KOTA KINABALU, Nov 29 — The Sabah government, through its subsidiary Smart Sabah Corporation Sdn Bhd, is exploring opportunities for the state to become a producer of hydrogen and renewable energy by 2025, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin.

Bung Moktar, who is also the Smart Sabah Corporation chairman, said the company had signed a cooperation agreement with the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC) on November 9, 2021, to conduct a feasibility study of the project.

“Sabah has been identified as one of the areas that can produce a lot of hydrogen gas because our air humidity is better than foreign countries such as Europe, which has only 28 per cent.

“Sabah is expected to have air humidity of about 60 to 70 per cent to produce hydrogen by 2025,” he said in a press conference here today.

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He added that this is a new technology that can be a source of income to Sabah and help preserve the state’s natural environment.

“This technology is in our country, the technology is from Malaysia and implemented by MGTC,” he said.

Bung Moktar said among the major projects involved were the development of a large scale solar project for hydrogen production, the development of a 3,500-megawatt independent green energy producer, and the development of an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) system.

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He said more projects involving the effort were being planned and the projects were expected to bring a return of not less than RM25 billion to the state and the creation of about 20,000 jobs in various sectors for Sabahans.

In this regard, he said the state government welcomes investors and industry players from within or outside the country to work together to explore the opportunity.

“So far, there are buyers (of hydrogen) but we are not selling them all because we also need to generate electricity in the state.

“Japanese and Korean investors have expressed interest in cooperating in this project and there are also investors from Europe such as Germany and Switzerland,” he said.

He hoped that Sabah and Sarawak could jointly develop hydrogen production as the two states have areas that are suitable for the industry, and in turn could provide economic prosperity to the people of the two states. — Bernama