The Sabah Renewable Energy Rural Electrification Roadmap (SabahRE2) navigates towards a future of energy equity, right livelihoods, and wellbeing for rural Sabahans. As home to 72% of un-electrified rural Malaysians, Sabah has an opening to pivot towards renewables as a viable solution for energy access for communities distant from the state grid who can pioneer a low carbon future with quality of life.
SabahRE2 comprises a consortium of five closely collaborating organisations: Forever Sabah, TONIBUNG, PACOS Trust, Green Empowerment, and ENACT. We launched in August 2021 with the award of a grant from Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions (UK PACT) from the British Government.
An initiative rooted in local aspirations, Forever Sabah is a civil society entity and collaborative social movement that has been facilitating the entire roadmap process, overseeing various facets of the project including coordination of knowledge transfer, storytelling and communications, as well as monitoring and evaluation.
TObpinai NIngkokoton koBUruon KampuNG ("Friends of Village Development") is an indigenous-led non-profit group developing sustainable alternatives for rural electrification. TONIBUNG has already begun deploying micro-hydro and solar grid systems, training communities to manage and maintain their respective systems at the same time.
Striving to empower Sabah's indigenous communities through systematic building and strengthening of community organisations, PACOS Trust supports networking among organisations struggling to assert right over community resources, as well those looking to revive indigenous knowledge and systems.
Working with rural communities and partners around the world to improve access to affordable clean energy, safe drinking water, sanitisation systems, and more, Green Empowerment has undertaken case studies to create and socialise mini-grid toolkits suitable for Sabah, while also reviewing exisiting policies and exploring possible changes to the framework.
Energy Action Partners (ENACT) specialises in collaborative energy access programs for community development, leveraging participatory methods and capacity building to support resilient, inclusive communities through sustainable energy solutions. Committed to community-driven approaches, ENACT created the Community Energy Toolkit (COMET), a now-independent software tool for collaborative mini-grid planning.