SCORE: Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy

SCORE — the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy — is Sarawak's defining economic bet: take the state's enormous hydropower potential, build a cascade of mega-dams, and use that cheap, abundant electricity to anchor energy-intensive heavy industry (aluminium, ferroalloys, polysilicon) on the coast. In 2026, that bet is being re-pointed: away from "more smelters" alone and toward a green/hydrogen economy, the export of Sarawak hydropower to the rest of Malaysia and ASEAN, and high-tech industries (semiconductors, data centres) — all framed within Sarawak's drive for control over its own resources.

It was launched in 2008 as one of Malaysia's five regional economic corridors (more on that origin below) — but the live story today is about where SCORE is going, not where it came from.

• The flagship now is the Sarawak–Peninsular Malaysia electricity interconnection — a key project in the 13th Malaysia Plan (RMK13, 2026–2030) to ship Sarawak's hydropower to the peninsula and on to ASEAN markets.
• The anchor that still pays the bills is Samalaju Industrial Park near Bintulu — aluminium, ferroalloys and polysilicon — with a new semiconductor-grade polysilicon plant in the pipeline.
• The next big block of capacity is the Baleh dam, under construction for completion in the late 2020s.

SCORE is administered by the Sarawak state body RECODA, while the dams are built and run by Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB). It remains one of the most consequential — and most contested — development programmes in Malaysian Borneo.

The live story for SCORE in 2026 is a pivot: from being purely an export pipeline for cheap-power smelters toward a broader green-energy and resource-autonomy play. Premier Abang Johari Openg has set out four renewable pillars for Sarawak beyond 2030 — hydropower, hydrogen, biomass and solar — with a stated target of a 10 GW renewable-energy generation mix by 2030 (and around 15 GW by 2035); officials put Sarawak's current generation mix at roughly 60%+ renewable, with solar pegged at about 12% of capacity and biomass at 1–1.5 GW by 2030. These targets are codified in instruments such as the Sarawak Energy Transition Policy (SET-P), PCDS 2030 (the Post-COVID Development Strategy) and a Sarawak Hydrogen Economy Roadmap. All of it sits inside Ekonomi MADANI and the 13th Malaysia Plan (RMK13, 2026–2030).

1. The Sarawak–Peninsular grid link (the RMK13 flagship). The single most consequential new project is a planned Sarawak–Peninsular Malaysia electricity interconnection — named for implementation under RMK13. As designed, it would transmit up to 2,000 MW of Sarawak hydropower from Sampadi (near Kuching) to Sedili (Johor) via a roughly 700 km submarine cable, with reporting indicating about 70% earmarked for export to Singapore and the remaining ~30% into the national grid. It is positioned as a building block of the wider ASEAN Power Grid (APG) ambition. Status (2026): firmly pre-construction — Tenaga Nasional (TNB) has been assembling a development consortium (it has signalled seeking roughly 51% for itself and ~49% for an international partner), with a full feasibility study slated to begin in early 2026; no firm investment decision or commissioning date is fixed, and the project remains at the study/structuring stage. (Treat the capacity, split and timeline as indicative; verify with Tenaga, Sarawak Energy and the Sarawak government.) Note also that the Sarawak–Sabah interconnection — a 275 kV Lawas–Mengalong link, ~50 MW initial flow — began power exchange in December 2025 and was officially energised on 24 January 2026, strengthening the Borneo grid that any Peninsular link would build on (it follows the earlier Sarawak–West Kalimantan link commissioned in 2016).

2. Hydrogen — ambitious, but recalibrated. Be honest here. Sarawak's plan to use surplus hydropower to make green hydrogen and derivatives for export rests on two flagship ventures led by SEDC Energy: H2ornbill (with Japan's ENEOS and Sumitomo) and H2biscus (with South Korea's Samsung Engineering, POSCO and Lotte Chemical), aimed at making Sarawak an ASEAN green-hydrogen hub by 2030. Reality in 2025–26: both projects have been scaled down / recalibrated amid weak offtake signals, financing constraints and the high cost of compressing, cooling and shipping hydrogen to Japan. They remain part of the long-term roadmap but face real near-term hurdles — this is a stated ambition, not a built reality.

