)
Website	www.sesb.com.my

Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd. (abbrev. SESB) is Sabah electrical company that generates, transmits and distributes electricity mainly in the state of Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan. It supplies electrical power to 413,983 customers distributed over a wide area of 74,000 km². 82.8% of the customers are domestic customers consuming only 28.8% of the power generated. This company employs more than 2,300 employees and the main stakeholders of this company are Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) (80%) and Government of Sabah (20%).

History

Electricity started in Sabah as early as 1910 supplied by 3 separate organizations. In 1957 these three organizations combined to form North Borneo Electricity Board. Upon the formation of Malaysia in 1963, it was renamed Sabah Electricity Board. On 1 September 1998, Sabah Electricity Board was privatised and became Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd.^[1]

Generation capacity

The total generation capacity of SESB is 866.4 MW, 50.3% of the total units generated are purchased from the independent power producers (IPP).

The SESB installed capacity (excluding IPP) of the Sabah Grid which supplies electricity for major towns from Federal Territory of Labuan to Tawau is 430.9 MW and the maximum demand is 760 MW (as of Jun 2010).

The East Coast Grid 132kV Transmission Line connecting the major towns in the East Coast has an installed capacity of 333.02MW and the maximum demand is 203.3MW.

The forecast demand growth of electricity is in a region of 7.7% per annum up to the year 2010 and the electricity demand is expected to reach 1,500 MW by the year 2020. To support the growing demand, various generation, transmission and distribution projects will be implemented.

A fully integrated grid connecting the West Coast Grid to the East Coast Grid was completed on 28 July 2007, and about 90% of the customers are now connected to this integrated grid.

Power generation plants

The summary of the list of power plants as follows:^[2]

• Number of Station: 37 (including 12 IPP excluding BELB stations)
• Power generated for FY 2010 up to July 2010: 1,279.6 GWh (SESB) & 3,075.8 GWh (IPP)

SESB-owned power stations

Major power stations

Installed capacity by plant type

• DG Diesel (Major) - 21%
• DG Diesel (Minor) - 26%
• DG Diesel (Rural) - 1%
• GT Diesel - 17%
• GT Gas - 18%
• Hydro - 12%
• Mini Hydro - 2%
• Steam Turbine - 3%

IPP-owned stations

• ARL Tenaga - 7%
• Biomass (TSH) - 2%
• Kadamaian, M. Hydro - <1%
• Kinabio - 2%
• Powertron - 28%
• Powertron II - 20%
• SBPC - 15%
• Seguntur - 2%
• Serudong Power - 5%
• SPC Energy - 5%
• Stratavest - 9%
• Sutra Harbour - 5%

Overall power generation capacity

• IPP - 70%
• SESB - Diesel - 11%
• SESB - Gas - 9%
• SESB - Hydro - 10%

Transmission lines

The interconnected system comprises West Coast Power grid and East Coast Power Grid. The transmission circuit length (in circuit-kilometres) as in December 2007:^[3]

Overhead lines

Underground cable

Submarine cable

Main intake substation

Power distribution

Distribution system capacity as in August 2009:^[4]

Electrical consumption

• Number of customers as in July 2010: 432,390 customers^[5]