The survey analysis shows that 63% of the existing biomass facilities are situated more than 10 km from the nearest point on the electricity grid (Fig. 7), so that high costs for connection to the nearest point may be an obstacle. Like most infrastructure, interconnection cost and financing availability are amongst critical success factor to future undertakings of biomass and other renewable power projects [41]. Due to the dispersed nature of rural settlement in Malaysia, the transmission of conventional power
from the main grid to remote villages is often technically and economically prohibitive. Nonetheless, the use of waste biomass provides an interesting opportunity and this should be capitalised for the expansion of off-grid electrification. Sabah is among the
lowest electrified coverage areas and it houses one-quarter of the total palm oil facilities in Malaysia. It is clearly the prime candidate for promoting rural electrification based on the abundance of its biomass resources. One of the viable options to overcome the gridextension barrier is to create small-scale decentralized localized systems or mini-grids [37,42]