3. Samalaju stays the anchor; Baleh adds capacity. The ongoing engine of SCORE is still Samalaju Industrial Park near Bintulu — aluminium (Press Metal), ferroalloys (OM Materials, Pertama, Sakura) and solar-grade polysilicon (OCI) — now extending toward semiconductor-grade polysilicon: a greenfield OCI Tokuyama Semiconductor Materials plant (8,000 tonnes/year) for which the World Bank's IFC approved a US$125 million loan in March 2026, with construction having started in July 2025 and billed as Southeast Asia's first such facility. The next major slug of generation is the ~1,285 MW Baleh dam, under construction since 2018; Sarawak Energy now targets commissioning by 2029 and full operation around 2030.

4. Resource autonomy is driving it. Sarawak's high degree of self-government means it largely steers this agenda itself. Through Petros (Petroleum Sarawak Berhad) — confirmed as Sarawak's sole gas aggregator from 1 March 2025 under the state's Distribution of Gas Ordinance 2016, and the subject of an ongoing legal contest with Petronas — the state is asserting control over its natural gas alongside its electricity. SCORE and RECODA still operate, but the broader green-economy push is increasingly run through state vehicles (SEB, SEDC Energy, Petros), framed by Sarawak's MA63 autonomy claims.

For context on the live agenda above: SCORE was officially launched on 11 February 2008 by then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, as part of a wave of regional "corridor" plans rolled out across Malaysia in the mid-2000s (alongside Iskandar Malaysia, NCER, ECER and the Sabah Development Corridor).

The intellectual roots go back further, to the long-standing idea of the Bakun project — a giant dam on the Balui (upper Rajang) River in Sarawak's interior, first seriously proposed in the 1980s, shelved during the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, then revived. SCORE essentially wrapped that hydropower ambition into a wider industrialisation strategy: build the dams, then build the factories to consume the power.

• 2008 — SCORE launched; corridor area put at about 70,000 km² in central Sarawak (running from Tanjung Manis to Samalaju), later expanded to over 100,000 km² (early 2018) as regional development agencies extended it into the interior.
• 2011 — Bakun dam reaches full reservoir impoundment and begins commissioning.
• 2014–15 — Murum dam is commissioned (2014, fully operational by 2015); Samalaju's first heavy industries (Press Metal, OM Materials, Tokuyama/OCI) ramp up.
• 2017 — Sarawak (via SEB) buys the Bakun dam from the federal government, acquiring Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd for about RM2.5 billion plus assumption of remaining debt.
• 2018 — construction begins on the Baleh dam (~1,285 MW; completion targeted late 2020s).
• 2020s — focus broadens toward gas, hydrogen and a "green economy" under Premier Abang Johari Openg; Petros confirmed as Sarawak's sole gas aggregator (March 2025); the Sarawak–Peninsular grid link named a flagship of RMK13 (2026–2030). See Where SCORE Is Headed for the current agenda.

SCORE is implemented and coordinated by RECODA — the Regional Corridor Development Authority (also rendered "Regional Corridors Development Authority"), a Sarawak state government agency created by state ordinance.

RECODA's role is to act as the master planner and facilitator for the corridor: planning infrastructure, marketing the zone to investors, coordinating utilities and land, and reporting on investment and jobs. It is distinct from the federal-level corridor authorities — reflecting Sarawak's strong emphasis on state control over its own resources and development within the Malaysian federation.

Crucially, the dams themselves are built and operated by Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) — the state-owned, vertically integrated electricity utility — which generates, transmits and sells the power that SCORE's industries consume.

SCORE's whole premise is a bargain: cheap, reliable, low-carbon-on-paper electricity in exchange for industrial investment and jobs.

• Supply — Sarawak's rivers and heavy rainfall give it some of the largest hydropower potential in the region. Mega-dams convert this into bulk baseload electricity at a tariff most jurisdictions cannot match.
• Demand — that power is sold at competitive rates to energy-intensive industries for which electricity is the dominant input cost: aluminium smelting (hugely power-hungry), ferroalloys / manganese / ferrosilicon smelting, and polysilicon for solar panels and, increasingly, semiconductors.
• Cluster — these plants concentrate at Samalaju Industrial Park near Bintulu, beside the deep-water Samalaju Port for importing raw materials (alumina, ore) and exporting finished metal.

The "renewable" branding is real in that hydropower is low-carbon at the point of generation, but it is contested: large reservoirs flood forest and can release methane, displace communities, and Sarawak's grid still uses coal and gas. Critics argue SCORE is better described as a cheap-power industrialisation plan than a green-energy one. Both readings hold some truth.

SCORE's electricity backbone is a cascade of large hydroelectric dams in Sarawak's interior. The flagship is Bakun — one of Asia's largest dams, and long one of its most controversial.

Bakun's eight turbines are rated 8 × 300 MW = 2,400 MW nominal; some sources cite a higher ~2,520 MW installed/peak figure, so both numbers appear in circulation. Beyond the dams already built, Sarawak's longer-term planning documents have at various points floated building a dozen or more dams — early SCORE materials spoke of around 12 dams and ~7,000–7,800 MW of hydro. Bakun is the single biggest source feeding SCORE's industries, and Sarawak's 2017 acquisition of the dam cemented state control over this strategic asset. (Capacities are approximate and statuses change — verify current figures with Sarawak Energy.)

Samalaju Industrial Park (SIP), near Bintulu on the Similajau coast, is the engine room of SCORE — the place where cheap hydropower actually becomes industry. It hosts a cluster of energy-intensive metals and materials plants, served by the dedicated Samalaju Port.

Established anchor investors include:

• Press Metal Bintulu — aluminium smelting; part of Press Metal Aluminium, one of the largest aluminium producers in Southeast Asia.
• OM Materials (Sarawak) — a joint venture (OM Holdings with Cahya Mata Sarawak) producing ferroalloys — manganese alloys and ferrosilicon.
• OCI TerraSus / OCIM — solar-grade polysilicon, operating the plant OCI bought from Japan's Tokuyama in 2016 (capacity reported around 35,000 tonnes/year).
• Pertama Ferroalloys and Sakura Ferroalloys — additional ferroalloy / manganese-alloy smelting (Sakura announced a new sinter plant in 2024).
• PMB Silicon, Elkem Carbon, Iwatani–SIG industrial gases and others — silicon, carbon products and industrial gases.

A notable newer commitment: in March 2026 the World Bank's IFC approved a US$125 million loan for a semiconductor-grade polysilicon plant at Samalaju — a greenfield joint venture (OCI Tokuyama Semiconductor Materials, ~8,000 tonnes/year) billed as Southeast Asia's first, with construction having started in July 2025 and the facility designed to run on Sarawak's renewable power. By the mid-2010s, the large majority of SCORE's committed industrial projects — and tens of billions of ringgit in cumulative investment — were already concentrated at Samalaju, making it the clearest proof-of-concept for the energy-for-industry model.

SCORE is organised around several growth nodes, each with a different intended specialisation. Samalaju is the industrial heavyweight, but the corridor also includes:

• Mukah — designated as a smart city / education and IT hub, intended as an administrative and human-capital centre of the corridor.
• Tanjung Manis — an integrated halal food hub and deep-sea fishing/port centre, with palm-oil downstream activity, in the corridor's southwest.
• Baram — planned around highland agriculture, livestock and ecotourism (this is also where the cancelled Baram dam was to be).
• Tunoh — earmarked for agriculture and eco-tourism in the interior.

In practice, Samalaju has attracted by far the most investment, while the agricultural, tourism and "smart city" nodes have developed more slowly and unevenly — a common criticism of the corridor's lopsided results.

Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) is the state-owned utility at the heart of SCORE — it builds and runs the dams, owns the grid, and sells the power. Its scale and vertical integration are what make the corridor's competitive-tariff promise possible.

SCORE also has to be understood within Sarawak's broader push for autonomy and control over its own resources:

• Sarawak's 2017 purchase of the Bakun dam moved a federally built asset onto the state balance sheet (RM2.5 billion plus debt).
• Sarawak has reasserted regulatory authority over its electricity supply and, increasingly, oil and gas, through state vehicles such as Petros (Petroleum Sarawak Berhad, set up 2017), which Sarawak designated its sole gas aggregator from 1 March 2025 under the state's Distribution of Gas Ordinance 2016. The move is contested: Petronas filed a challenge in the Kuching High Court (October 2025), and analysts have estimated the shift could move on the order of RM10–20 billion a year in gas value toward Sarawak — so this remains an unresolved, high-stakes federal–state dispute rather than a settled outcome.
• The state government — under the GPS coalition and Premier Abang Johari Openg — frames energy and resources as central to Sarawak's prosperity and to its negotiating position within the federation under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

This state-centric model distinguishes SCORE from the more federally driven corridors in Peninsular Malaysia.

SCORE's dams have been among the most contested infrastructure projects in Malaysia, and any honest account has to set this out plainly.

Bakun displacement. To make way for the Bakun reservoir, around 10,000 indigenous people — Kayan, Kenyah, Lahanan, Ukit and Penan, from roughly 15 longhouses — were resettled in 1998–99 to Sungai Asap, about 30 km from the dam. Many residents and NGOs report that promised farmland was small and poor (households were allotted only a few acres each, far less than their former lands), that they faced costs and debt for resettlement housing, and that lost river-and-forest livelihoods (fishing, hunting, gathering, rotational farming) were not replaced.

Murum. The Murum dam displaced Penan and Kenyah communities — on the order of 1,400 people / ~350 families relocated to Tegulang and Metalun — and prompted blockades and prolonged disputes over land allotments, cash compensation and profit-sharing demands.

Baram. The proposed ~1,200 MW Baram dam would have flooded an estimated 400+ km² of native customary land and displaced many thousands more people across dozens of villages. It met sustained resistance: Kenyah, Kayan and Penan communities held blockades from 2013, and the project was shelved/cancelled in 2016 — a landmark victory for grassroots and native-customary-rights (NCR) campaigners.

Wider concerns raised by groups such as SAVE Rivers and the Borneo Project include deforestation, reservoir methane emissions, loss of biodiversity, and inadequate free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Supporters counter that the dams deliver low-carbon baseload power, revenue and jobs, that some compensation and resettlement practices improved over time, and that the Baram cancellation showed the state can be moved. Both sides have a point — and the displacement and its hardships are real.

The 2026-onward direction set out above did not appear overnight — it grew out of a deliberate effort, since the late 2010s, to rebrand and broaden the SCORE story beyond smelters and dams toward a "green economy." This section gives the context behind that pivot (the forward projects themselves are covered in Where SCORE Is Headed).

• From corridor to climate framing. As global capital tilted toward decarbonisation, Sarawak repositioned its hydropower surplus as a low-carbon asset — useful not just to power local smelters but to sell as green electricity, green hydrogen and "green" metals. The PCDS 2030 strategy and the Sarawak Energy Transition Policy formalised this.
• Hydrogen as the headline. The flagship H2ornbill and H2biscus ventures (led by SEDC Energy, with Japanese and South Korean partners) were the most eye-catching expression — together once costed on the order of US$4–4.2 billion — though, as noted above, both had their planned capacities scaled down in 2025–26 on weak offtake and financing. They remain aspiration more than achievement.
• Gas and downstream value. Through Petros, Sarawak has pushed to capture more value from its natural gas, including domestic gas aggregation and downstream petrochemicals — part of the same "keep the resource revenue in Sarawak" logic.

The continuity with original SCORE is clear: it is still fundamentally about converting Sarawak's energy resources into industry, exports and state revenue — now with a lower-carbon, higher-tech framing.

SCORE's headline ambition was huge — an investment target in the order of RM334 billion (about US$110 billion) by 2030 was cited at launch, split roughly 20% public (~RM67b) / 80% private (~RM267b), alongside a long-range goal of around 1.5 million jobs.

Concrete results have been real but concentrated:

• Samalaju has drawn tens of billions of ringgit in committed and realised investment, and continues to attract new energy-intensive projects.
• RECODA reported cumulative approved investment of about RM123 billion in the SCORE region from 2009 to 2024, with some 53,829 jobs created or projected — a substantial result, but well short of the launch-era RM334b / 1.5m-jobs headline. (These totals mix approved/committed vs. realised figures and vary by source and reporting year — treat headline numbers cautiously.)
• Growth has been uneven: the Samalaju industrial node has thrived, while the agricultural, tourism and smart-city nodes have lagged well behind the launch-era projections.

For a worker or investor today, the live opportunities sit overwhelmingly in and around Bintulu/Samalaju — heavy industry, port logistics, engineering and, increasingly, energy-transition projects. (Investment and jobs figures change frequently; verify the latest with RECODA and MIDA.)

The "Renewable Energy" in SCORE's name is its most-debated word. The fair answer is mostly, but not entirely, and with caveats.

• The case for "renewable": hydropower is the dominant generation source in SCORE's design, is emissions-free at the point of generation, and provides the firm baseload that smelters need around the clock — something intermittent solar or wind cannot easily match. That low-carbon power is genuinely why "green" manufacturers (polysilicon, low-carbon aluminium) locate at Samalaju.
• The caveats: Sarawak's grid still includes coal and gas plants; tropical reservoirs can be a non-trivial source of methane from flooded vegetation, so "low-carbon" is not "zero-carbon"; and the land-use, deforestation and displacement costs sit outside the usual carbon accounting.

So the label is defensible as marketing for hydro-anchored industry, but it papers over the trade-offs. A more precise description is "cheap, largely hydro-powered heavy industry," which is also exactly why it works as an investment pitch.

SCORE is one of five regional economic corridors Malaysia created in the mid-2000s to spread investment beyond the Klang Valley:

• Iskandar Malaysia (Johor) — urban, services, manufacturing and the Singapore link.
• NCER (Northern Corridor — Perlis, Kedah, Penang, north Perak) — electronics, agriculture, tourism.
• ECER (East Coast — Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Mersing) — petrochemicals, tourism, agriculture.
• SDC (Sabah Development Corridor) — agriculture, tourism, oil and gas in Sabah.
• SCORE (Sarawak) — energy-intensive heavy industry powered by hydropower.

What makes SCORE distinctive is its single, defining bet on energy: where the others diversify, SCORE is fundamentally an energy-for-industry play, run with unusually strong state-government control over the underlying resources.

For most people, SCORE is encountered through Bintulu and Samalaju rather than as an abstract plan:

• Bintulu is the regional hub — airport, hotels, services — and the gateway to Samalaju Industrial Park (roughly an hour away by road). It is also home to the long-established MLNG liquefied-natural-gas complex, separate from SCORE but part of the same energy-industrial landscape.
• Samalaju Industrial Park itself is a working heavy-industry zone with restricted access; business visitors typically deal with RECODA (facilitation, land) and MIDA (federal investment incentives).
• Sibu, Mukah and Kapit sit along or near the corridor's interior reach; Kapit is the nearest town to the Bakun and Baleh dam areas.

If you are exploring jobs or investment, the practical entry points are RECODA, MIDA and Sarawak Energy for power-supply agreements. Treat any single headline investment or jobs figure as indicative rather than precise.