CASCADING dams may be more trouble than they are worth: they are more expensive to construct and maintain, and they cannot produce electricity during the dry season.
In making this assertion, environmental watchdog group Save Rivers Network questioned why the Sarawak government is insisting on going ahead with building numerous such new dams.
It said former Sarawak Energy Bhd CEO Datuk Torstein Sjotveit had stated in a report in 2015 that cascading dams are not practical for a state like Sarawak that can experience prolonged dry spells and even serious droughts.
Save Rivers chairman Peter Kallang said the idea of building cascading dams in Sarawak had cropped up before in the past, but in 2015 Torstein had said that such dams are more expensive to build compared to conventional designs.
“Torstein also said such cascading dams are not practical in Sarawak, as they cannot produce electricity when the river level declines,” he said in a statement today.
“In Sarawak, we have seen extreme dry seasons and even severe prolonged drought.
“Under such circumstances, these cascading dams are money sapping projects, so why insist on building them?”
Yesterday, it was reported that Sarawak has identified several selected rivers statewide as locations for constructing new hydroelectric dams using the cascading design, and not just the Sg Tutoh in Baram district.
Deputy State Minister for Energy and Environmental Datuk Hazland Abang Hipni had said that these selected rivers have been found to be “safe locations” for hydro-dams.
State electricity supplier Sarawak Energy Bhd is already working on the technical aspects of the impending cascading hydro-dams.
On October 28, Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg had announced that the state has already identified Sg Tutoh in the remote reaches of the vast Baram district as the location for the first cascading hydroelectric dam project.
He claimed that the state will proceed with the process to build the Tutoh Dam because the “local natives of Baram themselves want the dam project”.
Johari also said that the state government wants to generate up to 20,000 MW of electricity through hydro-dams plus another 15,000 megawatt through gas-turbine power plants.
“We want to eventually have at least 35,000 megawatts for local use and for export to neighbouring countries,” he said.
Last month, Kallang said the prospective cascading dam projects are alarming, as social and environmental problems in rural Sarawak caused by the construction of mega-dams in the past years have not even been resolved. – The Vibes, November 17, 2023
