Low Energy Office

The Daily Express reported that Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd has set up a Low Energy Office, LEO, using solar power.

It was completed in March but announced to the public only last month.

At this stage solar power is supplying electricity only to the “test building” itself which is smaller but SESB aims to extend the usage of such alternative power supply to the main office building in the future. By the way, the LEO is located at their Tanjung Aru office.

What I can gather from their meet-the media session is somewhat vague and question-inviting information as follows:

53 watts        – is the energy that one PV cell (PV – photovoltaic) can produce.
RM18mil       – is required to generate 200kW of energy (to light up 400 houses).
RM100,000   – is the cost to build a roof solar panel system.
30 years       – is the typical lifespan of solar panel.

One can always debate these figures as cost of setting up solar power systems is becoming cheaper every year due to the various incentives from the Government and popularity of this clean energy source. In fact there are still a lot of variations to that figures if we compare them to those implemented at other places in Malaysia.

In any case, LEO is the way to go!

* picture - courtesy of D.Express

How To Retire Gracefully and Thankfully

I will not talk from the point of view of a Financial Planner because that is one thing that every working person know and remember as retirement years are approaching. After all the hard work, and pain and joy in life as a working individual, the inevitable would welcome you as a member of that club - Welcome to the world of the retired people.

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Some wish it had not come while some can't wait to retire. While having enough money in one coffer is always the ideal situation and is desirable, a peaceful mind is attributed to many other factors.

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If we:

• have provided decent education to our children,
• are ready to live a lifestyle commensurate with the cashflow at retirement,
• are happy that we can retire and be with our loved ones more often,
• are not too worry about how to survive after retirement,
• have faith that we'll always our Providence at hand,
• have done our job to the best of our ability while still working,
• have been such a bless to be with,

then I believe we can retire happily, gracefully thankfully. We have nothing to worry about because we have done our part. The rest, let's leave it to Him.

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I'm dedicating this message to JM, a recently retired colleague of ours. I fully believe he is graceful and thankful for what he has. He has a lot still to offer to his society and he can contribute in many ways to the community he is living with.

Happy Retirement JM!

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Yes! Decent job so far by SESB

For the man in the know, he would read this caption with some sarcasticism. For those who has little knowledge about what is happening with our utility provider, they will take my "words" for it.

I've suddenly fallen head over heels in love with SESB when power supply suddenly went of this morning. I was halfway on my report writing, putting in some final touch on my flickr pictures and some unsaved documents. Puff! and they're all gone. It so happened that I've just removed my UPS for battery replacement, and by the way, UPS should not be a necessity if I was located in Klang Valley. Poor me, poor Sabahans. Yeah, falling in love, if you'd get what I was coming at.

Just to remind ourselves of SESB's pledge back in April 2009 - "that power ration is imminent due to damages in our generators in Tenom and Labuan, plus IPPs' equipment failures at several locations. We are working very hard to put these generators back into operations and we estimate that repair works would be completed by June 2009".

One may understand it differently but that's what I can deduce from what's reported in the local dailies.

Okay, two to three months is fair enough. What about now? It is already mid-August. Wondering now about the top-notch-planning and excellent services. Think it is premature to start boosting about the much-improved power-failure-rate-per person because we know better that general perception has not "improved"  much over the last few years! One can quote what he wants but the bottom line is we have to put a stop to this power ration a.k.a load-shedding.

Let's see,....our plan (or rather SESB's plan) is to:

Mar/Apr 2009     - Old equipment failed, power ration implemented

June 2009            - Critical repair completed and power back to Normal

August 2009        - We are currently here (August). And power shedding is still a nuisance!

December 2009  - What's the next plan?

Okay, the title looks sinister. But that's what you'd want to say when the suffering continues for months.