There is rising expectation among the investment community for further Renewable Energy (RE) plant awards by the government through the extension of Large Scale Solar (LSS) contracts in the country.

After the robust bidding in March 2021 for the LSS phase four tenders it is expected that there will be a speeding up of new LSS tenders especially for plant capacities below 50 megawatts (MW).

The recent LSS phase four attracted bids from a number of listed companies  engaged in various other industries that are not currently power producers. These companies included Advancecon Holdings Bhd, Solarvest Holdings Bhd, Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd and APM Automotive Holdings Bhd.

Under the first four phases of LSS, a cumulative total capacity of 1,634MW was awarded from September 2016 to March 2021. However, only 54 percent of the awarded capacity is operational at present with the balance being a work-in-progress,

Malaysia should witness an additional RE capacity of approximately 2,623MW that would be developed within Peninsular Malaysia only from 2026 to 2039.

This means that by 2035 the country’s RE capacity mix will increase to about 40 percent where solar penetration is expected to reach about 30 percent of peak demand.

New thermal plants will finally be re-introduced into the system but they will comprise mostly of gas-fired plants which have significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to coal.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE