Pre-Feasibility Studies in the Upper Baram Basin - by Tash

At the end of January, two teams from TONIBUNG headed to Sarawak’s interior to investigate opportunities for new hydro installations. Travel time often makes up a large proportion of TONIBUNG’s field trips and this was no exception; reaching our first village, Long Palai, involved 2 car journeys, a flight and a short ride in a longboat.

The Baram river

At present, electricity in the Sarawak interior usually comes from household level diesel gensets. As well as being highly polluting, they are also exceptionally expensive to run; a single household can spend up to RM300 per month on fuel for basic lighting, charging and refrigeration needs. That’s £55 – or around 20% of the average monthly household income for rural Sarawak. The tariffs that TONIBUNG implement with their micro-hydro systems are designs to significantly undercut diesel alternatives (a typical example would be a tariff of RM1 / kWh, coming to around RM160 per month for an average household), providing the community with a clear incentive to switch to hydro power and support TONIBUNG by providing free labour and materials.

In the evening an open meeting was held to provide the villagers with an overview of micro-hydro and how TONIBUNG operate. Despite the late hour, levels of interest and support seemed high, which I suspect was fuelled by the enormous amount of betel nut being chewed throughout! We described the kind of rivers characteristics we were searching for and some locals agreed to take us to a couple of sites the next day.

Check out those ear lobes!

We set off into the jungle the following morning, escorted by a group of eager locals. It was sweaty and tiring, with bugs jumping out from every angle, treacherous tree roots trying to trip me up and the occasional river trying to sweep me away as I crossed it. The locals, however, seemed to effortlessly glide through the terrain at a ridiculously fast pace! We checked out two different sites, taking GPS coordinates and flow measurements, of which only one seemed feasible. The other lacked sufficient head to be financially viable. The potential is still unlikely to be sufficient to power the whole village, so a hybrid system would be recommended in Long Pasia.

GPS data

Once we had showered and de-leeched we crossed back over the river by boat, jumped back into the car and headed to Long Apu. Our visit followed the same format, with a village level meeting in the evening and more river exploring the following day. We identified two small rivers that could potentially provide hydro power to the village. Their proximity to each other means that a system with two separate penstocks feeding into the forebay could be feasible, allowing the hydro potential of both rivers to be harnessed.

Taking flow measurements

The output of these visits is a report that will be submitted to the Bruno Manser Foundation (BMF) in Switzerland. If you’ve never heard of Bruno, you should give him a Google. He was a Swiss botanist who spent time living with the then-nomadic Penan tribes and documenting Sarawak’s wildlife. He was responsible for first attracting conservation attention to Borneo, and eventually disappeared into the jungle with the Penan in 2000, never to be seen again. The report will contain information about the villages and a rough cost estimate for installing renewable energy systems in the villages. It’s BMF’s responsibility to decide how to allocate funds.

Despite systems being technically feasible in both villages, it is more likely that funding will be allocated to Long Apu due to social reasons. The population in Long Palai is both ageing and shrinking. This means that it would be difficult to mobilise a local workforce, and that the system may end up being underutilised as people from the village continue to move to other areas. The headman is unpopular and also ageing, and is expected to stand down in the next couple of years. This change of leadership so early in the project could lead to conflict. By contrast, Long Apu is growing in population, with a new longhouse currently under construction. The village is led by a very supportive headman, who even expressed some commitment to helping fundraise for the project.