KUCHING, March 12 — Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) is looking at producing biocoal as another green energy source to generate power plants in the state.

SEDC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Husain said studies are currently being carried out on the possibility of producing the biocoal which could become one of their 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 after launching SEDC Bazaar Ramadan here today.

He said SEDC had 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 had been with Gallois New Energy Materials (M) Sdn Bhd which aimed 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 is investing inside the primary project but we hope to be able to make use of the product later on for other downstream products, especially 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, he said SEDC’s emphasis had 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 car will be able to benefit. The cost of (hydrogen) fuel will be less than the cost of fossil fuel,” he added. — Bernama